* I LOVE to DJ and Gamelead for both Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and kids parties in general! They are such important moments in both the life of the child and the family and they are always a LOT OF FUN! Below are some of the games I have found to be sure-fire hits!
* BEAN COUNTER - This is a good game for the dinner hour. A jar is filled with Jelly Beans along with a $10 bill for added excitement and is passed around. Each person must write on a piece of paper how many beans they believe are in the jar. They then hand it to the DJ. The person who gets the closest wins the jar, beans and the ten bucks!
* SEEK and DESTROY – This is a very high energy game the kids absolutely LOVE! It is best set to Metallica “Seek and Destroy.” Players all tie a balloon to their ankle and the object is to pop other peoples balloons while protecting your own. Players must stay within arranged areas. You can spice this up by adding a freeze portion. When the music stops, all must stop.
* LIMBO – A timeless classic great for everyone young and old. Best done to the original recording by Chubby Checker, but usually requires the song to play twice through.
* LOCKOUT (also sometimes known as Huggy Bear) - Everyone is on the dance floor. Play a song (preferably fun and number-related) and have everyone dance. Yell out a number and the people must lock together into groups of that number. Anyone not in a group of that number is locked out and out of the game. The final 2 players on the floor are the winners.
* COKE AND PEPSI – Everybody forms two lines across the dance floor, 1 is called Coke and the other is called Pepsi. When one name (Coke or Pepsi) is called, that side runs to the other side and sits on the knee of their partner. Last ones there are out. You can add some spice to this game by using other names and other things to do, i.e. call out Dr. Pepper and both Lines run to the middle and high 5 each other, etc.
* FREEZE DANCE – Play an upbeat song and stop the music at unexpected places. Anybody still moving when the music stops is out.
* LIP SYNC CONTEST – Kids pick their favorite songs and lip sync to them. Picking a winner is always hard and not always needed. This is just a lot of fun!
* NAME THAT TUNE – DJ plays a song until someone shouts out the name. Winners get small, inexpensive prizes.
* CHA CHA SLIDE - This is actually a dance, not a game, but the song leads all the dancers through and calls out what to do. The DJ should be able to lead this if needed.
* And don’t forget the giveaways! Get lots of fun but inexpensive prizes from the party supply store like party hats, inflatable guitars, rings, and most importantly, GLOW NECKLACES AND BRACELETS (an absolute must!).
* AVOID ANYTHING THE KIDS WILL THROW – such as beach balls and hacky sacks because something will get broken and YOU will be the one who pays for the damages (DJ equipment such as laptop computers, mixers, microphones, etc. are several thousands of dollars, not to mention the venue’s light fixtures, art and much more.
* Just remember, you don’t need to spend a million dollars. You just need to make sure it’s a lot of fun!
WORLD’S WORST DJ! DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!
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Money is tight for everyone these days and people are looking to save money in every way they can. While it is not a bad idea to seek a deal from a good DJ whom you have thoroughly checked out especially during the off season, the old adage of “You Get What You Pay For” always rings true. Good professional DJs rarely come at a bottom-dollar rate and a bad DJ will ruin your party every time! Always remember, if someone offers you a deal that sounds too good to be true – it probably is and you should be VERY CAUTIOUS!
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I received the following email from a past client the other day. I had offered a decent deal for their Halloween party, but money was tight and they ended up going with someone who quoted them much lower than I was able to. Please read and heed!
*************************************************** Hello Neil,
I hope all is well, just a email to share something with you, we had a Halloween/Birthday party for our son this year, We skimped on cost because the boss froze all overtime for a while until a new company budget was in place. Our party was on Friday evening and the food was great the games were wonderful and the atmosphere with all the creepy bubble foggers and decor was amazing. BUT the DJ was AWFUL! Absolutely Ghetto and for myself that wants every aspect of my party to be enjoyable to the guests, I had such a horrible experience! He only played 2 songs on my Halloween playlist and had nothing kid friendly. Said yes when we initially discussed what I wanted prior. THE music was like being at a 1990’s dance club in the wrong part of town. Then later in the evening, 7 OF HIS BUDDIES showed up to hang out with him! It was a nightmare! I’d like to reserve you in advance for next year’s party. Thank you again Neil for you professionalism and second to none service.
