Are You Booking a DJ for Your Special Occasion Wedding Party if so This Is a Very Important Video

0:00 My name is Jonathan Lewis for the people who don't know me

Alright ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jonathan Lewis for the people who don't know me. I'm a DJ based in West Wales, predominantly a mobile DJ. Now again, a lot of people watch my demonstrations and tutorials and this indeed is a video about DJing, more so about being a mobile, predominantly wedding party DJ. You, two scenarios that happened to me, one quite a few years ago and the other one more recently with an event I was going to do about two or three weeks from now. Now again, I'm not going to say anything about the client or the venue, nothing at all. That is completely, it's irrelevant in a way. It's just the content. It's about the video. I'll shut up. Sorry. No, I won't. Otherwise you won't hear.

First of all, what happened many years ago? I was given a playlist. Now, if you're not familiar with a playlist, you should be. Basically, it's not a running order, but it's a list of tracks that the client would like you to play. Now, there's many types of playlists, but two, I would say the most important. One is that the list the client gives you, they want all of the tracks played during the night. The other one, which happens more often than not, is the client will give you a list and say, listen, if you can do your best to play as many as you can. Quite often they'll highlight certain tracks that they want you to play, but a playlist is very good because it gives you an idea of what the crowd like, or should I say the bride and groom or the birthday boy, birthday girl. But of course, as we know as professional DJs, that's not necessarily what their crowd like, because if you can...

2:26 Playlist and you work out based

Which is very unlikely, get into the minds of every single person that goes to the venue for the evening. You'll be able to find out what they like and of course put all that information into the playlist and think, yeah, no, no, it's not going to happen. So generally as a professional DJ you will have enough knowledge and information to work out that that playlist is either golden or a bit of a goof. A while ago, I was given a playlist and I looked at it. I thought, yeah, great playlist. I like it. Turned up and started playing tracks from that playlist. And then I started putting in a few of my own to mix and match it. So I didn't start from track one, two, three, four. You look at a playlist and you work out based on how you want the night to progress. And of course, how the dance floor is going. And you pick and choose the tracks and then you put one or two in of your own.

Well, what happened is very soon after I started, I had the bride come up to me and say, no, I want you to play from the playlist. And then it clicked. She wanted me to play the tracks only on the playlist. Now, the problem there is that it was a very mix. It was all styles of music, which, no, I shouldn't say that's a problem. That isn't a problem. But the problem was... Putting them all together in some kind of flow, which was not impossible, but it was very difficult. Because as a professional DJ, you work on the crowd's reaction and then you work your set based on, of course, the crowd's reaction. If you're playing a track, a genre, style, and they don't like it, you float to another one. If they don't like that one, you maybe float to another one and so on. But she wanted me to play every single track from that playlist. Not in that particular order.

But on the playlist. And of course, during the night, I had people coming up to me saying, can you play X, Y and Z? And my answer was that just no. To begin with, and I did this with everyone. I can't remember how many times it happened, but at least three or four times they looked at me in dismay as though like, who the hell are you saying you can't play my track? When I then said, I do apologise, it's nothing to do with me, the bride specifically asked me to play these tracks and I'm not allowed to play anything else. If you've got any queries or any problems, please go and see the bride. They got it, they shut up, they sat down as far as I can remember because at the end of the day, it is a special day for the bride and groom and you don't want to really annoy the most important people of the evening. Now, let's...

5:01 There wouldn't have been any time to play anything else

Fast forward to the gig I was supposed to be doing in October. Now, I was chatting with Person X over a year ago. They mentioned they wanted me to do their wedding. They liked what I did and I thought, great, fantastic. And then roughly a couple of weeks ago, they sent me a playlist. And this wasn't a playlist that I normally get. This was basically a playlist, for example, when guests arrive, I want you to play these tracks and then later on in the evening, I want you to play these tracks. But the trouble is that that person wanted me to play those tracks and only those tracks in that order. Now, there wouldn't have been any time to play anything else. And I did question this and they said yes. I'd even taken a deposit. They said yes.

