Hi all, had to drop a line to tell you all about a particularly bad experience i had on saturday night and would welcome any comments you all may have. I must confess it did bother me a bit and am not one for long stories but need to get it off my mind by writing it down and letting other DJ's know about it.

Bear with me on this one it needs a long story to explain fully!

I am the resident DJ at a local Rugby Club which is very well respected in our area, nice venue, great people that work there, never usually any trouble other than the usual one or two drunks. To stick to the forum rules i will miss out all expletives during this story but lets just say that every other word that the "star" of my story used was an F or a C or a W or a B, you get the picture.

The gig was a 40th birthday party and had been booked at fairly short notice and during my pre gig conversations with the clients i was given a CD that one of the guests had produced and it was a kind of AC DC esque stylee type album. (Pretty good actually!) They asked if i would play track one during the evening and to build the introduction up as a bit of a joke to the guest. Of course i will i said. No problem.

At the start of the night (as usual) i was playing music at a fairly quiet sort of volume while the guests were arriving and the main lights in the room were still on (as requested by the clients) and the guy who's birthday it was asked if i could throw some popular '80's tunes into the set, but also bear in mind that a lot of the guests would be a bit too young or too old and could i just make it a general party music night with lots of cheese, the most important thing was to try and encourage to get everyone up dancing. Fair do's, a normal night then which if i might say without sounding like a pompous git is what i do best and thats why my diary is full without the need to advertise.

Then the "star" appeared. I would say mid 30's, bit of a rough diamond and obviously very drunk before he even got to the party. He asked me if i would play some '80's music which i said i would and we had a pleasant discussion about the type of songs he wanted to hear. All ok so far. then it was the point in the night to get the birthday boy on the dancefloor and play the happy birthday song etc. I had been told by his wife that he used to be really into Depeche Mode when he was younger, so announcing that the next two songs were especially for "Fred" as i shall call him, i played Just can't get enough and personal jesus.

All good so far!

Then the "star" turned up and said that everyone was asking what the last two songs were and to put some well known party '80's stuff on. I explained that the two songs were in fact '80's songs and were a special request for "Fred" and not to worry as all the popular party stuff was coming up next . I put on some well known '80's song and lo and behold the star got up to dance (like a prat i might add) with his wife/girlfriend. But no one else got up. I let him have his 15 minutes of fame then changed to the songs that i know work really well. Bingo! Full dancefloor. And he was dancing too. Good i thought.

As the night wore on he came up to me at least 3 or 4 times, and getting more aggressive each time, started to question my knowledge of music in varying degrees of expletive laced outbursts. I, as a professional DJ, did not rise to any of this as my main concern was to avoid trouble starting like you do.

It was then time to put on the cd of the guest. had a bit of banter and put his tune on to which everyone starting cheering! It went down really well. Yep, you guessed it, up walks the star and asks "What the f*** was that s:cense:" I am getting pretty P:cense:d off with all this grief now but keep my cool and explain the story behind the CD. The star wanders off shouting expletives back at me.

I must confess it kinda put me off my stride a little bit wondering what was going to happen next with him and carried on with my usual type of set. Through all this bear in mind i have a full dancefloor and everyone is having a really good time.

Then it got really nasty. I was accused of taking peoples money off them for nothing, i should give them a refund, i was a chancer, it was the easiest money i had ever made in my life etc etc. He even told me that he didn't know the people whos party it was but if he had of booked me i would be in a lot of trouble!

Anyway, the night ended and across the dancefloor came the star. He carried on his incessant ramblings and was swearing more and more and staring me straight in the eyes as he spoke. I knew that this guy was not going to leave until he had started a fight, unluckily, with me. Just then another guy walked over with a toddler in his arms and told the star to stop being stupid and leave me alone. He said to me ignore him mate, he is an idiot we have all had a great night, take no notice of him.

Word had then obviously got round what was happening and the lady who had booked me came across
and apologised profusely about what had been happening and said to ignore him and that they had had a fantastic night. And then the star walked up to join her, lent over the top of my front screen and said i hope you are going to refund her money etc etc and the lady told him to shut up. The star said i am only having a laugh with him and then without pausing for breath said to me i'm gonna break ya f***** face mate.

