STEP #14: The dance floor

This is the moment of truth for you as the DJ! This is when you are 100% in control of the situation. You want to have as many people as possible up and dancing the majority of the time.

You won’t need to get onto the microphone a great deal during this time other than to make announcements like photo booth or the Candy Buffet or any other announcements requested by the Bride & Groom. It is likely that you’ll want to get on the microphone to get guests on the dancefloor every now and then if you have a shy audience..

A rule of thumb is that you should always have at least the top twenty titles for the last few years, with dance tracks usually being in the highest demand.  Once you have all the necessary tracks, you shouldn’t have to buy more than about three singles per week for maintenance.

Play the right music for your audience

This is the most important part of the job. In many cases, this will mean foregoing your own personal preferences in the interests of your audience (welcome to the entertainment business).

Weddings are also an occasion where several generations are present: Bride and Groom, their friends, parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles in many cases young nieces and nephews. It’s not an easy one and definitely requires some variety to please a good percentage of the crowd the majority of the time.

General guidelines on playing dance music:

–       Plan your music by preparing ahead and writing down/making lists of songs of same genre that you could mix together in a song selection. Don’t mix genres within a song selection otherwise it just doesn’t flow as well. We’re not going to go into beat mixing and all the technical aspects within this article as this is not the subject of this series.

–       After playing a few songs of a particular genre, you can change genres with another selection of songs.

–       Keep the tempo similar within each collection of songs, don’t jump between tempos as that will ‘throw people off’

–       Volume would also start off lower and increase as the dancefloor fills with people.

–       You can certainly take requests but you need to obviously fit them in where they fit in terms of genre and tempo. You may also have discussed specific tracks with the Bride and Groom that they wanted played, so make sure you accommodate those in your playlist.

Here are some all-time-favourites and some of the latest music that will usually do the business for you:-

Some ideas to start getting things moving after the first dance segment of the wedding

Son of a preacher man –  Dusty Springfield

The most beautiful girl in the world –  Prince

I just haven’t met you yet – ‪Michael Bublé‪

This Is How We Do It  – Montell Jordan

Ice Ice Baby  – Vanilla Ice

Kiss – Prince

Rock Your Body – ‪Justin Timberlake‪

Music – Madonna

Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees

I’m so excited – The Pointer Sisters

 

Some good examples from different generations to get into the dance action (in no particular order)

Are You Gonna Go My Way – ‪Lenny Kravitz

Where them girls at  – David Guetta

Get the Party Started – Pink

We like to Party – Vengaboys

I Wanna Dance With Somebody  – Whitney Houston

Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) – Beyonce

U Can’t Touch This  – MC Hammer

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! – ‪Vengaboys‪

Conga  – Miami Sound Machine

Baby Got Back – Sir Mix A Lot

Love Shack  – The B52’s

Thriller – Michael Jackson

Satisfaction – Benny Benassi

She bangs – Ricky martin

Let’s Get Loud – ‪Jennifer Lopez‪

Funky Town – ‪Pseudo Echo‪

Rock DJ – Robbie Williams

Mambo No 5 – ‪Lou Bega‪

Heaven – Dj Sammy

Baby – ‪Justin Bieber‪

Hot Hot Hot – Buster Poindexter

Absolutely Everybody – Vnessa Amorossi

Insomnia – Faithless (only upbeat sections from a bit after 2 min mark onwards, shouldn’t try to play in its full length)

Un dos tres – Ricky Martin

When Love Takes Over  – David Guetta (Feat Kelly Rowland)

Party Rock anthem – LMFAO

 

You will need to cut and chop the tracks in many cases to get the best sections of the songs as many songs will start off slow or have too many stops/interruptions in the middle or can get too repetitive. So it’s obviously your job as the DJ to keep the beat and flow up to ensure you don’t lose your full dancefloor

Obviously, we can’t cover all the best songs and we’re sure you’ll find other good songs to get the crowd dancing but the list is long and these are only a few ideas to get you going..

 

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