Sincerely,
Victim of the Nightmare DJ ! *************************************************** YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
* In these economic times, everyone is looking to save money. Having your wedding during the off-season months of November, January, February and March (I skipped December because it is an in-demand month for Holiday Parties) can save you a bundle because most vendors dramatically slash their prices during this time due to it being a slow business time. There are some considerations to keep in mind though…
* Consider holding both the ceremony and reception at indoor sites. The last thing you want is for all your guests to be freezing their patooties off instead of enjoying this special time with you. Better yet, consider having the ceremony and reception at the same venue. You can often get a better package price and you and your guests won’t have to hassle with traveling in the middle of the festivities.
* For additional savings, you may wish to consider having your wedding during even lower demand periods such as early daytime (your alcohol bill will be MUCH lower) and even weeknights. The highest (and most expensive) demand time for services is Saturday night followed by Friday, Sunday, Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday (except for holiday Mondays) in that order. The lower the demand time, the better discount you can usually get from the vendor.
* Having your wedding during the off-season is also a great courtesy to your guests who must travel as both their travel and lodging costs will be much lower.
* For the flowers, choose locally grown which are in season. You may also wish to consider artificial flowers.
* If you insist on having your off-season wedding outdoors, be sure to choose a venue which has a backup indoor accommodation in case of inclement weather. This is great advice even for peak-season weddings.
* If you plan properly, your off-season wedding can be a SMASHING SUCCESS!
To make sure you get a good DJ for this year’s Halloween Bash, keep this checklist handy and avoid the rotten pumpkins!
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A GOOD HALLOWEEN DJ …
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Has all the good Halloween party songs (Thriller, Dead Man’s Party, Monster Mash, Purple People Eater, etc) * Will happily wear a costume all night!(If you find a DJ who thinks they are too cool to wear a costume, don’t waste your time! You want someone fun!)
* Will have party lights (not always a necessity, but you probably want this for a Halloween party!)
* Has spooky sound effects
* Will decorate the DJ table and speakers(as long as it is nothing which will damage them or create a safety hazard).
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And of course all the usual items you should expect when hiring ANY professional DJ…
* Professional equipment(look for pictures on their website)
* Fully insured(ask for proof of insurance before hiring)
* Experienced(How long have they been in business?) *
Professional looking website(A strong reflection of themselves and their business.)
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Positive client feedback (Do they have reviews from former clients? Can they be verified?)
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Personal conduct (Does the DJ act as though making your party a success is their absolute top priority? If not – don’t use them!)
So YOU got stuck planning the holiday party for your office this year huh? Well cheer up because your planning duties are likely to get you out of at least a few other office chores (if you work it right) and if you pull off a successful party, everyone will be raising a glass in your honor (and your boss may even raise your year-end bonus!)
* What’s The Budget? - The very first thing you must do is find out your company’s budget for the party. It is also a good idea to speak with your company’s financial head to get a run-down of how the budget was allocated in years past and what changes, if any should be made in those allocations this year. Remember to over-budget a bit for everything to have some extra for unexpected (but always inevitable) costs which will come up.
* Talk to Your Team – Speak with others in your company about holiday parties past and find out what they liked and also what has not worked. If you have a very large office, it may be more practical to do this via an email survey or by using a free online survey system such as SurveyMonkey.com .
* When - A major question to ask is WHEN to have the party so that you will get the maximum attendance and people who are there to have fun and not just because they have to be there.
* Where - At the office or at a venue? At the office is obviously less expensive, but you’ll need to consider the catering, cleanup and insurance liability concerns (especially if there will be alcohol served).
