How do you read a crowd ?

+1 Vintage.

Bars, especially depending on the type of bar, are tricky. To start, you’re probably the only DJ that night, so you have to be cognizant of the mood of every part of the night. You want to think of your gig as multiple sets based on time of the night. Second, most people don’t specifically go to a bar to dance and if they do it might be coincidental because they hear a specific tune they just can’t resist. But generally if people want to dance, they go to a club or a place more DJ/music focused. Which is why Vintage’s advice was spot on: the best advice is to control the energy of the night and to determine the natural “drink breaks” yourself. Unless you’re a big act, the bar/club isn’t making money off your music (aka selling tickets or charging a big cover just to get in). They need to sell drinks, so it’s important to dictate the ebb and flow on the micro level (your mini sets) and macro level (the entire night). When you play a big track, ride that energy with lesser tracks (but still good) until you see the crowd is just asking for a reason to come back to the floor or if they just need another boost, and then play another huge track.

My tip is not to force the issue because you can kill the whole night. A bar is a meeting place for friends often times. What you want to do to is keep the people there by making sure they dig the mood and are having fun–enough that they tell their friends who are out on the town to come to your spot and not the other way around! I think we all know this from experience from the other side of the booth. How many times have we left a place to go to another “cooler” or “more fun” spot to be with our friends?

Hello! One tip to improve your ability in a safe environment: read the crowd from within it. Going to shows not only offers entertainment and ideas (good or bad) from watching the performer, but a means to exercise your ‘crowd intuition’ from the comfort of the audience perspective.

I recently went to an event that had 15+ performers, one after another on a single stage. Two DJs played for over 45 minutes, having the best time, but never once looking up to see no one dancing. They played straight EDM to a very clearly hip hop crowd–a crowd that went wild when they played one hip hop track, and who immediately went dead when they brought back the electronic for the rest of the set. Had they felt the energy in the room, or just simply looked up, they could’ve adjusted a bit towards what the crowd wanted. It was a complete disconnect. They were ushered off the stage for playing too long and had to stop mid track. Even if you attempt to read the crowd, successful or not, the crowd will usually notice and appreciate you.
Just awareness of what type of event you’re in for can do wonders for set preparation, even though this will likely change once performing, you’ll have an idea of who you’re performing with and the general demographic that turns up for these kind of gigs. You can practice when you attend events by noticing other crowd members’ body language, facial expressions, etc and figure out what you’d do musically the same or different. I hope this helps!

Not that we care what other people think, but this is why people make fun of a lot of DJs nowadays…

Back in the good ol’ days, the DJ was just one aspect of the party. DJ booths were often off in the corner or to the side so the DJ could just be a silent observer (doing his job reading the crowd). People wouldn’t even recognize a lot of those DJs if you passed them on the street. There were no elevated platforms or stages.

I’ve heard ridiculous things from younger DJs like “I HATE HIP HOP”. Hip-hop and DJ history and culture are intimately tied together. (yet they aren’t one and the same, obviously, since there are DJs of all sorts of genres) The ironic thing about that hip-hop crowd those DJs didn’t really play for is that a hip-hop crowd actually knows how to dance and not just all face the stage jumping up and down, drugged out, waiting only for drops. DJing used to be about grooves and flow, which is why a lot of old school DJs put a lot of emphasis on beatmatching and programming, and they aren’t wrong to do so. The party was about the guests having a good time. A lot of DJs now are just trying to fulfill some egotistical fantasy of playing to a huge crowd with pyrotechnics and lasers, the crowd of groupies. They think the party is all about them. Even some of the DJs that have supposedly made it and play to huge crowds–tens of thousands–I’ve heard play some of the flattest sets, sets with no flow to them. Maybe at that point it doesn’t even matter. But my point is that DJ culture has been perverted and corrupted. Let’s get back to what DJing is all about–rocking the party by ANY means necessary. Maybe you rocked one party and everyone loved it, but if you can’t adapt and fix a dead crowd you probably aren’t a good DJ. You can rock on an iphone or 1200s, 4 channels or 2, sync or no sync–just rock the f’in party.

That all being said, yes I am a house DJ, but you have to learn the history of your craft and you have to get in tune with the mission statement of ALL DJs–rocking the party by ANY means necessary. Until people are paying money specifically to see you, then you are at the mercy of the dancefloor/audience.

For all the years I’ve DJed, I still am unsure if I can really read a crowd or not.

My experiences have been if I CONNECTED or not. Sometimes it seems like the crowd can’t feel me and I can’t vibe with then, and others we’re in sync and suddenly everything is just magical.

I try to read and sometimes I read correctly, but other times I simply take chances or move from “safe” to “experimental” depending on how things go.

As others alluded to, sometimes it’s not a dancing crowd. Maybe they just want drinks and social time, but love the background you made for them.

lol.. Where I play, people take their own breaks – and I don’t work for the venue, I work for a company who hire out the venue. So if I can keep people on the floor all night long, I will 🙂

And you may have misunderstood me.. With a room with 35 people in it, I can expect 30 to be on the floor at any one time.. In a room with 200, I would expect around 150-180 to be on the floor… 🙂

People attend the nights I DJ at with the intention of dancing.. If they don’t dance, I have failed.. 🙂 If I was playing for a venue (Eg in a club), then I would take a different approach..

bob6397

Great thread!!! +1 to what has been said. May I add two comments?

(1) On the issue of developing a connection with the crowd, as D-Jam and others expertly say, I try to make eye contact with some of them (though not in a creepy way, of course) to convey a sense that I’m having fun and I hope they’re having fun, too, even if they’re not dancing. I do a lot of events where dancing as such is not part of the program, but I usually (though not always) get people to dance after a while if I’m with them. Some will eventually nod at you for playing some kind of song or another, for example, so take those cues.

(2) OK, so this might sound a bit sexist, but one of the most useful pieces of advice I got from Phil when I began to watch his courses here a few years back is this: pay special attention to the women. 98% percent of time (except for Latino crowds) it will be women who will start moving their feet and eventually dance, and a lot of the time with another woman or two (regardless of whether they are straight or gay because even straight women love to dance with other women). In my experience (like I said, except for Latino crowds), 98% of the time guys will not start dancing unless women start first or their dates pulls them into dancing. So, yes, connection is important, but, above all, connect first of all with the women.

😉