» Listings for September 2009

1. Birthdays, weddings and romance rescue?

   Posted on 12:00am Monday 28th Sep 2009

   Hi all, Just wanted to start with a testimony from one of my clients the other week (wedding party):
   
   

   Mike,

    

   Hi there, how are you? I just wanted to expend our gratitude towards you for the excellent job you did at our wedding. The guests were most complimentary about the evening’s entertainment, and we certainly wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to anyone in need of a DJ for an event. Apologies we weren’t in touch sooner, it took at little while for the dust to settle after the wedding, honeymoon etc.

    

   Is there somewhere we could perhaps share our recommendation such as a web check or directory sort of thing?

    

   Thanks again, you capped off an amazing day brilliantly.

    

   Regards,

    

   Andy and Katy (name witheld)

   
   

   Anyway, Another great week of gigs this week. Friday was a 13th birthday party in Barnham (nice to get one just down the road!) and they were over the moon with the show. Saturday (wedding party in worthing at the dome) they didn't want me to leave which was a bit disconcerting as the management were wanting to go home. After playing two "one more songs" they begged me to do another (!) I said no, I have to pack up now,really! So then the groom throws down a not inconsiderable sum of cash to play one more track and I said: OK. but please promise me that this is IT! Shake on it. And he did and honoured it thank god! Oh well I made some extra and the staff at the venue were ok, as they actually couldn't believe how quickly I managed to pack up afterwards.

   Totally unrelated last night I got a call on Skype from a desperate Chinese lady who's English (Chichester) almost husband had vanished without trace.

   I tried to call him without success and even contacted the police here to see if he was on their system (thanks to the helpful bloke at Chichester police station) and he wasn't, so a least he wasn't dead or imprisoned!

   I phoned him this morning and decided I had nothing to lose if I left him a message pleading with him to contact me so we could clear this up. I didn't leave a message last night as I thought he would be curious enough to call me back to see who I was. Never mind!
   

   It turns out his business has folded and he is in complete apathy and can't confront contacting her. I managed to persuade him to put her out of her misery and at least explain it to her whilst I did the same by email which I have done. Then it occured to me that there was more that I could do and it's copied down below:

   Hi Grace,
   
   I forgot to tell both you and Cliff,
   
   If he can do anything at all to save his business, it is to promote promote promote! get his message out there to as many potential customers as possible. It's one of the rules by which we Scientologists live all the time. I did it earlier this year with my business and almost immmediatly i pulled in another £3000.00 worth of business. But he needs to come out of apathy...He needs to know that it WILL WORK if he just keeps promoting his skills. If he's a freelance researcher then it might be as simple as just constantly phoning round all his contacts every week to ask if any jobs are going. It will keep him in peoples minds when they are looking for someone. You can use this email if you like and forward it to him. After all he has a choice now. He can either live and fight, or give up and die. There is no other way to go!
   
   go here for more advice: http://www.wise.org
   
   I thought about calling him back and telling him this but I thought it would be better coming from you.
   
   All the best!
   
   
   Mike.
   
   
   There you go. Free advice to you too if this is happening to you. If I can, I'll let you know how it goes.
   
   See you all next week. Do well!
   
   Mike.
   

   
   

2. Add colour to your party!

   Posted on 12:00am Sunday 20th Sep 2009

   Hi all, Well another successful week of business. I've included another page this week on mood lighting or LED uplighting as it's otherwise known. basically you hire these units for the night and I place them around the edge of the dance floor or venue and aim them up the walls. They can be set to change colour at random or set to one static colour. They can also be set to slowly change colour together although this will require some notice plus extra setting up time on the day. They are taking off right now as the most popular add-on to the standard party package and no wonder as they change the whole look of the venue. People have commented on how impressive they look and thank god as I spent a flippin' fortune on them!
   
