Booked For a Prom. A little caught up

First of all, whereabouts in the world are you? This is a multi-national forum and the word “Prom” means different things depending on where you are – for me, here in the UK, a prom means a bit of background music for a meal followed by some loud banging pop tunes interspersed with a few disco classics (S Club 7, YMCA, Macarena etc,) – in which case I wouldn’t be too worried. Everyone there is there to dance and have a good time.

I would play a variety of genre’s of music – as a general rule of thumb, try changing genre every 15 mins (even if it is subtle changes each time, it needs to be noticeable), with a few of the “Classics” – even if they haven’t mentioned any, there will be some – and keep the flow going, up, down, up, down, bpm and genre wise (IE go from a bit of club house to some deep house to drop the atmosphere a bit as well as giving the bpm’s some flow (in many ways changing genre deals with the bpm’s for you) – this gives your next drop into some louder more in-your-face music a bit more of a punch!

Having said that though, I have never actually done a Prom over here – not even my own – as I already had a date in the diar when they asked me to – but I have a fairly good idea of what one (over here at least) involves…

bob6397

Classics will vary massively depending on where you are – they tend to be older pop hits that were in the charts when their parents were their age!!

– That means (in the UK – not a clue about Canada sorry) that classics include:
Macarena
YMCA
S Club 7 – Reach
– (all the way to)

– Tracks that everyone knows the words to – maybe use a filter to cut the vocals out occasionally when they start singing? e.g Cooler Than Me – Mike Posner, Wake Me Up – Avicii, Certain Adele tracks (play remixes though!)

Newer Pop:
Uptown Funk
Gangnam Style
Cheeleader (Felix Jaehgn Remix)
See You Again (Fast & Furious 7 Theme – decent track though)

etc. What I have just said may mean absolutely nothing to you (Canada will have it’s own charts though – find the #1’s if you haven’t already) – and then stick to what they have given you with some aptly thrown in “wake up the room” tracks along the way.. You know – like sticking a rock and roll track in randomly when you are 8 hours into a chill-out set (one of the places I DJ at has a room going all the way from 7pm friday to 05:00 Monday morning with constant chill-out music – DJ’s change every hour or so) – this is great, makes everyone laugh (if placed right) and can change the feel of the room around a bit and makes everyone relax a bit..

Hope that makes sense…

bob6397

You have been given some valuable clues by the audience in advance about the kind of music they expect to hear. Now it’s up to you, the DJ, to figure out the best way to piece together these genres and pick the tracks that will make them dance.

You have stumbled upon the number one thing that makes DJs DJs and not jukeboxes, namely the ability to know “what must come next!”. This is a skill that can’t be taught, it can only be learnt by a lot of falling and getting up again, in front of a live audience.

I can give you a setlist of tracks to play that night (and I am pretty confident that I could come up with something decent after 38 years on the decks), but that might still not work for you. Firstly you are not me and DJ-ing is a highly personal skill and secondly every audience is different and even if you were to have the exact same audience a second night, the second night would be different.

Long story short, there is no one that can tell you IN ADVANCE what are the right tracks and what is the right time to play them.

As Bob said, put together small (3-4 tracks) mini-playlists in the genres you intend to play, tracks that go well together, that you know how to transition in and out of. During the night you string the mini-playlists together based on how the audience reacts. If they are going ape over genre X, add another genre X mini-playlist. If they last through a mini-playlist but you pick up a vibe that you need to change it up, move to playlist in genre Y. And if they all walk off the floor, finish the track, get on the mic, switch to something completely different. Again, there is no set recipe, if there were, machines could do this job. Furthermore bring about twice as much music as you will need, a good rule of thumb is 20 tracks per hour, so for a 5 hour gig bring 200 tracks (5*20 = 100 * 2 = 200). Don’t try to “block” the night too much, mix it up. The same genre can come by two, three or more times a night. Same with energy, don’t build up slowly to a climax with a cool down at the end. Have a few cycles of building up and cooling down. This also gives you more opportunities to switch genres (especially if you have to throw in some “specials”, like salsa, foxtrot, chachacha, rock & roll, waltzes, whatever 😀 ).

Hope this has all been helpful. Whatever you do, keep smiling, keep the party going. Accept the inevitable “failure” and embrace it as a great learning moment. Even I occasionally pick a tune that just doesn’t sit well with a crowd at that specific moment and lose the floor. It isn’t THAT you make that judgement error, it’s HOW you deal with it and move towards filling the floor again.

Break a leg.