Early doors

[Beardytone]

Hey, been out of the game of mobile djing for around 15-20years so excuse the question.

I’ve been djing school discos and kids party’s with no issues, but am going back into ‘adult discos’ and wondered what people played the first hour or so(while guests arrive and haven’t had a drink yet)

Do you play a set mix cd (any links) or do you play what you feel to an empty venue

[DjNeedleSharp]

Play to the employees and ask them what they would like to hear. Walk around and mingle with people and ask them what they want to hear.

Crooklyn Clan has some "piss break" mixes that are pretty solid. If you have video capabilites on your decks, tie into the club AV system and play some solid music videos of some top 40 remixes the first hour or two. BPM Supreme is a pretty inexpensive and good DJ pool is BPM Supreme which has videos as well.

One of the worst thing as a patron is getting to a club when the doors open to an empty club. The only thing worse is an empty club with crappy music

[mitchiemasha]

I'm not a fan of videos... they can be too entertaining. This can get in the way of people communicating, or even worse, dancing. Anything that can get in the way of people talking, reduces the level of voice hype in the room. I like to ride that hype with the energy in the music. Although, some videos can create a talking point, they either get ignored or give the more boring types more of an excuse not to talk. Once everybody is talking and competing for volume, the energy starts to flow perfectly.

Employees requests can be a good idea... but these can be very random and seriously mess up that flow. Some being way to over hyped for the moment... or simply too light and boring, inappropriate for any moment. A song they pick might instantly explode the room, they'll think that's good BUT, you usually don't want that yet, it won't maintain.

It all depends, a huge depends, the answer is too variable other than follow what you believe, some times you'll be wrong, others you'll be right... but if it's what you believed and how you wanted to represent yourself, even if you're wrong, you're right.

[efinque]

I used to have a jazz/easy listening playlist for receptions and background music.. sometimes I'd play a chill, deep house-ish mixtape.

I was DJing a disco themed party for an association consisting of private people carrying a trade, and they had some neat 70's themed visual/video playing on the background on a screen/projector.

[mitchiemasha]

yes, simple background footage can be a big win over the story video that might accompany the various tracks you're playing.