Mobile DJ Advise on Playing Music for a Long Nights Set BY Ellaskins

0:00 For all the people who are interested, you're doing five hours

Alright guys, Jonathan here, The DJ Tutor, and in this video it's a bit of a discussion, so if you're not interested in me talking about how you keep a dance floor full for five hours if you're doing a mobile gig, then I suggest you turn off and go maybe watch someone explaining how to do needlework, or maybe someone trying to, I don't know, plant a cactus that's really prickly. Go on, sod off. Right, for all the people who are interested, you're doing five hours. How do you keep the crowd motivated? How do you make sure that you don't lose them? Now, first of all, there are certain types of mobile gigs. There are weddings, there are parties, there are corporate events, there are just head nights, stag nights, weddings.

Weddings are probably one of the most difficult because the people have been up and about since five days ago getting ready. They're knackered. They've eaten, they've slept, they've watched, they've sat, they've had to act posh. So it's likely that you can keep them going all night, but a lot of the weddings I've done, not all of them, a lot of the weddings I've done, they're pretty much knackered by 12 or 1 o'clock, and that's it. They go to bed. On the other occasion though, I have done weddings when they're up until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning still partying. Now again, I'll try and talk fast so you can get the gist of what's going on. Those sorts of weddings are pretty difficult. Weddings are when people go into their second mode. The first mode is knackered, tired, and then all of a sudden about 2 or 1 in the morning they're revitalised and they think, you know what, let's just drink a bit more and party.

2:01 Old school disco tracks

Now those are the diehards. They're the people who normally keep bars propped up all night and will happily do that for the entire weekend. Weddings, okay. So, yeah, generally they are very difficult. No, they're not difficult, but what you will find is that, like I said earlier, the people are just knackered. Right, so let's say you've got a 21st birthday party or you've got an anniversary. You've got a corporate event and you have to play music until 3 o'clock in the morning. How do you keep them occupied? How do you go through all the genres? Well, it's about the energy you get from the crowd. It's the feel, the vibe. So, all of a sudden you may want to start with the old school disco tracks. Once you've gone old school disco, you may think there's an avenue there to go into 80s electro.

Not 80s electro. But 80s synth. I nearly said thinth. Synth style pop. Your New Orders, Blue Monday, that kind of thing. Thompson Twins, that sort of stuff. And then you may start to feel the vibe as though they want maybe some early 90s dance music. So from there then, you could go into, say, sort of very early kind of rave tunes. Now, you're probably thinking rave, but of course think commercial. And also you have to look at the crowd. What do the crowd want? You've always got to remember it's a wave. It's a reaction between you, the entertainer, stroke DJ and them, the crowd. If they're not digging what you're doing, then you need to change. If you're playing what they like, then carry on playing that genre.

So first rule of thumb is if they're really into the disco stuff and they're banging away and they love it. Fantastic. Then just let it ride for a little bit. Just keep it going. But, but, but, but do not carry on and on and on and on. Too much of a good thing is very bad because you've got to remember there could be a point during the rest of the night when they want more disco. So the last thing you want to do is play an hour and a half of disco music. Just drain yourself and drain them. And then all of a sudden, after another hour, someone says play Michael Jackson or play Chic Le Freak and people will go, oh, we've heard this or we don't want any more disco. So for five hours, you've got to almost try and go through the genres.

Now all of a sudden, you may want to play some reggae. Reggae is a great form of music to lower the vibe, lower the energy, just make everyone relax. So here's another tip for you inside the tip. If you do feel as though potentially there could be fighting or there could be a lot of arguing or something on the dance floor straight away, drop the vibe, go into soul, go into R&B, do not go into gangster rap. Not a good idea. Go into the likes of reggae, play Bob Marley and all of a sudden they'll be kissing themselves. They'll be loving themselves. The tune you're listening to, by the way, is from Lenny Fontana. It's Karmic Power Records. Well, it's not Karmic. It's by Karmic Power Records. I'll put a link in the description.

4:38 Pop, jazz, urban, drum and bass, dubstep, da-da-da-da, and so on and s

Now, if we go back to the 70s, you didn't have that many genres. But now you have got so many techno, trance, electro, funk, disco, soul, reggae, raga, R&B. Pop, jazz, urban, drum and bass, dubstep, da-da-da-da, and so on and so on. So of course it's depending on the age group you've got. If the age group is above 40 odd, then I doubt it very much whether you're going to be playing banging drum and bass and dubstep all night. Alternatively, if you're doing an 18th birthday party, then you're going to incorporate those styles because they'll want to hear them. But at an 18th birthday party, it's highly unlikely they will only want dubstep or drum and bass all night. And it's likely, of course, if they've requested that.

If they haven't, then do not play drum and bass or dubstep all night. Because undoubtedly you'll get a few people saying, come on, this is really shit. We want to hear ABBA. I have been to parties where there have been children coming up to me who are like four or five-year-olds. And they've gone, can you play Take That? Can you play Michael Jackson? Can you play some 60s? Can you play some Tamela Motown? Northern soul. Classic, classic genres. If you have an older age group and you've got the likes of Tamela Motown... Tamela Motown or Northern Soul, play it. They will love it. Mr Postman, stuff like that. You know what? Goes down a treat. The track's nearly finished. I'm going to carry on as much as I can. There's about 57 seconds of it left.

Lenny Fontana, I love you. So, in a nutshell, you've got five hours. Skip from genre to genre. Make sure when you skip, you're always skipping key. Try and keep the continuity flowing, the nice vibe. And then go from one to the other and so on and so on. And then you never know, during the course of the night, you might go back to original genre you were. Two or three hours ago. But it's all about the reaction and flow between you and the crowd. That is the most important part. If you feel as though the energy is being lost on the dance floor, that's the point where you need to start changing the vibe and going into another sort of genre. Therefore, bringing that vibe and the crowd back in. I hope that's been a help.

I will finish off with practice and enjoy. I've got about 12 seconds left of this cut. And it's been a monster. If you want to know any more about this track, just check out the link in the description. Practice and enjoy. Two, one.

That was Spyro. It was the original mix. And I still haven't got my voice back. Are you surprised?

Practice and enjoy. There you go. I do all the time. Oh.

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