*sigh* Failed Gig Hotline

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

sigh Failed Gig Hotline

This is gonna be long, so get prepared, maybe get a drink and get in a comfy chair…

So, tonight I was really pumped to DJ the first party at my school since Spring Break has been over. I got a great set made, worked all of the logistics out beforehand with the tech crew, set my EQs perfect on Ableton and Traktor, but when it came to be the time for me to start, nobody was there. Why? Let me give you some background on my school before I dive into that topic. My school is located in the back woods of Ventura, CA in a place called Ojai. If you saw the movie Easy A, you saw the town’s public School, Nordhoff. I go to one of the town’s many private boarding schools and at my school, it is a requirement to ride horses for the first year of your attendance. The “Horse Program” is run by both faculty and students and the student group is called Thacher Pack and Spur, abbreviated PTS (I know the acronym doesn’t match up, talk to the dead headmaster from 122 years ago about that one.) Because of this extremely expensive horse program, many of the school’s arts are underfunded (surprisingly we still have a great electronic music program though…) and buying newer, higher quality speakers than the blown out ones that the school is not high up there on the to do list. Now back to the story at hand. PTS set up this dance, and along with taking away the use of my strobe light, which really gets everyone pumped up to go crazy to various electro sub genres, they rented a mechanical bull. Now tell me, if you were between the ages of 14 and 18, would you rather, 1) attend a dance, which generally occurs every 2-3 weeks, or 2) ride on/watch people get bucked off of a mechanical bull controlled by your peers? Yep. I thought so, #2. Pretty much nobody showed up for the dance until 30 minutes had passed and my set really had the crowd pleasers in the first 30 minutes to draw people in. After those first 20 minutes, people began trickling in, until the dance floor was pretty crowded. Now, I’ve been a pioneer of sorts at my school by bringing Dubstep to the forefront of dances, and every dance has at least 30 minutes of dubstep, and these kids go nuts to it normally, but as everyone remembers/knows, the first week back to school is tiring as all hell. Everyone was lacking energy, and we all know that energy from the crowd fuels the DJ and can make the difference between a good set and a bad one. I began messing up my transitions, not checking my S4’s mixer, my timing was off and overall it was a very un-enjoyable experience. After the first hour had passed, people became more tired and left to watch more people get owned by a huge mechanical bull and soon the dance floor only had around 10 people on it. At this point, I said “fuck it” and began mixing my favorite dubstep tracks. These 10 people stayed for a while and really danced their hearts out, but soon…cardiac arrest set in (not literally). Those 10 people all left in a bunch, and I was sitting in the corner of the dark student commons playing Dubstep. I cranked up the levels, sat in the center and sulked in my own misery for a while, and for a little piece of irony played Lupe Fiasco’s The Show Goes On. I then played some more dubstep REALLY REALLY Loud until out of nowhere Traktor quit on me. I took this as a sign from God’s Only Son, Ean Golden, to GTFO. So I did. Anyone else have a story like this/want to soothe my broken ego/heart?

2

If you spaced it well it would be more readable.

3

Let’s see…

[quote]This is gonna be long, so get prepared, maybe get a drink and get in a comfy chair…

So, tonight I was really pumped to DJ the first party at my school since Spring Break has been over. I got a great set made, worked all of the logistics out beforehand with the tech crew, set my EQs perfect on Ableton and Traktor, but when it came to be the time for me to start, nobody was there. Why? Let me give you some background on my school before I dive into that topic.

My school is located in the back woods of Ventura, CA in a place called Ojai. If you saw the movie Easy A, you saw the town’s public School, Nordhoff. I go to one of the town’s many private boarding schools and at my school, it is a requirement to ride horses for the first year of your attendance. The “Horse Program” is run by both faculty and students and the student group is called Thacher Pack and Spur, abbreviated PTS (I know the acronym doesn’t match up, talk to the dead headmaster from 122 years ago about that one.)

Because of this extremely expensive horse program, many of the school’s arts are underfunded (surprisingly we still have a great electronic music program though…) and buying newer, higher quality speakers than the blown out ones that the school is not high up there on the to do list. Now back to the story at hand. PTS set up this dance, and along with taking away the use of my strobe light, which really gets everyone pumped up to go crazy to various electro sub genres, they rented a mechanical bull.

