Weekend 3 - 5 December 2010

[Raymilkybarkid 0]

Well Friday & Saturday Christmas Party's at the same venue but different locations on site.

 

Fridays party should be fun as I am working with a 5 piece band..lets hope there is enough space.

 

Remember be careful on the roads

 

Tis the season to be Jolly so Don't Drink and DrIvE

 

[wizard 0]

Nothing for me this weekend ....except Christmas shopping started my run of Christmas parties in London which went extremely well considering it was only 1st December, very nice venue in London with 5 large projection screens and 8 moving heads around the room, the next lot of parties starts there next wednesday.

2 of the projection screens were displaying pictures we took throughout the night which went down very well. I was a bit warm standing underneath that roaring log fire tho

 

http://www.sonicdisco.co.uk/IMG_2174.JPG

Edited December 3, 2010 by wizard

[spinner 0]

Wedding at Harlton, near Cambridge.

[gadget 0]

Had first Christmas party also on Wednesday evening (1st).

 

Was for a Fitness instructor and her instructees... 80 women and about 4 men...!

 

Started off really well with background music, left the datamoons on slow rotate (with irritating 100ms stop - damned you freestyler!), and aimed the dmx scanners at the celing to give a bit of light so people could see a bit what they were eating :)

 

The buffet I have to say was just, well brilliant - it puts some wedding buffets to shame - I've never seen so many prawns, gammon ham, turkey breast type platters, etc (not your usual buffet). They'd gone to great lengths in all areas - including the desserts - including a swan made with strawberries, waffles and cream (I wish I'd taken a photo of them now!).

 

Got off to a good start music wise though after being given the signal to get things off. - People came to the floor from the start and was prety busy most of the night.....

 

All was going well until about 10.30pm when the village had a brief power cut (transformer tripped) - the village hall has its own generator wired in somehow which then kicked in.

 

At first I thought the amp had blown (arrgh!), so had a slight panic. Sound came back on though after the generator had kicked in (thank goodness!), however no lights were working whatsoever - one datamoon got stuck in a "dim" brightness - I thought freestyler had crashed on laptop - so restarted - Nothing. All my rig lights had failed... (all 250w halogen fixtures). Fans were on (or seemd to be). Dammit! Couldn't work out what had happened (I had no idea at this point that we were on a backup generator, and just assumed it was a mild power dip/brownout), as emergency lights had also switched on at this point. My CD player wouldn't eject the client's CD (more on this later below).

 

Had two LED Par cans I had in the back so got these out, shoved them on top of the speakers and crudely wired them sound-to-light to give at least some flashingness above the guests heads.. (aimed at ceiling).

 

Venue manager came over and apologised that the Hall had been switched to generator, and unfortunately the voltage was low. (At the end of the night I measured this to be about 160 or so volts!), and to try to keep the current drain low as possible - so that meant no overhead lights (they werent working anyway )

 

Carried on the rest of the night, with frequent dips in sound - as if you were turning off an amp as the capacitors deplete, Mixer VU meters had dimmed and all the beat lights were flashing when they shouldn't have been). Somehow managed to keep a full dancefloor - At the requested time - the girls did an Aerobics Routine to Benni Benassi - Satisfaction. Unfortunately CD player didnt have enough power to it - so client's CD stuck in drawer - and flashing like mad), so had to play the radio version (not the version they did). Fortunately - I repowed the CD a few times and managed to eject the CD, so stuck it in laptop and played directly from that into Traktor. Aerobics Routine was pretty fun to watch as they were all moving in time to it !).

 

Have to say, all in all, despite lack of any decent lighting, full floor most of the night, a lot of singing along and lots of awesome requests (Pump up the jam, but can you speed it up a bit please! - Sure, +3% it is!), someone wanted 60's music (but didnt request what, so put on Wilson Picket - Land of 1000 dances, and followed it with some other 60s classic singalongs). Finished the night on Beatles - Hey Jude and then Sinatra - New York... There was one guest who was really polite and asked (Are you on roll? cos I'd like Dizzee rascal please, i replied with - I'll have a try but there's only about 15 minutes left or so).

 

Pack up was fun because many of the house lights were dimmed and some were off - took longer than usual cos of the coldness outside. Barman came over and helped a bit too.

 

Lovely venue, lovely staff and great crowd. Loved it!

 

So in answer to the original topic title... This wekeend I'll be testing to see if anything is broken anywhere.. :/

 

Got some awesome photos along the way - got a full floor rig photo or two - but all my main rig lights were off :damn:). And some good video too - which I plan to make a montage of..