At this point it had all gone a bit too far and using my mobile phone, i rang the two guys who are behind the bar and explained the situation. They came over immediately and when i described the guy it turned out that he had been giving one of the female bar staff a hard time earlier and upset her.

Luckily, no further action was needed as thank god his taxi turned up (presumably a one way journey to some kind of borstal somewhere!).

So there you have it. Not nice. I was obviously worried that he may have caused extensive damage to my very expensive rig, or spoilt the whole evening or hit me!

Has anybody else had experiences like this? What did you do? I can deal with the usual drunkards funny comments no problem but this is the first time that i have been so close to something proper nasty happening. You would have had to have been there to understand how bad it really was and am certainly in no hurry for anything like this to be repeated.

Am now going on ebay to see how much baseball bats and mace spray is going for nowadays!

(Thinking about it, it's probably not a bad idea!)

I hope this never happens to any of you guys beleive me its not good.


Bob

Chances are, he wont remember anything about it the following day, so why should you dwell on it?, is he really that important for you to be spending your time worrying about it.

As your title so rightly, says there is always one, but some are worse than others I reckon that this is probably your worst experience? out of how many gigs?. Usually these occurances are in the minority and most gigs go without any real grief.

Maybe he had too much to drink, maybe he was off his meds, maybe he was just having a bad day, either way its not your problem so why take the abuse, you wouldn't accept it in a 'day' job so why should we have to tolerate it?.

Probably best to report it to the management of the venue and leave it to them to sort out the troublemakers. If its a private function, have a clause that states in your contract that the client is responsible for ejecting anybody causing you trouble or making threats. If this is your own night or promotion, then get together with the venue and consider hiring in a couple of doorstaff.

Nasty....especially as you're caught between a rock and the proverbial .....

I do have a clause in my booking agreement/contract covering this, but of course it doesn't help:

1. When you're picking bits of yourself and/or rig off the floor.

2. When the hosts aren't even aware of its happening until its just about to take off.

I do hold the hirer responsible (and they have to sign their acceptance) for the behaviour of their guests, and also reserve the 'right' to withdraw if a situation gets out of hand...but I don't really want to have to invoke that...nobody does.

Do not be to hard on yourself. From what you describe you have handled it remarkably well. Not easy in this kind of scenario. Importantly you kept your cool and were supported by others (in the end).

Cheers for that guys. I have been djing for about 8 years or so now and even though i say it myself things are going very very well at the moment. I go on holiday at the end of March and have not got a spare saturday or friday night to myself befor then! Most of my bookings are by word of mouth or i get a booking on the night from someone who has been in the crowd, and yes its the first time something as bad as this has happened. I would be a liar if i said it hasn't got to me,it has! But i do feel better having written it down and had fellow dj's read the post and respond. Good therapy! Please note i am not a particularly young person (I am , gulp, 43) so it's not like i was playing unknown dance/ indie/ rnb all night which is superb music if played to the right audience don't get me wrong, i think the DJ GOD looking down that night thought "Lets test him and see how he deals with this one!"

Oh dear, you've gotta laugh i suppose!


Bob

There's always one isn't there?!
Although not usually as bad as that one. In your terms and conditions do you have a point made about the management keeping their patrons relatively well behaved? They should have door staff or something for this even though it's only a club. I'm sure this fella has got to you, as he would anyone, but I'd say it's a case of the drink talking. If you were actually threatened you might have a case for the police, but with a thug like that it's maybe not a good idea (dark nights, long alleys etc.)
That's my two cents, I'm not saying I'm right or wrong but we really shouldnt have to put up with that kind of abuse.

You are absolutely bang right there. I must confess the idea of having door staff on would not really be workable at my residency, the club is in quite a posh area and the club is very well respected and even a bit of loud carrying on on the dancefloor is fairly rare. I guess it was just a one off. I have a confession to make to everyone. I have an old light called a La Bomba (guess you all know the one) lets just say it was off the light bar and placed with its handle up on the floor right at the side of me at the point where i kinda knew things were very likely to get nasty. Gotta be honest, if the guy had thrown a punch he would have got it around the side of his head. I cannot fight and i am the most easy going placid sort of guy you could wish to meet, but i seriously considered hitting him with the light if i really had to in self defence. Thats how bad it was getting.