Now tell me, if you were between the ages of 14 and 18, would you rather,

  1. attend a dance, which generally occurs every 2-3 weeks

or

  1. ride on/watch people get bucked off of a mechanical bull controlled by your peers?

Yep. I thought so, #2. Pretty much nobody showed up for the dance until 30 minutes had passed and my set really had the crowd pleasers in the first 30 minutes to draw people in. After those first 20 minutes, people began trickling in, until the dance floor was pretty crowded.

Now, I’ve been a pioneer of sorts at my school by bringing Dubstep to the forefront of dances, and every dance has at least 30 minutes of dubstep, and these kids go nuts to it normally, but as everyone remembers/knows, the first week back to school is tiring as all hell. Everyone was lacking energy, and we all know that energy from the crowd fuels the DJ and can make the difference between a good set and a bad one.

I began messing up my transitions, not checking my S4’s mixer, my timing was off and overall it was a very un-enjoyable experience. After the first hour had passed, people became more tired and left to watch more people get owned by a huge mechanical bull and soon the dance floor only had around 10 people on it.

At this point, I said “fuck it” and began mixing my favorite dubstep tracks. These 10 people stayed for a while and really danced their hearts out, but soon…cardiac arrest set in (not literally).

Those 10 people all left in a bunch, and I was sitting in the corner of the dark student commons playing Dubstep. I cranked up the levels, sat in the center and sulked in my own misery for a while, and for a little piece of irony played Lupe Fiasco’s The Show Goes On. I then played some more dubstep REALLY REALLY Loud until out of nowhere Traktor quit on me. I took this as a sign from God’s Only Son, Ean Golden, to GTFO.

So I did. Anyone else have a story like this/want to soothe my broken ego/heart?
[/quote]
All DJ got and will have such gig one day or another… stay calm, stay pro, keep DjIng fun.

There’s really worst than a bad job, if you’re in health… this said, preserve your mental health, go over it, next gig will be better.

4

Thanks KeeWee for the spacing. It made the read much more enjoyable :wink:.

As for your gig man, first off it’s extremely cool that you had a gig! So congrats on that! Secondly there is a huge thread on the forums about worst / best gig experiences so from what i’ve read there don’t worry, you’re not on a boat by yourself - it happens to everyone. It’s just a part of the whole experience. It’s like everyone who rides a motorcycle will tell you “Its not if you fall, its when you fall.”

5

Even just getting a gig is pretty cool man, i had my first gig on friday night and managed to cut the audio halfway through, also i set up my soundcard running into my mixer the wrong way round so channel A on Traktor was Channel 2 on my mixer, but the promoter still said he enjoyed my set and asked if i’d be able to play easter monday for them! Its DEFINATELY a learning curve, and you have to take the good with the bad! Even just to say you have the experience will help getting future gigs!

6

i was already on the can :smiley:

so, thats kinda rough. but if these happen once or twice a month, whats one rough gig for you when you rock all the others.

7

there will always be a few gigs that just aren’t that great.. but that does suck dude i’m sorry to hear that

8

Usually in crowd flow situations like that, I’ll mess around and be more experimental to keep myself entertained/keep my mind off of the fact that no one is there. When people show, it’s back to the bangers and solid mixing. If you let yourself get pissed before anyone shows, then when people do show up you’re pissed and it shows (like you described). Sorry to hear about the poor showing though.

9

Thanks everyone for the responses. I don’t feel as bad now. Lol. I talked to a lot of people about it and they agreed with my claim that the bull was way too distracting. I’ve done a lot of gigs a my school, and every time before this time they’ve been very successful, so you can see why having nobody dancing frustrated me.

10

Sorry to hear your gig went so poorly, but I would have picked the bull too. Or moved the bull closer to enjoy both.

The first house party I threw that I was spinning went about the same. I had 25+ people lined up, said they were coming, and as the night started, so did the cancel emails. After all was said and done, it was me, 2 roomates, my brother and 6 of his highschool friends. My brothers friends were not interested in the music, only in their hectic drama filled lives, and to top it off, my roomate decided music wasn’t as interesting as an episode of weeds, so the tv came on, and was turned up.

Too bad that weeds is no audio match for filthy dubstep. My speakers won. Gotta look for that silver lining though. My night was a bust but I was enjoying making tunes, so I let it slide.

Take it in stride, you won’t be thinking about that gig the next time you have 100 people with their hands (or whistles) in the air dancing because of you.