In March, I took the difficult decision to remove myself from the Orsett Hall Resident DJs listing, after 20 years of service to the hotel. The reason for this is jointly due to the uneven distribution of the DJ work at the hotel and the falling standards of the other DJs, which I do not feel merit a residency at such a fine four-star establishment. The functions diary was taken over by the resident 63-year-old ‘DJ & DJ agent’ and he helps himself to the vast majority of incoming work, placing his budget agency DJs in position whenever he is working elsewhere. This would be perfectly okay if he or his acts were at a level expected of a four-star hotel…but unfortunately they fall very short.
So if you are in receipt of some 2014 Orsett Hall literature regarding the DJ line-up, then please contact me directly via email or telephone and not via the hotel itself. I will gladly honour the resident DJ prices quoted for 2014/15. It is still my privilege to play at such a wonderful venue where I have a huge number of friends, and where I spent 20 fantastic years hosting over 500 weddings!
A very interesting post Ian, I am a DJ and have been for over 20 years, I work mainly at corporate events and private parties. I think you made the right decision to remove yourself from the Orsett Hall DJ list
I recently attended an event at Orsett Hall as a guest, and I am often critical of DJs when on the other side of the DJ booth, but I have to say that it was the worst DJ performance I have witnessed for a long time. During dinner the background music was far too loud and totally inappropriate for the crowd. I could easily read the guests faces and knew what they were thinking, the DJ however was happily eating his food, until someone on my table complained.
Onto the party the music selection was ok, but very badly put together, and on the odd time when two tracks could easily have been mixed being the same BPM and key, it was painful for the 10 seconds he took to crossfade. I was intrigued why he couldn’t mix, and a closer look saw his headphones round his neck, erm how was he cueing, a closer look discovered he was using a free ipad app to DJ at what was a black tie event in a 4 star hotel. To top it off the jeans and t shirt look might be ok for your local pub, but was certainly out of place for a DJ at this event
I then discovered there was another event going on at the same time, I was dying to know whether the DJ there was any better. Well unfortunately not, although nicely dressed, the DJ was just sitting reading a book, and when one tune was coming to an end another was randomly faded in, again no mixing skills whatsoever, and a DJ who was totally uninterested in the crowd, the sad fact was the crowd looked a little bored too.