Bob

cant beat silly string and a lighter for defence, seriously though i carry a riot batten . id have looked for the person who booked the party had a word and asked them to keep an eye on the guy, similar thing happened to me .Dont let them on the stage as well say your not insured .(keeps them at distance)

This is the big down side of our industry people with too few brain cells and to much alcohol...

I was head butted once and had to go to hospital for stitches, and have the scar to prove it... In that situation I would have approached the organiser informed them of the situation and asked if they could keep this guy away from the stage.. If that did not work I would have had to invoke a clause in my contract where I expect to be provided with a safe environment to work in.... No form of abuse should be tolerated while you do your job... And because of my previous encounter I might have called the police... Verbal aggressive abuse is just as bad as physical in my book.... If some one is not happy with you then yes they have a right to complain but not in a drunken agressive mannor....

I hope you never have to endure that again...

Nik

Agree with Chris.
Contractual obligations can only be adhered to if the terms and conditions are stated.
You are a DJ. You are not there to babysit rowdy guests.

Example T&Cs - whatever you feel is applicable to you


Don't let a situation like this worry you!
Take experience from it and turn it into something positive.

All i can say is well done for the way you handled the situation

As most the other guys have pointed out, there is always one guy (or gal!) that thinks that they can do a better job then yourself and there sole purpose that night is to let you know!

I personally have only seen things get particulally violent once but both in this instance and a couple of other near misses the "stars" friends, family, guests and indeed the Venue Management have always stepped in before they go to far, this followed up with tides of apologies but with only 3 incidents in 10 years (approx 1000 gigs), i can live with that ratio!

Im glad you pinned this as topic as i have never thought of putting it into the agreement about the client being responsible for ejected bad apples, i have always took it as read that it was the venues responsability.
A REAL EYE-OPENER!

Funnily (or not funny really) enough I had the same thing happen to me about a month ago...virtually identical in fact 'taking money for nothing' kind of thing. I pointed out I'd been setting up three hours before the gig, the music was requested by the people whose party it was, and that I'd be getting home three hours after everybody else had gone. You just can't argue with these people.

He told me he was a dj and when I asked where, he said 'in his bedroom'

The bar manager and staff were useless though...good job my roadie arrived (an ex pro boxer!)
It happens about once a year though to everybody I suppose.

I am however seriously considering not doing discos for anything other than 40th,50th and 60ths but then again you never know do you?
I certainly don't do 18ths any more...its sad really.




Mmm...can we have the exact recipe for this?
And whats the silly string/lighter trick?

Must have been something in the air this weekend!

Are you sure the guy was mid 30's and not mid 50's, left your gig and came to mine??

Asking for Hersham Boys repeatedly during the night then asking if I knew what type of party it was. Fool.

He was a mate of the birthday boy but curiously stood on his own most of the night.

Birthday boy was brilliant and a right party animal who joined in with all the action.
He loved it, the guests loved it and that's the important thing.

The same sort of thing happened to me over christmas.
Basically you did the right thing which is to stay calm and not to rise to there level as they are waiting for a reaction from you.
I used to take this personally years ago but now if it does happen which (touch wood) is very rare you need to let it go straight over your head.

Remember its just the drink talking.

Keep up the good work.

I think you handled it exceptionally well, better than I would have done.

I'm an absolute wimp, despite my size, and I would have gone to the customer after the second onslaught and told them that unless they could keep them away from me, I would have no choice but to call the police to protect me while I pack up and leave.

I think that if you feel that threatened and there are no door supervisors you should simply stop the music. Lets everyone see there is an incident.

It may sound un-pro, but if you genuinely feel the need for some assistance I think its justified.

Sorry for delay in replying just been out on my mountain bike for a bit of off road downhilling in the dark with not very good lights on the front!! That certainly took my mind off the weekends fracas! I knew i could rely on all you fellow top DJ's for words of good advice and similar stories and thanks to you all for the good comments! I feel a lot better about the whole thing now and it has now sailed firmly over my head and into the bin marked "D:cense:head"! Thanks to you all!