   
   Last nights hotel wedding gig was great although the guests in the rooms above set out to spoil the party by asking the staff to make me turn the bass right down. Shame, as this is the main human driver to dance to a piece of music. That and good melody of course. Tunes without much singalong appeal usually get greeted by a clear dancefloor. The former reason of a badly constructed sentence or two, is why I invest so heavily in bass capacity....And why speaker suppliers charge me accordingly! I always worry that I'm not going to have the sheer power to fill a venue (maybe I'm just going deaf) but all too many times these days with the same system that I've had for a few years now, I'm often asked to turn it down. I don't mind if customers ask this (they almost never do) but when people book a room in a hotel above the dance floor they should be told about the party and made to agree not to give hassle over the music. Aah but that requires the hotel to a. communicate and b. to have "balls". I know at least one manager of a hotel who does all this. Good man!
   The other interesting thing is that I played new years eve in this same hotel in the same spot at full volume and was NOT asked to turn down the bass. I guess that whoever was staying above was either at the party or had looked up the definition of "party" in the Dictionary. Definition 1. not 4. if you're reading the "Oxford Concise".
   
   Have a great week. See you next time!
   
   Mike.    

3. Wedding advice from a DJ's point of view

   Posted on 12:00am Sunday 13th Sep 2009

   Hi folks. Sorry no  time to blog last week. My life is unbelievably busy. I'm taking a week off this week just to get all the stuff done that I want to. Always a bit of a bugger as I don't get any holiday pay so one has to both gamble and prepare. A good analogy for being a small business owner wouldn't you say? Whatever you think, You definitley have to be and optimist.
   
   Enough of that. If you're planning a wedding next year and don't have £25,000 to spend then think of booking a venue on some other day than Saturday. Most venues seem to have the same rate on Friday as the rest of the week, but if you were to book on a Thursday for example, you may well in these times be able to score a better deal with them.
   
   One huge, huge word of caution here. DO NOT start the wedding itself too early in the day. By the time your guests (who are still getting out of their work time table) walk onto the dance floor, you want them to be fresh and raring to bust some moves, throw some shapes etc (well "boogie" is so over used isn't it?) and not looking eagerly at the exit and the nice comfortable Vauxhall Vectra " armchair chariot to homeville" through the wondow to the carpark. If you have children attending it just exacerbates the situation. Trust me I've seen it all before. Try and encourage them to sleep late and prepare themselves for it. I party all the time but do your family? They do? What are you a rockstar?? Nice. I can do your party too.
   
   There are also added benefits of booking on a week day. Not only do you find out which of your friends and relatives are willing to take a day off work to come and celebrate with you - Make that two days, one to recover from the late night shall we say... but also from my point of view, you get to book a profesional DJ who doesn't just do it at the weekend for a "bit of a laugh" The difference in ethics between these two groups though not always prevelant, can sometimes be astounding. You know you've got someone who's serious about (if that could ever be the right word) entertaining if his or her living depends on it. Obviously this isn't gospel but it does make logical sense. I've lost count of times I've been called up to replace hobby deejays who let the customers down at the last minute so they can go and see the Scissor sisters at Wembley or something. I don't always get the gig though as the prices quoted by these guys reflect the seriousness with which they regard the job and when the customer hears the true cost of professionalism it can be hard to take for some.
   I know that last bit sounds commercially, utterly anal but it's actually depressingly regular.
   
   If you've been following my previous blogs you know you'll want to ask them about their sound policy. Do they have a "noise limiter" in the dance area? Do they, as they did at Cowdray walled garden at Midhurst, come in half way through the gig and tell you to turn it down to the volume of roughly a kitchen radio (Not much of an exaggeration) and stand behind you for the rest of the night to make sure you comply? Does the music have to be turned down for Hotel guests above who don't understand what the word party means? If the answer is yes to any of the above (I know they'll be more cagey about it than I am of course) then you'll have a much better show elswhere no matter which Band or DJ you hire.  Talking of which, make sure they have full insurance and your venue might need them to have portable appliance tested equipment. I have this as standard now. many other deejays say they do but actually they don't. As there's no law requiring it, it's not illegal to print your own labels. My attitude is: although I really don't need it as my equipment gets so much TLC, what the hell, it's tax deductable anyway. Why are you deejays so keen to give it to Alistair Darling instead? Or could it be that your not giving it to him either?
   
   There are a million different web sites that give you advice
   on how to plan a wedding but I've tried here to give you some expert advice that you probably won't find anywhere else.
   
   Congratulations on your engagement. Now what are you waiting for? Don't you know what fantastic value for money I am?