Lesson Learned

Lesson Learned

(November 2013) One of our recent wedding receptions was at a 12,000 square foot beautiful home on a dozen acre homestead in the Galena Territories in northern Illinois (and if you’re not sure where Galena is I encourage you to check it out. After Chicago, it attracts more tourists than any other city in Illinois). It is an ideal setting for a country-charm themed wedding. The down side of that may be that because it is in such a remote area there are areas where no wifi is available, something that we have come to depend on.

Things were moving along well throughout the ceremony, dinner and reception at this wedding and our DJ, Brian, had the party going in no time. As things got cooking guests began to make requests and one of them approached him and excitedly asked if he had “The Fox?” Truth be told at the beginning of the week we had never heard of the song, which had become an overnight Youtube sensation, but by the end of the week, every one of our events had been asking for it. Brian told the gal he would look but was unfamiliar with the song. A check of his database did reveal that he did not have the track, and since no wifi was available he was not able to purchase it there on the spot. The now slightly tipsy guest came back a couple of more times, “Do you have it, do you have it,” she begged? And when Brian had to confess that he did not have it she had the solution: she could cue it up on her smartphone, plug it into our system and it will rock the house. Brian agreed figuring this would satisfy her and send her on her way once and for all. 

 Suddenly, as Brian explained to me, she was there nearly every two songs, paging through her phone,

The song did pack the dance floor and it would be great to say this is the happy ending to our story, but not so. The young lady was so pleased with the results that this only encouraged her to self-appoint herself as our events new music programmer for the evening. Suddenly, as Brian explained to me, she was there nearly every two songs, paging through her phone, professing to Brian, with that classic line that we all have heard if we’ve been doing weddings long enough, “the bride asked me to have you play this, the bride wants you to do this next . . . .” Brian held her off by explaining to her that there were some formalities on the bride and grooms planner that they needed to be worked in first, hoping that she would take the hint or get discouraged and move on. She would have none of that though and finally became angry, and became confrontational with Brian. The bride and groom caught sight of this, intervened and sent the young lady on her way but it did leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth  - and it did affect the dance for a while, but in time things picked up again and it ended with a great finish (although I’m nervously awaiting the survey comments).

However, this brings up a couple of Never Dos on my list. Personally, I never let anyone plug their phone into my system. We have been burned by this a couple of times. Once at a High School Dance when a student asked to play a song that another one of my workers was familiar with but did not have. Unfortunately, he did not realize there was an unedited version of the song and when it started tossing out the F-bomb the school officials were none too pleased. That and, like Brian discovered, it invites guests to take over your show. Just let one person play a song off of their smartphone and watch how many other guests begin scrolling through theirs expecting the same courtesy. Another time it was a song laced with the “N” word. Not cool.

Another practice I recommend against is taking a tip to play a song. Like the phone scenario, this only invites guests to take over your show. Go ahead, take that $5.00 to play a song next and see how much mileage that person tries to get out of that five spot. Like the gal that Brian had to deal with, this person will decide to be your assistant for the evening. That and the fact is that most often we are playing at a private party and the client has already paid for our services and taking money from their guests just might be a bit on the tacky side.

The way I see it, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this wedding. One is the afore-mentioned phone policy and the other is I need to reiterate more strongly to my staff of the perils these situations may cause.

Until next time,

~ Michael ~

Michael J. Lenstra is a twenty plus year veteran of the Mobile Disc Jockey Industry, a full time entertainer, and owner of Alexxus Entertainment in Dubuque, IA.