* Who – It is usually best to allow each employee to bring one guest of their choosing. This eliminates the awkwardness of terms like “significant others” especially in today’s age of romantic preferences.
* What - It is always best-advised to avoid focusing on any particular religions and instead, just celebrate the time of year and the holidays in general as offices tend to be rather diverse in cultures and religious leanings.
* Get Help - You’re a glutton for punishment if you try to do everything single-handedly. Ask for volunteers to take on various aspects of the party and DELEGATE ! DELEGATE ! DELEGATE ! Have one person in charge of food, another in charge of dealing with the venue and another in charge of of decorations and yet another in charge of activities, gifts and awards (year-end awards are often given out at the company holiday party). You’ll also need to have someone in charge of organizing the cleanup if your venue does not handle that for you. Your job will be to monitor, get reports from and guide (not micro-manage) these people when needed. Meet with them at regularly-scheduled intervals (once a week at a set day and time usually) to get progress reports and to brainstorm on plans of action in the areas that are requiring it.
* Promote – Make sure the entire company knows well in advance when and where the holiday party will be so they may make arrangements to attend, especially since many will have other activities planned with family and friends during this time of year. Make sure to add things to the announcements to get everyone looking forward to it such as a list of the activities, the type of food, the entertainment (DJ of course!) and be sure to put up some printed flyers around the office and common areas to get people talking about the event amongst themselves.
* Enjoy – When the event date comes, don’t be so busy managing it that you forget to have fun.
* HAPPY HOLIDAY PLANNING!
Whether you are raising money for a school, charity or even a political campaign, a Dance-A-Thon is a great and fun way to shake the money tree and your booty at the same time!
* WHEN: If planning a Dance-A-Thon for a school, it is usually best to plan it towards the beginning of the school year when the kids, parents, volunteers and staff are still fresh from Summer vacation and energized for the new year (and not yet overwhelmed and worn down by the demands of their scholastic obligations). If you are planning for a political fundraiser, 6 months before election time is usually good but campaigns always need money so any time during the campaign works. For charities, if your event is outdoors, try to pick a time of year with mild weather and try to avoid major gift-buying holidays because everyone is spending money in other places already.
* THE DJ: Depending on the cause, you can often get many aspects of your fundraiser donated such as the venue and possibly even decorations (and maybe even a decent discount on the food), but since dancing will be the main focus of your Dance-A-Thon, the last thing you will want to try and get for free or cheap is the DJ (although many wonderful professional DJs will offer a reasonable discount for charitable causes.) Don’t be afraid to ask about fundraising discounts, but also don’t try to get one for next to nothing because if you get a bad one, your event will be ruined.
* WHERE’S THE MONEY? – With a fundraising event, the money is usually raised from ticket sales, donations, food and drink concessions and also from additional attractions such as raffles (be sure to have one REALLY good prize to entice lots of raffle ticket sales) and silent auctions – both of which can be easily included in this sort of event. The key is to make sure you draw the most people possible to the event. Be sure to start publicizing your event at least 2 months in advance with flyers, handouts, mailouts and email invitations (most people swear by the eVite email invitation). Be sure to continually drive and push the publicity all the way up to the event!
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I have even heard of selling DJ “Shout-Outs” for a dollar each (great idea!). Theses are short messages people pay to have the DJ announce over the microphone between songs such as: “Megan wants to send a shout out to Brian who just got married! This next song is for you!” In order to encourage the Shout-Out sales, you’ll want to print up some slips of paper which say “Buy A DJ Shout Out – $1″ with To: From: and Message: and distribute them about on all the tables.
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The main thing to remember is to make sure your fundraiser is presented in such a way to where everyone will instantly recognize it as being a really fun place to be and then deliver on that promise! (or people will leave early and you won’t raise as much as you should.)
Outdoor weddings can be great, but they also come with a certain set of considerations you will need to take into account!
