x

Last night's gig

Home 2023 › Forums › The DJ Booth › Last night's gig

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • August 13, 2012 at 1:04 am #1009602
    Todd Oddity
    Participant

    Unfortunately, you can’t keep it from happening. Sometimes customers are just rowdy. My crowd on Saturday was insisting on throwing their drinks in the air every time the songs changed and rushing the stage and knocking things over, etc. They weren’t aggressive or fighting, they were just rowdy. Security dealt with it as best they could.

    As for people actually coming up to me… Well, nobody touches my gear. Period. Here are some of my stock replies…

    Q:”Can I look through your library?” A:”No, sorry, not during a show.” Q:”Can I try dj’ing?” A:”Sure, here’s my card. Shoot off a text to me and we can set something up.” Q:”Can you play this?” A:”No, sorry, I just played it.” Q:”Can you play it again?” A:”No, sorry, we don’t play songs twice here.” Q:”Come on, nobody will notice.” A:”Sorry, can’t do it, make sure you get here a little earlier next week!”

    All of my replies are super friendly, but firm, so it cuts down on needless pushing for something they aren’t going to get. And of course, if a customer gets out of line, security promptly removes them.

    Hope that helps!

    August 13, 2012 at 7:07 am #1009608
    Terry_42
    Keymaster

    Stay polite. But I NEVER take requests in clubs. (Weddings are a totally different story.)
    However even if at a wedding NOBODY will touch my laptop and browse or things like that.
    Todd’s replys are pretty much what comes to mind.
    Also never fall for the “play this song or I go home”…. well go home then.
    “If you play this song, everybody will dance!” …. the floor is packed already so what is your point?
    “Can I humm the song to you?” …. no that is what SoundHog is for, if you do not have a smartphone with it…. get one.
    “You know that one song that you know…” … well obviously I do not know and do not care.
    ….. we heard them all. Try to be as polite as you can, but apart from that be consequent on do not give in.

    August 13, 2012 at 9:11 am #1009617
    madman
    Participant

    Thanks Todd and Terry for the advice. I’ll try the suggestions next time a person with an annoying request comes up to me.

    August 13, 2012 at 1:57 pm #1009626
    Todd Oddity
    Participant

    Oh, I almost forgot… I have a pretty simple policy – I will always TAKE requests. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll PLAY them next, soon, or at all for that matter. My reply is always the same thing: “I’ll try to squeeze that in for you tonight.”

    Taking them helps get a sense for what crowd I have (not to mention if there is new music that I have missed), but most importantly, it helps me get to actually know people so they feel connected to me and want to come back and visit more. It works too – my customers love me. They keep in touch years after they stop coming out to clubs. They credit me with meeting their spouses. I get invited to their weddings. Hell, I’ve been invited to the hospital to be one of the first people to meet the new babies!

    August 13, 2012 at 2:16 pm #1009628
    madman
    Participant

    Todd Oddity, post: 25801, member: 1042 wrote: Oh, I almost forgot… I have a pretty simple policy – I will always TAKE requests. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll PLAY them next, soon, or at all for that matter. My reply is always the same thing: “I’ll try to squeeze that in for you tonight.”

    I often do that as well, but then some people see it as a promise and will come back demanding I keep my end to a promise that I actually never made, I just said I’d try playing it. However, other people are more friendly and accept it if I say a simple “no”. Every person has a different level of being able to accept that I don’t have their song/it doesn’t match with the vibe on the dancefloor.

    August 13, 2012 at 3:57 pm #1009636
    Nicko D.
    Member

    One of my worse stories is from when I was DJ’ing in Greece. First a little background:

    In Greece military service is not volunteer like here in the States. You simply get drafted when you turn 18 unless you have a pass from a major Greek university. So everyone is dreading getting in to do their 18 months but (most importantly) looks forward to getting out.

    So up to my booth strolls this one drunk dude. He manages to explain that he is finally done with his military service and he is getting ready to go home in a couple of weeks. After a bunch of “cheers mate!” (or “yassou!” in Greek) I play for him a rather popular song at the time that we used to play when we had military members in the club that were about to go home. Everyone was happy and I moved on with my set.

    About 15 minutes later he comes up to me and asks for the song again. I politely decline. After 5 minutes he comes up with a drink that he bought for me (or whatever was left in the glass since his balance was not the greatest at the time) and asks for the song. I decline again stating club policy. After 10 minutes he comes back and asks for the song but this time you can tell he is going into drunk rage. I say “let me play some more songs and I’ll try to get to it” to keep the peace. That worked for another 20 minutes.

