When you’ve been doing a job for as long as I have, you can’t help but pick up valuable tips along the way from your peers. I’ve learned so much from fellow DJs; music mixing tips, mic presentation techniques and health & safety measures to name a few, but I also try to impart knowledge of my own to colleagues along the way. My latest concern in the mobile DJ world is the overuse of lighting…
Since the advent of LED lighting, mobile disco lightshows have become cheaper, lighter (not meant as a pun!) and 1000% more energy efficient. They are also way cooler to handle at the end of the night! Some of the old 5oow lamps were red hot for ages after a gig was over! I’m sure there are still a few units out there with the skin of my fingertips still attached!!
The downside of the new wave of low-cost DJ lighting is that many acts choose to put up way too many units, thus creating a daylight, not moonlight ambience in the room. And the brighter the environment, the less likely you are to get the more reserved partygoers onto the dance floor. If you add a starlight white dance floor and uplighters all around the walls, together with an all-white DJ booth, it begins to resemble a party in an open fridge!
I like to take a more subtle, minimal approach. Keep the lighting exciting, colourful and relevant, but tone down the overall brightness of the room to maintain a more welcoming vista, especially for the more shy guests.
Carefully-placed use of uplights really do help to set the scene, and with the rather handy rechargeable units, I’m able to position them anywhere.
When you’re choosing the DJ for your big event or your wedding day, just make sure they’re not compensating for their lack of talent with a huge array of unsubtle and super-bright lights!