 

 

Photos at http://facebook.com/djdavidgraham, and a couple below (nothing like wizard's awesome looking one above!) - one during the buffet before the generator fun, and one during the finale....

 

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs591.ash2/154349_473328954629_272580604629_5554077_4318602_n.jpg

 

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1195.snc4/154740_473330084629_272580604629_5554101_1510840_n.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

David

Edited December 3, 2010 by gadget

[wizard 0]

Hmmmmm all those fit women and only 4 men ........ I would have swapped gigs :joe:

 

Looks like they were all having a great time

[Kent Discos 0]

i'm on tribute nights for the next 3 weeks...

 

was meant to be lady gaga tonight... but she is still stuck in cyprus! - date moved

 

and tomorrow is motown night!

[shifty 0]

Only just got out of hospital today after having my little toe amputated. Tryed to get cover for a wedding tommorow but unable to, stool and loads of morphine. Show must go on.

[Norfolk DJ 0]

 

2 Xmas Dinner dances for me at my local hotel

[vokf 0]

Last quiet weekend for me, its busy from now on.

 

Had a client meet this morning for a 2011 wedding. Went well, but venue has 90dB sound level monitor

However, nice couple - I think we all clicked. Bring a batter powered Photo Frame to these meets and leave it running - lots of good comments about previous parties.

They want ceremony music, as well as evening disco, so will be quoting tomorrow.

 

 

Then... nipped to Enfield to take back a faulty Hazer I purchased last week. The guy powered up and confirmed it was faulty and swapped, with appolgies.

Was happy with the service, they are about 15 mins from J25 M25 - rubbish parking thou;

www.ubmdj.co.uk

 

Then, back home, loaded up the van for a little kids party 4-6. Fairly simple set-up, we were on a stage, so didn't bother with speaker stands, so just a t-bar, deck stand, typically community center.

Did a few games, mostly pop/chart, mum(s) were happy and birthday kids came and said thank-you.

The main birthday boy (there were 3 birthdays), wanted "prodigy - out of space" Who am I to refuse, knowing I'll be playing Justin Bieber shortly after! lol

It was a bit manic- there was also bouncy castle, so only 1/3rd of the kids were really getting involved.

 

Got back for 7ish, had a curry, popped into my local, now about to chill with Wine and 24 Final Season :-)

 

 

Day job is going bad, with 3 redundancies announced. I'm safe for now, but looking to move asap due to uncertainty and the direction the company is taking.

 

Nothing tomorrow, but prepping for a 70s night on Wednesday, and demoing my back-up rig for a NYE dry-hire on Tuesday.

 

[gadget 0]

Hmmmmm all those fit women and only 4 men ........ I would have swapped gigs :joe:

 

Looks like they were all having a great time

 

Yes they were! Despite the issues with sound and lack of lighting - They sang along most of the time anyway!

 

All you can do in these situations is apologise and if anyone asks (which only one did directly), I just referred them to the venue manager !

 

 

I'd really love to do a night like that again (without the power issue!).

 

tested the mixer yesterday (was doing background/announcements for a Christmas Fair - last minute thing), and all seemed ok with that, and the most of lights seemed to be working when I tried them in standalone mode - will see if they're still working properly next weekend I guess (and taking backup lights too)

 

Cheers,

 

David

[mjmac 0]

had my regular pub gig friday playing RnB, dance & chart stuff... the place was rammed by 8.30pm with a mixture of 18 - 30 age punters... had a huge q down the road too... who said the snow would put people off! also loads of comments about how good my rig KX audio sounded and a few enquiries for next year! The night went on till 1am and no one wanted to go home... late license me thinks for next time!

 

saturday had my quarterly soul night at another local pub in grays... not many bar staff on as half had phoned in sick... the bar staff had said that its been very slow all week and not many punters in during the day.. so it shouldnt be an issue tonight!

 

OMG by 9pm the place was rammed and the bar staff were run off their feet... i did warn them!

 

Thurrock seems to have a huge following of 80s soul... and seems to be reflected in the night as its just got bigger and bigger... I Started this soul night just over a year ago with a reluctant publican who was just interested in running a food pub! I know he's really pleased with the takings & the turnout... i knew i should have opted for 10% of the bar takings ;)

 

the next few weekends in to xmas & NY im fully booked out working in pubs and some private parties... should pay for my new speakers in no time at this rate!

[Gary (GDK) 0]

On Friday I had a kids xmas karate party.

 

Wnt realy well and had great interaction with the kids.

 

Saturday was a staff party for Asda, and no fights to!