What's your trick for getting people to dance?

I usually just throw on a remix of a popular song. It gets people on the floor but stays in my genre of music so when I mix out of it, it isn’t that jarring. Recently I’ve been using a Hypercrush remix of Goyte – Somebody I use to know or a remix of Psy – Gentleman but really, as long as people know it, it works (I’ve used Katy Perry, The Wanted, The Killers, U2, etc). It always works to bring people on the floor and then I keep the energy high for a few more songs and the floor stays packed.

Since the Free the Universe album dropped, Major Lazer’s Watch out for this (bumaye) hasn’t failed to get people up and dancing, wether I’m doing the peak time set at my underground bass culture monthly or playing old school, funk, soul with an electronic edge at some of the lounge gigs I do.

That being said, timing is everything. Moombathon can go either way, sometimes it’s perfect for giving the dancefloor a break from 140bpm dancing. Sometimes, it clears the dance floor.

Another “trick” I use is bringing a hype man with me. My MC is great, he’ll freestyle to the beats and do crowd interaction. Sometimes, I’ll cut the music and let him hype the crowd up a bit before dropping a track with a much higher tempo/energy level and it makes the crowd go wild. I play in a hip hop, reggae or D&B style though where it’s normal for the music to stop or for tracks to be ‘pulled up’ (restarted) during the set.

Yeah, great re-read. Quite frankly what I do is pay them!

It sure helps to have a good daytime job though :-).

Greetinx,
C.

What I did, which was cheesy but effective, was this.

A month ago I played at a charity function. I knew I wanted to get as many people dancing as possible (obviously) so everyone would remember it as a great night. The audience were mainly 35-50 yrs old and many lived in my town so I was a bit nervous about screwing up.

I got my stepson to knock up a Calvin Harris minimix of his most popular songs knowing that this would get all the ladies on the floor, which it duly did. When it finished I picked up the mic asking everyone to show their appreciation to my stepson for his brilliant mix.

Then the masterstroke.

I knew that the men wouldn’t dance unless more drink had been consumed (this is England, it may be true of other countries). I then asked all the ladies to get the love of their life (or their husband) and bring him back to the dance floor. I explained I was going to revive a dance that had fallen by the wayside over the years.

I suddenly found myself walking and talking in the middle of the room and was worried that this was going to backfire and nobody would join in. Everyone was asking me what was going on and even my wife thought that I’d lost my mind. However the ladies had got their partners on the dance floor so we were able to begin.

I then gave my stepson the nod and True by Spandau Ballet (I told you it was cheesy) came out of the speakers. There was a mix of laughs and groans but now I had more than doubled the crowd on the dance floor. I was dancing with my wife and gave my stepson the nod and we swapped places. I played the next track, a rocker (Reef, Place Your Hands) which went down well and the rest of my set kept everyone on the dance floor.

I guess it worked because no one is expecting a slow song in the middle of the evening but because partners were brought together it got the party going quicker.

Chuck van Eekelen, post: 41414, member: 2756 wrote: L
Line dance? Seriously? Not in Holland it doesn’t, lol.

Greetinx,
C.

Heh, after moving to the states one of the first clubs I went to had people line dancing in cowboy hats and boots. Coming from the club scene in europe, that was the worst cultural shock I’ve ever experienced 😀

well after moving to a country where almost NOBODY dances to anything i play i just dont bother, instead i play what i like, however if i had to choose then anything thats a bit tropical/latin in flavour usually does the trick.

One of the best tricks I have seen is taking a really popular song and teasing it, but not playing it. I saw a four hour set in Knoxville in 2000 and every time people would start to walk off the floor, he would play one or two bars of “Sandstorm” and all the kiddies would come running back, but then he wouldn’t play it. At the end of the night he finally played it and the place went crazy.

Wait for them to get drunk… Lol just joking, teasing them with a song is one way, you got to make them work for it if they aren’t dancing. Hyping up the crowd is another.