what do you say about this? don't mean to rant, but.

[blackfoxbb]

place: 15 years old birthday party
time: 00:15 am, 4:30 after the party started. it's been like that all night long.
transition techniques: trainwreck or just wait the track finishes.
$$$ paid: dunno, but more that he deserved.

[Paulie65m]

Damnnn :what:

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[JamesRoss]

so 15 year olds are partying until the wee hours of the morning??

[Sigma]

What am I looking at? 3 guys dressed in black standing in an empty room is what it looks like. How many people were there earlier in the evening?

[thehadgi]

transition techniques: trainwreck or just wait the track finishes.

:takesnotes:

[Sean]

Were there people there? and they weren't on the dancefloor??

[blackfoxbb]

Were there people there? and they weren't on the dancefloor??

yep, about 150 people

[PopeofDope]

yep, about 150 people

Because of?

[blackfoxbb]

Because of?

to much old people maybe. 50 years old average age.

[Badger]

place: 15 years old birthday party
time: 00:15 am, 4:30 after the party started. it's been like that all night long.
transition techniques: trainwreck or just wait the track finishes.
$$$ paid: dunno, but more that he deserved.

Hmmm. I wasn't there, so I can only go from this picture, but it looks to me like:
.

• Some parents with more money than sense hired a mobile DJ with a video show in a misguided attempt to do buy their teenager's love, too ignorant to realize that teenagers are usually "too cool" for birthday parties.
  .
• If any teens showed up at this thing, they probably didn't stick around long - probably just long enough to organize an impromptu meeting at one of their houses so that they could actually get drunk and/or stoned. Then, all the kids - including, very likely, the birthday kid, got the hell out of here.
  .
• The adults probably didn't dance because they were too busy standing around talking, or because "this party is for the kids, not for us," or because they thought a well-prepared professional mobile DJ surely wouldn't have any music from their era on hand (HA!), or because it would just be embarrassing for them to do something as decadent as dancing, or because they were afraid they might spring a leak in their piss-proof undergarments...
  .
• The DJ was fulfilling his contractual obligation to "play music" until the end of the event, even though the party had died a long time ago.
  .
• If the three people on the dance floor are the DJ team, then they're probably laughing about how dead the party is and hoping that the parents will be merciful enough to just tell them to pack up and leave.

.

I've had events like this before - not so bad as one that had been "dead" for four and a half hours, but teen parties at which the teens just really did not want to be there "partying" with their parents around. It is insanely tough to get a bunch of mid-teens to dance. 17- and 18-year-olds at a homecoming or prom? That's not too difficult. But a 15-year-old birthday party? VERY tough.

Another thing you need to realize is that for a lot of mobile DJs, beatmixing isn't a priority, or something that they even try to do. Back in my commercial mobile DJ days, I was an exception; I spent a little extra to get good remixes for my performances, and I actually spent time practicing my mixing to give my clients a "club-like" experience. However, mobile DJs are usually not required to do any beatmatching. "Trainwrecks," fades between songs of completely different BPM ranges, waiting until songs end in order to start the next song... these are common in the mobile industry, and - here's the best part - most clients who are not DJs simply don't notice and/or don't care.

If the parents wanted someone who would do proper mixing, then they should have done a bit more research and hired someone who could do proper mixing. What they probably did was:

.

• Called around looking for a DJ to "play music and bring some lights."
  .
• Started off every call to every mobile DJ by asking "How much do you charge?," because that's always much more important than talent, experience, or quality.
  .
• Didn't bother asking for details like mixing techniques, since "all mobile DJs are the same" (you know, because they "just play music").
  .
• Went with the cheapest possible option after calling three or four DJ companies. [Then again, that does look like a somewhat decent light setup, so I'm quite possibly wrong on this point.]
  .
• Somehow allowed themselves to get upsold to a video screen show by a DJ who told them that it would be "cooler" and that "kids love it."

.

Since you were there, hopefully you were able to give them a business card and explain to them that they could do better next year when their little Poopkins turns 16.


[Kids' parties = the suck.]