Last December, I was DJ'ing at a lovely hotel throughout the entire festive "office party" season...

As we all know, this is great fun...you set the gear up once, in the last week of November and dont break it down again until January 2nd - whoa!

But, one thing I always find, is that in December in particular, the playlist can be very "samey" from night-to-night.

I already use request slips, which I put out in advance on the tables, and invite requests by SMS on a mobile number (THIS is great for SMS-mailshots AFTER the gig, coz no-one can "hide"/"withhold" their mobile number when sending SMS)

Now, I'm happy enough that the punters are getting what they want to dance to, and I really do try and work as many of the requests into the show as possible, but Im paranoid(?) that the hotel staff must get sick of "virtually" the same requests each night. Obviously the DJ "loyalty" isnt to the staff (althought they'rrrrre great - like "frosties"), its to the paying punters, but it did lead me to wonder how everyone else varies their playlists, in similar situations.

Any idea's?

I have the very same problem at the club I D.J at every fortnight. Even though each Saturday night is split shared between us and another D.J, you get into the same routine and you can automatically guess which track will follow the previous one!.

At least with a function room you have different people there for each function, as a resident, you are assured that 80% of the punters are regulars so it gets more difficult to find new material.

Even though, I find that some tracks which will fill the floor one week, may not work the next time you do a set. Its a funny old world!.

Last december I thought this as well - will the staff think I only have a few CDs? Then in January I was back to do a gig at the same place for an bunch of students who were into heavy metal etc. Several members of staff commented that they preferred my 'normal' music - that same night I got the staff 'do' booking for February plus this December as well so they musta liked what I played at Christmas!
I also try to play the odd request for staff on these block bookings and it's nice to see the way their attitude towards you changes from the first gig to the last

At the end of the day guys, we play music that has tremendous mass appeal, that's kylie, robbie, all the commercial dancey tunes and hey sod it, even the cheeky girls too. I forget the amount of times i've played the Macarena, hell I know all the dances and all of the words to it as well (there's not that many upon reflection)

It is very hard to get 'samey' and it's an easy trap to fall into. More often than not if you try to avoid playing a track that you've played for the last 3 or 4 weeks on the trot, you'll get asked for it anyway, maybe adjust how you mix into it or introduce it or whatever.

Xmas tunes are great because you can drop them in wherever you like at an office party, mix it with robbie and kylie and you're onto a winner.

It's hard to break out of the 'samey' system, there are no hard and fast ways of doing it, slight variation however is the key, don't mix out of 'you're a superstar' into 'superstar' by The Ones or whatever, the crowd will be 'expecting' the next tune but you play something different, complete variation works well, slight variation get's you out of the s##t