Bobl

Just been reading the post by Buskersball and had to laugh and wholeheartedly agree with the "Bedroom DJ"s comment. There is nothing wrong with bedroom djing, but why is it they have to come up and give abuse to a professional? All they have to please at a bedroom gig is usually just themselves or a couple of likeminded friends, not 200 plus people of varying ages. These so called "DJ'S" want to give that a try one day. They might respect us mobile jocks a hell of a lot more then. Nowadays it seems it is a trendy thing to have had a go at DJing at a very small level, (Not mobile unfortunately!) and then go round all the parties and say to everyone, "oh yes, i do a bit of deejaying yknow." Which is usually followed by one of his "admirers/sheep" saying, "Yeh, this private party sucks, go up and show that DJ what to do." (Now, i know you will all have been there on this one) "Oy mate have you got any- insert name of any obscure band you can think of here- stick some on will you, it will get everyone on the dancefloor."


Yeh.



Right.



It really does make me laugh sometimes!!

My view is that the kind of DJ they want to be is a club DJ. Cool! Wish i had of been when i was younger. Respect! But lets be fair, a club DJ is fantastic at playing a certain genre of song that the crowd have all paid to listen to. They know its going to be RNB or Dance or Trance all night and thats what they paid to listen to, the skills that the dj needs are very different from the skills a mobile jock needs. And neither is better than the other, let me make that very clear, both types of DJ need to be very good at their specific skills to be popular and succesful and give the crowd exactly what they want.

So, i just wish that before anybody comes up to give a mobile jock a hard time, just take a step back and think about it a little bit harder. You might just wanna turn round and sit down and finish your pint off and then get up and have a dance with everyone else and enjoy the night for what its meant to be .


Bob

I've been in similar situations.
Not very often, but it really does get me down for quite a while afterwards.

This is one of my pet hates, and the one thing which would make me give up the disco for good, so I now have something similar to that suggested written into my contract, and if in trouble, I'd probably do as mentioned earlier - inform the client of the problem and if it got worse I'd have to stop the show. If it came to that I'd contact the police.

I'm not sure what the police would make f this though.......

Agree 100% - we should not have to put up with this, and it's really up to us to show the public just how unacceptable it is.

Bloody public. I hate them.

I can completly understand how this experience has affected you. I must say I find it a little hard to excuse obnoxious morons by saying "maybe they've had a bad day", Its that sort of liberal attitude that allows idiots to get away with behaving like that.
Im sure youre unlikely to come across the problem again though, in 10 years of DJ'ing I only had 1 slight problem, and as others have said you handled it very well and have learnt a lot to help you if it did ever happen again.
All the best.

I had a problem like that a long, long time ago where I was Djing at an Indie night in a club. In walked the local 'hard man' (who I didn't know was the local 'hard man' at the time). He went straight on to the dancefloor and started bashing into people on purpose. The doormen were nowhere to be seen so I got out from behind the decks and walked over and said "Careful mate, there's girls dancing here"...with that, he launched a fist at me and put me on the floor. Still no sign of any doormen so when I finally got back up I gave him the same as he gave me, then a few of the regulars dragged him out just as the doormen appeared (how convenient eh!).....It got silly after that as I was told who he was, what he was like etc etc and I was bombarded with threats from his 'mates' week in week out until I decided that the best thing to do was to leave the club and work somewhere else (yes, it got that bad).

I am a firm believer in not letting anyone push me about and if someone thinks that they can stick one on me then I'm entitled to do the same.

Of course, I would NEVER do anything like that now when my business name could be affected by it. I think you did a stirling job of keeping your cool mate. It happens every now and then and you just have to laugh it off but it does make you feel uncomfortable at the time doesn't it. If it happens to me again and it looks like it is going to get out of hand, I will do the same as mentioned above and call the police and say that I am being threatened and it is going to kick off shortly. Hopefully that would do the trick.

