Last night I attended the wedding and reception of a cousin's daughter. It was held at an incredible location, one that has high ceilings, good acustics, excellent lighting--all of the ingredients of what should have been an outstanding event. Despite a tastefully prepared menue featuring all the foods we should not eat regularly (shrimp, crab, lobster, oysters, etc.) one of the key ingredients was obviously sub standard.

Instead of live music, which would have been preferable for the audience, a DJ was hired. During the wedding ceremony, which was conducted in an adjoining room, the DJ was bellied up to the bar. Then, when the ceremony ended, everyone went through the reception line, and eventually entered the main hall where the reception would be held. So far--so good.

When the wedding party lined up at the door for the traditional introduction, he put on a hip-hop tune, turned up the volume and began announcing the wedding party participants. His sound system consisted of a relatively inexpensive Peavey system that IMO was inadequate for the size of the venue, a room that measured approximately 200 X 150 feet. From what I could see he was using a pair of 8-inch speakers with small horns.

After the party was seated, a portable mic was handed to the Best Man at the opposite end of the venue from the DJ. After the traditional toast, the minister chimed in with a prayer, and the reception got underway.

The music quality ranged from poor to awful. The DJ fired up with songs that no one, not even the young bridal party, could dance to. The dancefloor remained pretty much empty most of the evening. The few times there were folks on the dancefloor was when Unchained Melody, and similar songs were played, which was a total of maybe three times during the ensuing 3 hour reception. The remainder of the night he played hip-hop, rap, and similar tunes, and as the evening progressed he cranked up the volume to the point where you had to nearly yell at the person sitting next to you if you wanted to ask them a question.

The bottom line here is this guy obviously could not read an audience. With the exception of the bridal party, most of the crowd ranged in age from 60 to 75 years of age, people that get up and dance. Had the DJ properly assessed the crowd he would have played music that would have triggered a positive response from folks in that age category.

In my situation, I traditionally perform music that was popular during a time when the audience was 18 to 35 years of age. This technique seems to work very well for me regardless of where I perform.

I'm sure there are other methods of reading the various audience and coming up with the best songs to fill the dancefloor--so lets hear them.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

On the flip side, when I was a DJ I would have a couple come in and want to pick every song I could play. All Stevie Ray, or Blues Or rap. Absolutely no Sinatra, no polka, no country, no big band etc. I would try to tell them that they are going to be busy but the relatives and parents need to be entertained and will have requests, And they hire me to entertain them if I can't do that I tell them I am aready booked for that day.

I learned to turn those jobs down because you will please no one and actually damage your reputation.

Hi,
Like Mikeathome, few years ago, I had a bridal party,(the Bride, her mother and father), came to hired me at my studio, and at the time I had a female singer, and that wedding date was sometime in May, well, they handed me a song list, that said the porcentage of singing and instrumental songs should be, no just that, it listed songs, like drumer boy, white Xmas, silent nite, etc....other songs that are NOT danceable or adecuate for a party....I ask what the father did for a living, he answer that he was an Accountant, so, I told him very nicely, to get somebody else, I told him that the date was already taken, I really was not interested in taking that job. I wanted to tell him, that when customer went to him, they did not tell him how to do his job.

Gary,
I would have gone up to the newlyweds with my look and asked What the hell were you thinking when you hired that %^&*!!!

Hopefully, in defense of the couple, it was part of a package deal and not of their own choosing.

Years ago, I was in a 5-pc group that did traditional wedding, country club/ballroom stuff. One night we were playing for a wedding and a Chinese guy walked into the banquet hall to listen. On our break he asked us if we were available on such+such date (6 or 7 months away) to play for the annual Chinese Business Owners of Chicago Dinner. We were available.
They do it up big...tuxedos, traditional dragon ceremony, firecrackers etc.

It was time for us to play. We played for 3 hours and NOT 1 person danced the entire time. Man was I sweating and uncomfortable. We all were.
On a break we talked to the guy, told him every style we knew we tried but nobody is dancing. He said don't worry, they are clapping, they like you

A couple of weeks went by and our drummer (the contract/booker guy) gets a call from that same guy, wanting to book us in advance for next year's business dinner
We told our guy to say we were already booked. BTW, none of us are Asian.

Maybe your bash was the same ... One decision maker to speak on behalf of the masses!




[This message has been edited by MrEd (edited 08-05-2006).]

Good decision. Two Wongs don't make it Wight!.

Jerry



[This message has been edited by Jerryghr (edited 08-05-2006).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jerryghr:
[B] Good decision. Two Wongs don't make it Wight!.
Jerry


Or, as Confusius put it,
¶þ¸ö´íÎó²»×öȨÀû



[This message has been edited by MrEd (edited 08-05-2006).]

Ed,

Everyone in the place, including some of the bridal party, was complaining about the music. I figured this guy just couldn't read an audience if his life depended upon it. Tonight I performed for a similar age group in Aberdeen, Maryland. I was told by the person who headed up the event that it was unlikely that anyone would dance. By the time I was into the second song I had a dozen couples on the dancefloor. By the third song I had twice as many, and by the time dinner was served the floor was packed and you couldn't put another person on the floor if you used a shoe horn. At the end of the night there were lots of ATTABOYS from everyone, and they wanted to book me for their next convention five years from now.

The main reason for the orriginal post was to get a feeling on how everyone here evaluates their audiences, and what songs they use to get folks on the dancefloor.

Cheers,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy