Advise for the DJ on Organising your own party

0:02 Organising a party in your own

Alright guys, I had a lot of people ask me about information on organising your own party. So, this is an exceedingly diverse subject, so I'm going to try and channel it into two parts, two facets. The first one is organising a party in your own house. The second one is organising a party in a public place, for example pub, club, bar, hall, that kind of place. Believe it or not, the pub, club and bar is far more intricate. Two, organising it in your own house. Well, actually I suppose it's very obvious anyway. First one, in your own house, what do you need? Well, you need to invite friends and have fun. That's about it really. Slightly more intricate though, because you've got to make sure that the people you invite...

This, in fact, is the key. This is so important. It's the three factors. One, two, three. Before, during and after. You need to know your friends before, during and after. Before they're drunk, while they're drunk and after they're drunk. This is the key. This is the vital part. This is the difference between having a wonderful house at the beginning of your party and having a shithole at the end of it. What they're like beforehand, are they nice people? What they're like while they're drunk, are they idiots? Do all of a sudden they become like these monstrous people who like to dangle from chandeliers? And afterwards... Sorry. Afterwards is just important. What are they like when they've had too much? Do they puke up over mum and dad's bed?

You don't want that. So make sure you know the people. Make sure you can trust them and they're good friends. Also, you need to invite if you can or just say to your neighbours that you're having a party. Now, by law, you are entitled to have some form of party in your own house. And the police can't stop you. They can't stop you. What they can do is they can stop you if it's too loud and you have complaints. If you just say no and you carry on playing and they come back. I'm not sure how many times they come back. But at some point, they are legally entitled to walk into your house, I think, and take the kit, confiscate the kit. Now, again, I'm not sure about this, but I have been told that if you hire equipment, then the police are not obliged or they're not entitled to take hired equipment.

2:34 Can we hire the room for the night?

But if it is yours... If they can take your gear, please check on that. The... I suppose, yeah, the slightly more intricate one really is organising a party at a public event or public place, sorry, for example, a hall, a bar. Now, you may have in your area, you may have a bar, a pub with a back room and you may have a room with management. Can we hire the room for the night? Or can we organise our own event? And they may say yes, great. That isn't it. You can't just then put posters up, turn up and do the event. There's a lot more to it. You need to have public liability. Now, public liability is a form of insurance that most entertainers will have. And public liability is about, let's say, you set your gear up and all of a sudden maybe accidentally someone...

Well, maybe not accidentally, but say someone trips over something or something falls on someone. Then there is a possibility they could have grounds to sue you. Now, your public liability insurance will cover you for that eventuality. Very important. Also, the other one you will need to do is you'll have to have all of your equipment PAT tested. Now, I personally think PAT testing is an absolute bloody waste of time for most of the gear because most gear is virtually brand new anyway. And generally, you do find people have got pretty decent kit. On the odd occasion, I used to, I admit, hands up, you've got some really strange four-way cable that sort of like shakes and dangles and makes noises. But...

As you start to get more professional, last year, just kidding, you tend to throw stuff like that away because it's not worth it. Now, if you... Digressing slightly, if you're a mobile DJ and you go to a hotel and you have not got public liability or your kit PAT tested and the manager or the owner of that establishment asks to see your certificate of insurance or PAT test information and you say, well, I haven't got any. You know what? You won't work there. Why? Because... They have a legal right to not have you in there because they'll be covering their own backs. Because if something did go wrong, the onus could be on them. So, you need public liability and you need to make sure all your kit's PAT tested.

5:24 Dies at half past 11

Now, that's not it. You need to make sure that the event has got security. And now, again, I think this is how it is. Rule of thumb, one security person per 50 people. So, don't... I mean, years ago, it was great because you just... You used to have your dad and your brother to turn up, big old... Like that. And they used to be on the door and batter people and that was about it. Nowadays, no. They have to be reputable security people who have gone through a stringent test and know what to do and know how to handle people like this. That was years ago. Now, it's, excuse me, leave the venue right now. Otherwise, I'm going to hit you. I'm going to hit... Oh, God, sorry. Right. So, proper security people. Now, once you organise...