Strange really isnt it ,bedroom dj buys gear - plays in bedroom. Mobile dj buys gear,- plays at private parties. Club dj plays his own set in a club without audience interference. All have the same experience and start at the same level. Club djs critcise mobile djs , mobile djs criticise bedroom djs. Isnt it fantastic how we all love to have someone to put down as being worse than us. And who is professional ? Is it your profession or just a hobby ?
Where problems with drunk punters are concernd it is something that has always happened and probably always will. As long as you are standing out amongst a crowd,either on a stage or behind a mic then you are going to be a target. Unfortunately thats the way it is and either your diplomatic skills or a back up doorman are the most important weapons in this kind of situation.

As already pointed out, these instances for mostly are few and far between , however if you do play some regular unsavoury venues or they are getting too frequent for your liking then consider taking up a self defence course, or even a martial art.



If you make it clear that you are being put in fear then the Police will respond. Bear in mind however that most venues have key staff who are trained to deal with such events, because it is in their interests too, as the Police log all instances where trouble is reported, and if they are called to one venue more than 'X' times in any period, then they can supply a report to the local council to oppose or restrict the license renewel

If you need the police there just call them and say there has been a "breach of her majesty's piece" They have to attend by law then...

If you are in fear for your safety there is nothing wrong with calling the police... That is what they are there for...


Nik

....I've not got past the AC DC bit yet, I am still trying to work out what swear words they represent..??
Answers on a postcard to; PO box 22, york

I had an inncident just before chrimbo. Was booked in through a local agent, who stupidly sacked the majority of his DJ's, and was left with alot of work, but no DJ's. He basically said to myself and my mate to name our price, just to get him out of the :cense:! One friday, we took on 2 booking from him, my mate did one (presentation at a bowling club) and i did the other. Unfortunately, even after numerous calls, i was unaware, until reaching the venue, that it was actually a wedding. Thankfully i had the first dance. For most of the night, the dance floor was dead until i played some 80's, which encouraged at least 2/3rds of the room to come to dance. The drunken groom stormed over "what is this F:cense:King :cense:?" he shouted with a clenched fist. I stood back and politely asked him what he would like. "Put some f:cense:king Reggae on you p:cense:k!" he shouted. So i did, only to watch the floor empty and see him chatting to his mates at the bar. After about 15mins of reggae, returned to 80's, full floor, as expected. Then groom comes over, tells me to get it off. He hands me a CD, and says to play it, and nothing else, and that he wasn't going to pay me, other than in physical abuse if i didn't play CD. So i put his CD on, chucked my CDs in the van, and went for a pint with the waitresses. He was happy, his dancefloor was empty, and i was getting payed regardless, as the venue charge for the DJ in with the venue and catering costs. So after he left, refusing payment, the landlord appologised, and payed me! thats as violent as it got really. But you do tend to get an awkward one at most jobs, just depends how far they will go!

And that's why you don't take payment on the night Mr Welshy.

i always take payment on the night, never had a problem.

Do you still accept work from the agent?

Sorry but there is no way that I would put up with that kind of behaviour. I may get lots of criticism for saying that but I am not there to take abuse off people no matter if it's the groom or not. I know it's a dodgy situation because it's his and his brides day but that does not mean that you or I should take **** off him, her or anyone.

I do find that 9 times out of 10, if someone shouts at me like that I tend to answer back which surprises them. Usually something to the words of "Excuse me, start again without the abuse or I'm not playing anything" - Usually (and I must say that it's not common for me to get abuse) they apologise, make excuses that it's been a long day and they are stressed and then offer to get me a drink etc...after that it's all ok.

At christmas in the hotel on the last christmas party I was doing (I've mentioned it before), I had 150 people that had no enthusiasm whatsoever. I tried my hardest, used all the tricks in the book etc to get them up but for at least an hour they sat there looking glum and chatted (oh, what a joy it must be to work at ************ mentioning no names)....I played the Scissor Sisters followed by Dancing Queen and no sign of movement from those 2 guaranteed floorfillers.....During the night those 2 songs were requested again and although I don't like playing the same songs twice in one set, I did and they packed the floor. Earlier on in the night (as mentioned before on another thread), I came back from the loo to see a tall guy dressed in a dinner suit looking through my cd's etc...I asked what he was after and he made comments about the background music not being that great whilst they were eating and could I change it. I was polite and replied that it was christmas music at a low level whilst the meal was being served and as the night progressed I would pick up the pace. I also said that everyone else seemed fine with it. He shook his head, mumbled something about me being a small little disco or something and went to walk away. I said "Excuse me" and calmly told him that I didn't appreciate his comments but he was entitled to them. He huffed and puffed and walked back to his table.

