Is it the DJ?
The Guests?
The Organiser?
The Venue?
The Location?
The Event?
Other?

Your thoughts please.

Nik

If we judge a good party by a happy crowd, dancing all night then;

In my order;
Guests
Organiser
DJ
Event
Venue
Location

In my mind, guests are paramount to a good party. Get a bunch of people who just want to drink/chat, and its hard work.

The organiser also plays a large part, invisting the right people and also enjoying themselves. If its your birthday/wedding and you're chatting outside - its also hard work.

The DJ comes next (IMO), they need to meet the expectaction of the guests.. To Abba or not To Abba?!

The event is less important (in creating a great party).

I also put less emthatsis on Venue or Location. Of course, a nice venue and location is great, but I don't think it would make a great party - just good photos!

Im going to select "Other"
Which means make sure the party has lots of booze


But seriously i think the most importaint thing is the Guests
there dont have to be able to dance all night but just be a nice friendly happy lot that are up for a nice night

Any other opinions?

Nik - how about you as topic starter?

I don't know.... I always say you can offer an audience the opportunity to have a good time but it is whether they take up that offer. Another saying I remember is you are only as good as your audience will allow you to be.

I like you all have good nights, ok nights, excellent nights and yes bad nights. I used to beat myself up over this but when most of my nights are good to excellent I wonder now if the variables are much more than a good DJ.

From the posts so far it actually seems that DJs them selves put our interaction in the events quite low. Does this mean that clients are right to look for the cheapest most basic service as all the other variables out way any perceived benefit a DJ might add?

Nik

I've seen you post this before, and its absolutely true.

On the question of hirnig a basic service, I really think this varies with the type of party, venue, and budget.

Any service has to be "fit for purpose", and so needs to turn up, play music, have flashing lights. We all know some guys simply offer that - a mobile number and "sure, I'll be there" as the confirmation.


On that basic service, comes service based extras - so meetings, paperwork, regular contact, and possibly back-up equipment.
This will have to add a extra costs to the disco due to the time required/expense to supply them.
If clients have no value in this, they will book a "no frills" DJ.


A bride getting married in a typical wedding venue would expect more than a DJ who turns up and plays music (so no meetings, paperwork etc)

We then add better gear - so better speakers (better quality), better presentation (starcloth/booth rather than use a supplied table), and lighting to suit (so perhaps DMX or Master/Slave)

This is a harder sell, for many, its hard to sell 20Hz - 20Khz 450WRMS sound systems to mainly uninterested clients. A nice picture normally works best :-)

So.. going back to "no frils" as a starter, the only common point is "us" as DJ's and Business owners.
Stick a good DJ behind a "no frils" disco set-up, and the gear shouldn't really matter, the experience and knowledge to play the right songs for the crowd will pull you though and make a good party for the client and guests.

With that in mind, you could still operate as a DJ who takes bookings via mobile and does not issue paperwork, but your market would probably be limited to people to put no value on a professionally run outfit who offers paperwork, face to face meetings etc.

The gear is less important than we think. It has to be suitable for what we're doing, and able to fit visually in with the venues we're playing - so community center kids party would probably not jusitft the Bose L1s, and a nice Wedding Venue would not really work with a paid of bashed up Maplin speakers.


I do think clients look for value, but depending on the event, will place higher value on good service.
We generally offer face-to-face meetings for adult parties and weddings. For a £120-£150 kids party, its simply not cost effective to travel and meet someone (but I have done this for a very local client).


The worry is, that gear is getting cheaper, websites are also getting cheaper, and its easy to create a good impression without the service to back it up.
So any "cowboys" could appear to be good value, but contine to be happy to let people down.


Just signing off..
We had an engagement a while ago. It promised to be a great night, but not many dancers until the last hr. Most guests were at the bar. We got lots of thanks at the end, and a call from the client in the morning (he was nursing a sore head!), thanking us for a great night.
We left the venue dissapointined, we'd played some cracking tunes, but had a difficult time.
The call cheered me up no-end, but we're not always lucky to get those.