    At that point he comes up to my booth, grabs one of the club’s ashtrays, and swings it at me. Thankfully I was able to dodge it and it smashed behind me. Security was on him so fast that but the time I recovered from ducking out of the way I saw him half way across the club as he was being dragged by the bouncers.

    The kicker: The club called the military police that came and picked him up. His punishment, as I learned later, was 9 months in jail. If you are in the military that means you serve at the same camp you are posted for your jail term and then also your remaining time. So his two weeks essentially became 9 months and 2 weeks all because he wanted to listen to a stupid song over and over again.

    It still amazes me how many people don’t understand the different between a DJ and their iPods (or Discman at the time this story took place).

    August 13, 2012 at 9:43 pm #1009668
    madman
    Participant

    wow, impressive story Nicko D. The only problem for me is that this bar I play at isn’t that big and therefore doesn’t have that much security, there’s one muscle outside, and inside it’s just two friends of the manager who usually sit at the bar, but from the bar you can’t really see the dj booth, so my concern is that by the time someone comes to stop such a drunk maniac, my equipment is already damaged or I got knocked out.

    August 13, 2012 at 9:56 pm #1009669
    Nicko D.
    Member

    How about this? Get the bar owner to get you guys radios. Basically the ones you see sold at Walmart for campers etc. I saw a pair that had a squelch button on them. If you are finding yourself running out of diplomatic options simply reach underneath the shelf and press that and the outside bouncer should come running. Just an idea.

    August 14, 2012 at 6:59 pm #1009709
    madman
    Participant

    Yeah that could be an idea. I’ll bring it up with the manager, thanks.

    August 15, 2012 at 6:39 pm #25795
    Hee Won Jung
    Participant

    Ill be totally honest…as most of you on here know…i can tend to be a dick from time to time 😀 😀 😀

    http://www.picshag.com/no-requests.html

    With that said…this translates into my shows…I am a Club DJ…and no i dont take requests…no dont even ask, and no dont even try to come near my DJ booth, unless u have really nice boobies…ill listen to your request…but i probably wont play it.

    No one should ever be stepping into your DJ booth without your consent…PERIOD! Do not let punters touch your equipment EVER…they have no idea how much it costs and have no idea what the hell any of it does…so they have no right to be anywhere near your DJ booth.

    Being friendly doesnt mean getting walked on…this is your job what you do to get paid, you dont go up to a server and say hey your serving wrong you should do it this way…they have no right to ask you of the same thing.

    There are 2 different CLUB environments…first the EDM club…most punters know better than to ask an EDM DJ for a request…for a TOP40/Urban club DJ its a little different as they are usually playing radio hits and will get asked for songs frequently.

    In Direct Response to the OP…we had a similar situtation the other week where this dumb ass kept on trying to DJ on our equipment, he kept stepping into the booth and at one point he even tried to push the DJ playing away from the decks…It is unfortunate to say but the bouncer ended up grabbing him in a choke hold and dragged him outside…

    Moral of the story i guess is you are dealing with drunk people…and well they do stupid shit.

    August 16, 2012 at 6:27 am #1009762
    Terry_42
    Keymaster

    That is why I like clubs where the booth is not easily accessible…

    August 31, 2012 at 7:43 pm #1011304
    Phil Morse
    Keymaster

    Try these articles:

    http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2010/06/how-to-deal-with-unwanted-people-in-the-dj-booth/
    http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/03/dealing-with-dj-requests/

    August 31, 2012 at 9:59 pm #1011313
    madman
    Participant

    Phil Morse, post: 27644, member: 2 wrote: Try these articles:

    http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2010/06/how-to-deal-with-unwanted-people-in-the-dj-booth/
    http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/03/dealing-with-dj-requests/

    haha I recognised all of the request stereotypes, it’s a worldwide problem

    September 9, 2012 at 5:58 am #1011889
    Marcel
    Participant

    Did you have the “standing-in-front-of-DJ-Booth-staring-at-you-guy”??
    Last night i played with my controller and for at least 15min there was a guy standing right in front of me,
    just staring at me and my gear (while the party was bouncing in the background). Was a bit creepy —
    greetings from china 😉

    September 17, 2012 at 2:36 pm #1012254
    madman
    Participant

    Last Saturday I was DJ’ing again and I was fearing the worst because the boss was on a holiday. However, he asked 4 guys to keep an eye out. They were checking up on me all the time if I needed a drink or anything and every time someone came to talk they’d ask if they were annoying me / touching my gear. It made me feel very safe and comfortable, and I had a great night rocking my new NS6.

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • The forum ‘The DJ Booth’ is closed to new topics and replies.