Later on in the evening, much to my surprise, as soon as I played Dancing Queen again, he and his friends rushed to the dancefloor. In fact, there were more guys dancing to it than women. I got on the mic and said "This is for the dancing queens on the dancefloor"...everyone laughed and the atmosphere changed to a decent party atmosphere...apart from the tall guy in the dinner suit. He came rushing over to my decks with a clenched fist (he was pretending I might add) and gave me a real evil look. I laughed on the mic, everyone else laughed with me and he went back to his silly dancing. Then I said "Excuse me sir, remember who has the mic!" and he smiled and that was that, I never had anymore rubbish off him all night.

It's NOT something I regularly do and before anyone else says it....yes, he could have turned nasty (I wish he had because he was smarmy and deserved a ****) and yes, there may have been complaints to the hotel afterwards BUT...there wasn't. In fact the feedback was great. I turned a potentially bad evening into a good one and everyone enjoyed themselves. I think that one of the main things with us and our jobs is reading the crowd and knowing when you can be a little bit cheeky etc..etc.. The guy came up to me in the end and although I guess we didn't like eachother, he said "Well done young man, that was a fantastic night" and shook my hand. He probably knew deep down that I could rip him to shreds and really embarass him if I wanted to because I had the mic and he didn't.

Good one! What a great story! Must confess you can usually tell when your audience or certain members of the audience don't mind a bit of good humoured joking. Those sort of nights almost always turn out fantastic and you feel really good when you are driving home knowing that you have just put on a top notch bit of entertainment. Nice one!

Bob

I have a simple solution for this kind of thing.


STOP the music and say over you mic, "security required on the dance floor" assuming their are bouncers avaliable.

or alternativly just stop the music and announce loudly on the mic that no further music will be played due to the abuse you are getting, and the disco will stop for good if the person in question is not removed or calms down. Then every1 else will kick off on the D:cense:khead in question.

further to the post abouts i have read regarding abusive behaviour aimed at DJ's I thought i would share a rather funny / scarry at the time thing that happened to me.

I was playing a social club 40th Bday i think, And i was playing background music and one of the songs i played was rockin robin by michael jackson. About 1min into the song a man approached me and sed "is this michael jacksonn" i sed yes and he said turn it off now (this was at the time MJ was in a bit of trouble) and i sed why, and he sed because there are children here.

I told him no i wont, hes not been proven guilty of anything yet. So the man goes "Ok fine, but if i hear anymore michale Jackson I will come over and smash all your gear down" I saw this as a great oppertunity to wind this guy up so i played, "i want you back" about 10 mins later he came storming over and again told me to turn it off or he was gonna break my gear down. i sed no so he came over to me looking very angry and i showed him i had pre dialed 999 into my mobile and he backed off and i didnt hear another thing from him all nite.

I dont generally get many people kickin off on me at gigs presumable because i am so big and tall. But im trying to lose some weght.

Maybee in future the threat of no tollerance police phone calls to trouble makers will shut them up. What do you think?

i state on my booking froms take i do not turn on any equipment until the gig has been paid in full at least 15 mins before the stated start time always works never get any probs

And this should work at every type of event?

i think you should avoid deliberately upsetting anyone if possible.if someone is offended by something like that then unless its been specifically requested by the organisers then dont play it.yes mj was proven not guilty,but by deliberately playing another song by him was inflaming the situation and could of turned nasty.there is enough good songs out there to play that another mj song could of been avoided.at the end of the day what did you gain by playing it.one very upset punter

based on some peoples comments i think that we have got all of the deejaying skills in the world on this forum, however for some, people skills which relate to how we deal with the public are a little harder to come by

Thankfully, he has not contacted me, since I turned him down over christmas twice, he rang me in the mornings, asking for a DJ for the evening, i was allready booked on both occasions. Think he has given up asking me!

