It seems like years since I’ve posted a blog update on here… So, what’s been happening then? Well, things have definitely changed for me over the past 18 months. The QuizHire business has grown and grown; with such a large corporate clientele, I’m now hosting annual events for about 90% of my customers. One or two of my corporate clients are now in their fifth year of quiz events hosted by yours truly! The DJ side of my business has changed too. I’ve made a conscious decision this year to be more selective about the type of events I host,

It’s been brought to my attention again the question of resident DJs, and more specifically, hotels and venues insisting on their usage. This subject rears its ugly head every few years, usually reported to us by brides and grooms who wish to use our services but find their venue being quite bullish on utilising their in-house DJ, and putting as many ‘obstacles’ in the way as they can to ensure they get their own way. Tricks such as insisting on a pre-midday DJ set up, PAT & PLI certificated proof (any mobile DJ worthy of his profession will have these

I write this latest addition to my blog at 2.45am, after a long night of Christmas party fun and helping out my fellow resident DJs at Orsett Hall…and I’ve finally made it home and flopped in the armchair. This was only the first of my four-night stints in December…..I’ve got a few more to come as we edge ever closer to the 25th…..so with coffee in one hand and iPad in the other, it’s time to catch up with the stuff I’ve missed since Thursday. One of the advantages of DJing at weekends is that I get to miss all

Last night was a very rare yet extremely welcome experience for me……a Saturday night off to attend my second cousin’s glamorous wedding at the fabulous Hengrave Hall in Suffolk. I met up with family and friends I haven’t seen since….er…..the last family wedding, and it was truly refreshing to be in front of the decks instead of behind them. Hengrave Hall is a magnificent Elizabethan (I think!) mansion and an awesome venue for a wedding, with breathtaking gardens and surrounding grounds. Which leads me to my only negative point of the whole day…..why oh why does a venue as prestigious

Right in the middle of a glut of Christmas parties and corporate knees-ups, I feel compelled to blog about some recent events…..namely the narrow-mindedness of some party goers over the age of fifty! It seems to me that a lot of people born before 1960 don’t appear to have been out of the house since 1979, turned on a radio or even given airtime to any music created from the 80’s onwards. Case in point was a ‘party’ I DJ’d at last night. Small intimate venue, dinner dance, more mature crowd. I really struggled to get any signs of life

It’s almost a year ago since we suffered a massive blow to our business, when over £4000-worth of equipment and music was stolen from a venue at which we were playing. Whilst our DJ was tying stuff in the van, some unscrupulous low-lifes boldly strode into the hall through a side door and made off with speakers, lights, microphones, music and hundreds of essential cables. It was a devastating feeling, especially knowing that the idiotic venue staff had watched it all happen in front of them and done nothing. After reporting it to the police (and getting that ‘why did

Nice to finally get a whole weekend to myself, and yet somehow still managed to spend most of it updating music folders or answering queries or quotes. When I did get out into the garden, the heavens cascaded upon me and prevented me from doing my favourite hobby…gardening. Huge irony for anyone that knows me. One of the questions we get asked most frequently is, “Do you accept playlists?” Of course we do, but the latest customer went on to ask whether we would accept a complete listing of music which covered the whole night (i.e 85 songs) and whether we could

Over the past couple of years, function suites and halls of all types have been installing electronic sound-monitoring devices in order to keep noise down to an acceptable level for the neighbours. In a large number of cases, these monitors work very well…..they simply cut the power to the DJ/band’s equipment when the max level is exceeded for more than, say, 3 seconds. Fair enough I hear you cry, but the problem lies not in the equipment itself, but in the level at which the local authority have set the cut-off point. Sometimes it’s simply too low for a party to take

Just coming off the back of a pretty dull wedding reception, I was reminded of one of the things I dislike most about DJing to people who don’t get out much – the ‘name drop.’ I’m not talking about celebrities here either… it’s the moment where a woman leans over the DJ stand and boldly declares, “I am the brides mother. Play Cha Cha Slide. Now.” I’m sure every DJ gets this at one point during their set, a person who’s booked you or someone close to them demands a tune and genuinely believes that you have to play it because