* Have A Plan B! - Nobody can predict the future, so be sure your site also has an indoor facility your entire gathering can move into in case bad weather should happen. Otherwise, you are taking a big gamble with your big day!
* Where’s The Juice? - Make sure there is adequate electricity within a reasonable distance of where you plan to have your DJ, lights, bartender and food preparation.
* Get Made In The Shade! – If your reception will be in a very sunny location, think about providing sun-brellas on the tables, tented areas and keep the water flowing (extra tip: ice water taps with different types of fruit such as lemons, limes, oranges, watermelon, cucumber, etc. is a low-cost way to add a classy, flavorful and refreshing way to keep everyone well hydrated.)
* It’s Potty Time! - If the facility has no bathrooms, rent a couple of decent port-a-potties with lights and hand-washing stations (please do a bit better than those nasty plastic outhouses! Yuck!).
* Light It Up! - Be sure to prepare adequate lighting if your reception will continue into the night.
* Get On The Dance Floor! - If there is not a good, solid surface to dance on, you will want to rent a dance floor from a party rental company. If the facility does not provide tables and chairs, you should be able to get all of this from the same company.
Let’s face it, life happens. Things can go wrong and Murphy’s Law states that they will always go wrong at the worst possible moment!
* You would never see an athletic team take the field with only ONE play in their book!
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A mountain climber always has another route planned out in case their first plan goes wrong!
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Web service providers have duplicates of their databases in case something goes wrong with their main system to ensure your service never gets interrupted.
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By this same token, you should NEVER hire a DJ for your special life moment without making sure they have a “PLAN B” in place should something go wrong with a major piece of their equipment (computer, speaker, microphone, etc.)
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A mobile DJ has very expensive and very sensitive equipment which is constantly being set up, packed away, loaded and transported. In fact, a very large portion of what you pay a DJ goes into maintenance, upkeep and reinvestment into equipment. An experienced DJ knows that no matter how good the equipment they have is and no matter how well they stay on top of the maintenance and upkeep, it is not a matter of IF a piece of equipment will fail, but a matter of WHEN.
* A professional DJ will be well prepared for just about any scenario which could arise. A novice DJ (or one that simply does not care about you or your special life moment) will not be prepared or will tell you that they have the best equipment, never have any failures and that plan B scenarios are simply not something you should be concerned about. You should run quickly away from any DJ who tells you this. They are either lying to you or they do not have the experience to know any better themselves.
* I’ll give you a personal example of the importance of a DJ having backup systems in place. A couple of weeks ago, I was DJ-ing a wedding and it came time for the couple’s first dance. I started to play their first dance and suddenly my laptop computer which I had NEVER had a problem with EVER BEFORE froze up and would not play their song! It couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time! But because I keep a backup drive of my entire music library ready to go which feeds into my DJ mixer entirely independent of the laptop, I was able to get the couple’s first dance song up within seconds as well as prepare the next few songs to be played while I quietly rebooted my laptop off to the side. The couple had their first dance without incident and the main dance portion of the evening got underway without a hitch and once rebooted, my laptop performed flawlessly for the rest of the evening.
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I of course ran a system repair program (on a Mac, it is called repairing the disc permissions for you techies out there) on my computer before the next event, but because I am experienced and know that anything can go wrong at any time, I have spent a great deal of time thinking through most every scenario imaginable and preparing backup plans for those scenarios down to cables, microphones, connection adapters, music libraries and speakers. I would be personally horrified if I were ever to be the cause of ruining someone’s special moment (any decent person would) so I am absolutely fanatical about being prepared! Any true professional DJ will have similar stories they can tell you. Don’t be afraid to ask about a time when something went wrong and how they handled it. You will find out a lot about the professionalism and character of the provider very quickly.
* The moral of all of this is that if it is important to you, it should be important to the person you hire, so don’t be shy about asking a few probing questions and making really sure you are getting a pro. You never get a 2nd chance at your wedding’s grand entrance or your aisle walk or your first dance! Make sure your DJ has PLAN B preparations in place and ready to go!