Ive had a similar problem with an irrate party go'er

He requested a song we played it then evey 5 or 10 minutes he kept coming back asking for the same song.

When i said id play it later for you but not straight after ive only just played it he decided to test the ground.

He even started pushing and soforth. In the end i stopped all the music and asked him to leave. until he did so the music would stay off.

the person whos party it was thanked me for how i responded and acted in the situation and explained it was her EX BOYFRIEND who gate crashed.

Always one aint they.

In my experience it is good to be hard in many ways. What i mean by this is NOT at all to be big headed, bossy or make out like you love yourself, but firm and to the point.

A few times i'v been in a situation when a punter has come up to me and been a little bossy and demanded a record to be played NOW!, as they put it, " well we are paying you !" As always to be polite is a must! but to let them talk to you like that is not acceptable (we are human too).

In a situation like that i once said to the chap, " excuse me, but i will play the record you have requested at the appropriate time, because if i play it now it will clear the floor". and on saying this i took the mans hand and shook it with a firm grip! he then smiled and walked away happy knowing that he would get what he wanted, but also knowing that i would not bow down to him and jump at his every request.

This is why i feel it is good to be hard and firm with the croud. In an ironic sort of way if you are the croud will feel more confident too.

What do you think?

Dodgy territory, and one area we've all had to tread at some point.

Sometimes I feel it is better to palm them off with whatever excuse you can to get rid of them, such as,
"I'll try to dig it out and pop it on as soon as I can."
The persistent sods are a pain though. In these cases it's possibly better to just tell them you are sorry, but you haven't brought that track with you tonight.

If it's the client asking, I think you need to be a bit more accomodating in order to for your reputation to emerge unscathed - if they ask for a track which you have, play it and announce it as their request. Then work at recovering the floor afterwards - not usually too difficult really.

You are not there to take abuse. Quite right.
But if you provide a professional service you sometimes need professional advice from the specialists in other fields.
Don't ever confuse and mix DJ confidence, professionalism and reputation with a 'Hard-man' image and attitude.
Seek professional advice on how to be assertive, get public relations or management skill training.
DJing has a bad enough reputation perception wise. Why add another negative to that perception especially on a forum which gets Googled.
If you want to be hard then change the job and become a bouncer or a personal guard.

On saturday night, early on in the evening I had a couple of guys come up to me. They were ok at first because they were sober (ish) but about an hour later after watching them at the bar knocking back shots, one of them came over and said "Mate, Can you play something up to date 'cos this is ****!!", I replied saying that it was a retro night so probably not. He then said "But it's empty at the moment why not?" so once again I replied to him saying that it didn't matter, it was advertised as a retro night, it was MY night (I hired the place) and that I was sticking to what I was playing, which at the time was some old skool 80's dance music (Luther, Cheryl Lynn, Shannon etc..).

He walked off and then more or less turned around straight away and came back as if he had suddenly thought of a tune... "Hey, have you got Atmosphere - Dancing in outer space?" he asked... I told him that, that particular track is my favourite 'Disco' track ever and I would play it in a second for him and HE shook MY hand, apologised for the grief and walked back happily to his mate. After about 10 minutes he came back and asked where the tune was and I told him that I had trouble finding it but as soon as I did, I would put it on. 10 minutes later and I still couldn't find it (found it the next day and it was in with all my Indie stuff for some reason) so I apologised and he didn't like it and started moaning at me big time. Then his mate came over and just as they were about to start giving me extra grief, I found it on a compilation I had (I buy so many just for one tune that I may not have that I didn't even know it was on there)..."Found it mate!" I said and within seconds it was on and they were up dancing about. Straight after that I played 'Expansions' by Lonnie Liston Smith and they shouted and cheered. They danced for a little while and as more people came in I changed the style and they left the dancefloor.

After about 20 minutes they came over said "Thanks" and disappeared. I think the best way to go about abusive people is just to be honest (for starters)...sometimes I may tell the odd fib if someone is getting on my nerves and just say that I haven't got the track they want, even if I have. If they keep coming back I will just tell them that I can't find it etc etc...I'm not there to be abused, I'm there to entertain.