We want you to play those tracks in that order. So after finding this out and after about two minutes of thinking, I decided I didn't want to do the evening. And I did explain very in as better way as I could or its best way should I say proper English as I could. And that is that when you are in front of a crowd and you're playing a set playlist fault the groom or the bride gave me these tracks to play and that's what i've got to play i mean probably could have said that but it's not really professional but at the end of the day as well it's sorry it's not very good when you're in front of a big crowd whether whether it be 20 people or 200 and you oh god i shouldn't i should have washed my mouth at first i'm not going to do this again you you when you've got to play those tracks they've asked you to play

7:30 Of the evening, just start playing

In that order as well, then my argument is, well, get an iPod. Just stick them on a thumb drive, plug them into a small PA system or a Bluetooth speaker and play away till your heart's content. Even in the email the guy sent, he said, once you've played this list, if we are still not... Ready for the next part of the evening, just start playing it again. The mind boggles. You think you're paying a professional person with years of experience to come along and play tracks that you want them to play in that order. So instead of spending that amount of money and having some guy stand there like a cabbage, just get a thumb drive or an iPod and plug it in. Now again, I haven't said names, places, people, dates or anything like that. But if anyone is interested in booking a DJ for a wedding, for example, if you're in West Wales, try and get hold of me. My name's Jonathan. You'll find me somehow. West Wales. Then the whole idea of booking a DJ is for them to play a good selection of music.

To the crowd and the crowd respond to the music the dj then responds to the crowd and so on it's a bounce if you are indeed absolute absolutely adamant that you want a playlist then for god's sake don't hire a dj if you want that playlist to be played in that specific order because you might as well save your money and just plug it into a computer plug it into a speaker And just play it. But then you're not going to get any atmosphere at all, even if you get the best flashy lights in the world, because I'm afraid the iPod cannot look at the crowd and say, oh my goodness me, there's no one on the dance floor, but we've got to play Agadou or like, oh, there's three people on the dance floor. Let's play some banging techno. Maybe techno will work. Maybe Agadou will work. But techno and or Agadou.

10:05 They're tracks that you have to play

We'll indeed only work at the right time and right place, not at the wrong time and the wrong place. So if let's say you're looking for a wedding DJ, find me out if you're in the West Wales area or for that matter anywhere because I travel. And if you want someone who's professional and knows the stuff, then give me a shout. Alternatively, if you're looking for a DJ wherever you are and you want someone professional, then find someone and have a chat with them and explain. And that is, this is by far the absolute undisputed best way of putting a playlist together. Number one. is you put your first dance number two if you're in america you do the father daughter dance and then maybe there's the mother father dancing though so that's the the first dance that's the father daughter dance that's the this and that's for that then below that you have a list of tracks that must be played absolutely because

There, they remind you of where you first met and when you were out dining and there was a track and you had the first kiss and all that. So they're tracks that you have to play. And then underneath that, tracks that you would like to be played possibly during the course of the evening. But for God's sake, don't send a DJ or an entertainer of any description a playlist and you've got to play those in that... Particular order, because it's just not going to work. And here's the caveat. You've spent a lot of money for your wedding. You bought the car, you've hired the limo, you've hired the venue, you've hired the catering staff, you paid for the flowers, you paid for the meal, you paid all of this money only to have...

The end of the evening spoiled by a playlist you may think someone will like just because you like that playlist. You've got to remember, maybe it is the bride and groom's evening, but you want the evening to be euphoric and have energy. And you are absolutely not going to get that if there's just the one or the two of you compiling some kind of playlist. Because even if your best friends love the same music as you and you've invited them, More often than not, you're going to invite the auntie, the uncle, the nephew, the cousin, the brother, the sister and so on. They might not know the playlist, they might not like the tracks, and they're just going to sit there looking at you as though you're stupid. What the hell are you playing this for? So please, think about that. Again, first, most important, first dance, then the father-daughter. Secondly, the tracks that you want to have played, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 of them. But bear in mind...

The more you play, roughly 20 tracks per hour. So if you're going to put 20 down, it's three hours. You've already taken an hour of the evening. And then underneath that, this is what we would like you to play if you can. Now, this is what we'd like you to play if we can is great from a DJ's perspective because they get an idea of what style and types of music you like. I hope this is a help. Please leave a comment. Let me know what you think. Thank you for watching. Practice. And enjoy. Thank you.

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