And if you need security people, if there are any security people or businesses, then pop in here and say, I'm security. Right. Okay. So, you need security as well. And also, you need to make sure that you know the time that the venue's going to finish. There's no point... Again, small point. There's no point thinking, fantastic, let's have an evening and finally realise the bar closes at 11 and all the lights go off and the whole village and town... dies at half past 11. No. You want to make sure it goes on quite a while. A good rule of thumb there is what I find and what I found in the past is that if you've got bars and club... or not clubs, but mainly bars and pubs in the area, if they have a kicking out time about sort of 10, half 10,

Then you want to make sure your night goes on until at least 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning so you'll get all those people coming to you. Of course, that's why you do need security because by the time they've left the bar... Park? Park. The bars and the pubs, they're all probably pissed anyway. So, you've sorted that out. One of the major factors, and this is the thing that a lot of people fall flat on, is they don't advertise it enough. Now, 10 years ago, it was posters. Nowadays, it's text... Well, then it was texting as well. But nowadays, it's Facebook, it's MySpace, it's videos on YouTube. You can just do whatever you want. Go for it. Have fun and promote it as much as you can. If you're going to do... Don't do A4 that big.

7:49 It from another point of view

Make them A3 or A2 or even A1. And try and make the posters so as soon as people go past, they don't see loads of flashy stuff. They want to see two or three very important things. Venue, date and time and music style. Try and make that big. Like, you know, the So-and-So Hotel. Great place. Been there many times. Dodgy bed, so... So-and-so hotel, house music. Fourth of July, bang. And then you can put lots of little bits of information. You do that for people who are driving past in cars. So that's posters. You know, like I said again, Facebook. Get a Facebook page. Now, DJs. Now, you could have a good selection of DJs that you know and think, I'm going to invite them to play. Great idea. But also, look at it from another point of view.

Maybe have two or three DJs that you know play with you but then invite one or two. Depending, of course, on the time scale. You don't want to have 100 DJs and say, right, that's it, your 10 minutes is up. Next, you want to make sure everyone's got a good set time or time for their set, sorry. Invite one or two DJs from another area because what they will do, they will bring their crowd and another set of people. Bingo! You've got loads of people coming in. Also, make sure you've got a guest list. Now, a guest list is people who will turn up for free. It's a very... It's a very good idea to have a guest list because those guests will bring other people. They pay. When you organise a guest list, vitally important,

The names on the guest list are the people who come in for free. This is so important. It's happened to me so many times and I'm not taking any shit. You'll have, say, Jim. Jim will be on the guest list and he'll bring two women and his mate. Oh, but I'm on the guest list. You say, Jim. You are. They're not. They pay. Yes, it's ka-ching. It's about making a bit of money, isn't it? We all like to have an event, have a good time, but you want to start making a few money. A few pounds, dollars, euros, francs. Yeah. Now, if... And let's look to the future. If your event does go really well, then maybe start to invite some local club owners and say, well, come along to my event. Look, it's great. Turn up at 11 o'clock. That's when you happen to be doing your set

And see what you think. All right? Now, I hope that's been a bit of help. A little bit of information on a party in your house and also a party in a licensed premises. And again, particular licensed premises should also have a dance... Not a dancing license. A music license as well. So if you have got any information yourself, either put it in a comment or in a video response and please, if you want any information, I hope... You've had some from this video and also check the comments underneath here and if there are any video responses because hopefully there will be sensible people unlike myself who will give you some pretty good information. I will say, Happy New Year. Happy Christmas because it is that time of year

And practice and enjoy. And my mate here has got something to say. Say practice and enjoy. Go on. Hold on. He's going to do it.

Practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.