This is a question which comes up from time to time and the unsurety makes more than a few brides and grooms nervous about getting the right type of provider who will be able to please all the tastes and age ranges of their guests (and many a club owner nervous that they will accidentally end up with a wedding DJ used to pleasing a wide demographic and not being strong enough at pleasing their strictly 20-something hip hop crowd, techno, or deep house lounge vibe crowd).
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* CLUB DJ –
As aforementioned, the Club DJ almost always caters strictly to a very young 20-something demographic and is more of a performance artist than a professional service provider. The club DJ will have a special style of mixing and mashing songs together (mashups), will often have a very flashy look and will use skills such as scratching and needle-dropping (if using turntables) and the truly skilled and talented club DJs actually approach the level of being musicians themselves for what they bring to the table (no pun intended). If you are having a party for older teens and 20’s who like hip hop, techno and similar styles, a club-style DJ is the way to go. With this type of DJ, because their personal “spinning” style is very intregal to what they do, you will generally want to hear a mix demo. A mix demo usually only applies to club-style DJs and not Wedding DJs.
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* WEDDING DJ -
A Wedding DJ is a more of a professional service provider than a performance artist. While it is true that they should possess some of the same basic skills as a club DJ such as beat-matching for the dance portion of the reception (beat-matching is when the DJ gets the beats to match up from one song to the next for seamless transitions between songs to help the dance floor keep going), a demo mix is not usually something you would ask a Wedding DJ for. Some of the more important aspects of the Wedding DJ are their ability to coordinate with you in advance to make sure that all of your desires for your big day are going to be met, a wide selection of different styles to please a wider demographic of people which you will find at almost all weddings, punctuality, a clean professional look, courtesy to your guests, great speaking and presentation ability for your introductions and announcements and special portions of your reception, good equipment which will be presentable in your elegant setting and most importantly – INSURANCE (Many wedding venues will not even let your DJ on the property if they are uninsured. Be sure to verify your DJs insurance before hiring them. It could save you a lot of trouble later).
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The best thing to do when planning your soiree is to know what you want, have a good idea of the type of entertainment which will best please your guests and be thorough when screening DJs. Make a list of the important aspects which apply to your situation and don’t be afraid to ask all your questions. Any DJ who is not gracious enough to happily answer all your questions, is standoffish or squirmy when you ask them, does not deserve your business and you should immediately move on until you find the right provider who exudes professionalism and shows that they truly care about the most important thing of all: YOU!
A surprise party is probably one of the most difficult types of parties to plan as it requires deception, misdirection and getting many people to keep a secret at the same time! The payoff of course is the priceless look on your loved one’s face when the big moment arrives!
* As with any party, you will need to choose a venue, caterer and of course a great Dandy DJ! You will need to contact all your guests and get their sworn secrecy. If the guest of honor happens to live with you, be sure your vendors are only calling your cellphone number or even better, recruit one of your close and trusted guests who does not live with you to receive these calls as if one should call your home number and the guest of honor should receive the call, your cover will be blown and so will the surprise!
* Now comes the challenging part – You need to concoct a believable ruse to get the guest of honor to the venue and into the party room without arousing suspicion. If it is going to be a nice dress-up situation, a good deception is to tell them you are taking them out for a really nice dinner in a very upscale place requiring formal wear but you wish to briefly pop into a friend’s party on the way just to show your face. If it will be an informal gathering, just tell them you are going to someone else’s house party and they won’t think twice about pulling up to a place filled with music and laughter. If you are going to have people pop out of the woodwork in a darkened room, be sure to consider the parking because nothing will give it away faster than arriving at a place where the special guest starts recognizing all their friend’s cars!
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Once you are in and everyone yells surprise, be sure to let the guest of honor know what lengths you all had to go to in order to keep it all a secret and prepare for a night of fun and laughs – YOU EARNED IT!
