As is the lott for many, if not all audience-focused DJs, I pro-actively invite and welcome requests from the audience.

Some requests are obvious, tried and tested floor fillers, others are great tunes but difficult to dance to, others are tunes more suited for listening to in the car on the way home etc etc.

A few months ago, I thought that I noticed a trend starting with certain types of request...once I had that thought, I started paying close attention to the dancefloor reactions and Im now able to comment on the whole thing....

Here goes...Beware of requests with the word "Any" in them!!!

Eg: Any rock, anything by such and such group, anything from the film...any blah blah artist.

These requests, when honoured, seem to clear the floor, even when due thought and consideration has been applied as to 'which' "any" to play.

Also, you face the possibilty of playing "any" track of the type/genre/artist suggested and effectively wasting 4 minutes as the guy/gal comes up later and says..."oh, I was thinking more along the lines of..." and invariably doesnt dance to that either.

I think that some such requests are from punters "Loyal" to their era, fav artist, fav genre etc and simply want to tap their fingers on the rim of their glass in time to "their fav" rather than having any inkling to dance to it.

I've started "catching" these requestors and urging them to narrow down their ambiguous requirements, either by texting them back, or nabbing them as they hand the request slip in, which is yielding far better results.

Am I right to give these "any..." requests a lower priority during shorter, time-restricted gigs, where every track has to count for the majority of those in attendance?

Thats called experience mate, know excatelt what you mean

Certainly in my club work , any requests HAVE to be suitable for the majority of my punters or i am fighting to get my dancefloor back. Any ANY requests tend to be played very early or not at all. I make an effort to tell people who ask for requests either how long it is until i will play the song or i say sorry it doesnt really fit with what we are doing here and i am sorry, i wont be able to play it

This post made me laugh, I've so many experiences like that, I normally think 'there's no way that will fit in at this point of the night', I normally say too the person, 'yep, I think I've got that track, I havn't played it for a while, If I find it I'll pop it on' (with a hype in my voice ), I never seem too find it, for some reason (wink wink).

I don't wholly agree with this - I accept that if they put ANY they may not really care/have a clue but it could also be the case that they like everything by that artist and are leaving it to you to make a judgement on which track will go down best.

On Sat night I had 4 'ANYs' for the Bee Gees, Abba, Madness and Bob Marley so I choose popular tracks which kept the dancefloor busy and they still got their names mentioned (people like that).

In fact I welcome some 'ANYs' during the night as it leaves the final choice to me or I can combine 2 requests into one song.

Similarly if they just ask for a genre or even if it's along the lines of 'Play something old/modern' this is easily accomodated although not always with what they expected but then they'll be back and be more specific.

The ones that do require further questions or a crystal ball are 'Play something we can dance to/something we like/anything but this'

Paul Snr

I stopped leaving request slips on tables because of reasons exactly like this. You'd have a request for the party boy from his mates on Table 5 which, on the surface at least, is fine. You announce the request, start the track and table 5 erupts in fits of laughter.

Party boy makes his way over to you looking quite upset.

Turns out you've just played a track that was his and his ex-fiancees "song". Current girlfriend has stormed out.

Time wasters and pranksters are less likely to approach the console to make such a request and, if they do, you get a hunch because they'd be sniggering.

It also annoyed me when my request slips were being used as aeroplanes, litter-bombs, drawing pads, etc.

As I've mentioned before, walk the floor and talk to the guests. Ask them what they want to hear. This works on so many levels I'm amazed mobile DJ's don't do it at every function. It breaks down the barriers, you get a list of songs to play, party-goers get to see what songs other party-goers have requested - which creates banter - your night goes quicker and they remember you. You also get to play songs which you may never have played.

If you get any "any song by..." requests then ask them can they be more specific.

18yr old stunner:
"Can you play something by Michael Jackson please?"

Me:
"Certainly, what would you like? Something with his brothers from the 60's or 70's or perhaps one of his 80's albums. I usually play Billie Jean"


18yr old stunner:
"Oooh, that'd be great!"

Me:
"Is your mum single?"

Gathering requests by any means is advantagous to the night - I used to do a "tour of the tables" to gather requests at the beginning of the night, when it was easy to do so, but found that some people would then expect the same service all night long - it even turned to critisism with some people eg: "We waited and waited for you, but you only came around the once..." This comment of course being made one minute after the disco finished, when it was too late to do anything about it. Also blank expressions from some punters "on the spot" who couldnt think of anything there and then, who'd ask me to "come back later" - difficult once the nights in full swing, which could easily be viewed as a broken promise.

I still occasionally do a "table tour" especially for the older crowds eg: 40th birthdays and beyond, but usually I announce this on the mic several minutes before I do it, and say that its for me to collect completed request slips. I keep some paper and a pen handy for those verbal requests for music, which I get told about as I go around.

Some trick requests eg: for "in-jokes" or "cliché requesting" are easier to spot than others. eg: You'd be lucky to spot a "Wound openner" such as "ex-girlfriends favorite record" whether it was sent by text, request slip, or requested face-to-face by a poker-faced, oscar-winning prankster - whereas "please play -Like a virgin- for the bride" isnt worth wasting 4 minutes playtime on, for 10 seconds of giggling from the brides "mates".

I am in the process of re-designing my request slips - they currently have space for a person to write 3 requests in - this of course equates to about 12 minutes of music per request slip...heres the maths bit... 5 request slips is about one hours worth of music - 25 request slips completed and handed back is the whole nights music time "selected" (subject to my own reading of the audience etc, etc) and potentially only 25 people in the room have had any input into the night.

I'm planning therefore to either re-word the request slips to say something like "Ask those around you what they'd like to dance to too" (it currently says, what would you like to dance to?)... this I think will get people talking more...and more importantly, they'll be talking about music and all good things related. Alternatively, I'll keep the request slips worded the same way, but only have 2 spaces for requests, thereby each full request slip is worth 8 minutes of the night, therefore about 8 request slips per hour, and 40 people in the room have inputed.

All part of the fun...

The only sin is ignoring all requests totally.

Hi Gary,

This is a good point with groups that aren’t obvious party/disco music. I had a request on Saturday that was for "any Muse" at an 18th birthday that the majority wanted R&B/Hip Hop all night.

I chose "Plug In Baby" out of a little "rock" type set of Green Day/Blink 182/etc. The dance floor halved, as expected - but then I try to play something for everyone. But I was lucky - as you point out, they could have come back up and said I don't like "Plug In Baby" and was thinking more of...... whilst the dance floor emptied completely.

So it is certainly best to get them to be more specific. After reading this thread I will do that every time, however...

Ben has a great approach of steering the requester to the more popular tracks:

Why ask about the mum Richard, there are ways of finding these things out, especially over the breakfast table.

I do hope you mean whilst having breakfast Ads.

You could always add a line for them to add their name. It might stop them from requesting crap records if they fear their name may be announced.

On the other had it fuels people with the opportunityto fill in "Mickey Mouse" and "Phill McCrackin"