all DJing the same?

If you've been hired for a special event or small pub event, you are purely there for the audience. Unlike a club/bar where people are visiting to hear and dance to a specific type of music, this audience is primarily there for some other purpose (for instance a hen night or just a Friday night out drinking in a pub). The audience is also likely to be a lot more diverse than if you were DJing in a "exclusive" bar or night club. In many ways this makes your job a lot harder, because you have to try to avoid playing a fixed style of music especially your own favourite tunes.

Variation is the key, so by playing a lot of commercial pop or similar music, you maximise the chances of pleasing the maximum number of people in the venue. It's best if you try and "read" the crowd, and try to work out what sort of music they like and dislike. Also, try to group the similar types of music together so you play several different "sets" to help build up an atmosphere. This is important because many guests don't get up and dance immediately and might wait for others to dance first. If the dance floor fills you can carry on playing more of the same style of music, and if the dance floor starts to empty at any point you can simply start playing a different "set". As most people won't want to dance all night long, they can buy their drinks from the bar and chat to friends until another you play more music that they like and want to dance to.

Music is of course just one aspect - you could easily improve you "business proposition" by including party games, karaoke and the like. For weddings you could also include extras such as videotaping the reception party. You can also help build up the party atmosphere by using specialist lighting rigs and smoke machines (though be careful that the smoke machine doesn't accidentally set off any fire alarms close by!)

Unfortunately, "proper" karaoke machines using video CDs are very expensive, and likely to cost too much for beginner to purchase. There are cheaper alternatives though, as you can often find kareokee CDs in most record shops. However, it would be quite expensive to buy all you favourite/popular tunes twice (as normal CDs and as instrumental kareokee versions). Another alternative is to use relatively cheap DSPs (Digital signal processors) and/or Analogue Equalizers on your mixer to help reduce the level of vocals being played. Although this method isn't perfect, the fact that the person participating will effectively have a backing singer (the original vocal on the CD), could help to boost peoples confidence and encourage more people to sing than the traditional purely instrumental kareokee video CDs.

If you decide this style of DJing suits you (or is the most profitable or easiest way to find work), you are likely to find that you will be traveling between many different venues, where most have not got a dedicated area setup for DJs and their equipment. Therefore the best equipment to use might not be the same as what a typical club/bar DJ would use (where the venue is designed to have space for you and all of your DJ equipment). More info can be found in the equipment section. It is particularly important to ensure there is an adequate power supply available. I would recommend you also try and carry some backup equipment, in case your main equipment fails, and possibly some spare fuses in case one blows. To help protect your equipment it can be advisable to use a voltage regulating power splitter. Other items might also be needed but it really depends on your equipment.

Finally, and this is probably one of the most important points - to be a very successful mobile/special event DJ you need to use your personality to entertain and encourage the audience to participate in what you are offering. The best mobile DJs are in fact "Party Hosts" with great personality and stage presence who are confident in entertaining the audience and encouraging everybody to join in on the fun! If you rely on just music, then anyone else could potentially come along and offer the same deal to customers at a cheaper price. If you have that "something extra" then you'll be a big hit, and hopefully be recommended to friends, eventually creating a "pyramid" of recommendations, ensuring you career is a long term success.

Once established as a mobile DJ, another small thing you can do is to make friends with another DJ who plays similar gigs to yourself. Not only can you share ideas, but when you are already booked, you can pass any leads to your DJ friend. However, this will obviously only be beneficial if the friend DJ gives you reciprocal leads, so you do have to trust one another.

Difference between DJing in a Bar compared to a Club

The chances are there will be set area for the DJ to use, often with decks and a mixer permanently installed. One thing worth noting is that a club might have a louder sound system and/or a larger area for sound to resonate and echo, making beat mixing harder if the mixer doesn't allow monitoring of one channel in each ear. To DJ in in a bar/club you will almost definitely need to be able to mix. Depending on the style of music, you are likely to be expected to be able to beat mix and/or scratch. You'll also want to use closed cup headphones so you can hear the track you are queueing without it being drowned out by the main sound system's speakers.
Most clubs and larger bars will have some sort of music policy, set by the management. This means that provided they've picked the right DJ, you will get to play all the tunes you like, possibly with the occasional requested song to please the audience (i.e. if it's someone's birthday or hen/stag night). The main thing to remember is that the audience are likely to be in the venue for the advertised (or expected) style of music. More to the point, if you play a excellent hard trance set, if the audience are into RnB it's not going to go down that well and the chances are you won't be invited back to DJ again. Also, in bigger clubs and bars the manager or owner might want a certain type of clientele. Even if people are enjoying your music, if the boss isn't happy it's very likely that you're going to be out of a job.
Clubs tend to be dominated by experienced DJs. The resident DJ (who plays each week) in a club is nearly always someone who's DJed at many similar events for years. They are consistent performers, but sometimes the styles of music that they play may become repeitive if you visit the venue on a regular basis. Guest DJs are normally the biggest crowd pullers as their names are often well-known and very well promoted (through magazines, fly posters, radio stations, large events in Ibiza/Aiya Napa/London/NY etc.)
While a guest DJ has a reputation to uphold, very occasionally they might not perform as well as you might expect - it has been known for famous DJs to be too worn out because of all the other gigs they've played, or because they've over done the drinks/drugs.
It is often off-putting, when as a beginner you try and fail to imitate a famous DJ's mixes. One point worth remembering though, is that Mix CDs and some radio shows are often edited on computers before being mastered on to CD or played on the radio. This means any mistakes made by the famous "perfect" DJ can be removed and fixed, so don't be too put off if you can't copy the mixing of a "Big Name" DJ. The important thing is not to expect to walk right in to a club and DJ at a peak time. The chances are you will have to build up a reputation in smaller bars first, or do the warm-up session in a club (8 -10/11pm) for free or possibly a small amount of cash.