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, particularly in connection with the music styles. My friend Ian Sellens and I launched The 80s Mix Tape last year as a passion project, playing music from our favourite era, and bookings are now beginning to roll in! We’ve also combined the Mix Tape with QuizHire to create an all-out 80’s themed event of quizzing and dancing! Another of my true music loves is soul….in all its’ forms….Motown, Stax, Atlantic, Salsoul, Disco, 80’s Weekender, etc. I’ve been hosting a regular Soul & Motown night at a local pub (Braintree, Essex) and I’ve loved every minute of being able to play the music that shaped me and influenced my whole career.

A seasoned old DJ once gave me some very good advice…”If you’re playing generic pop music, you could be any DJ just doing it for the money. If you’re playing the music you love, the audience will react to that too, and then it won’t feel like a job.”

The post Where have I been?! first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

Now…I am a resident DJ at one of Essex’s top hotels (Orsett Hall), and I have been for nineteen years. I’m also part of the resident DJ team at Ye Olde Plough House hotel and formerly the resident DJ at The Manor in Rainham….and not one of these venues insists that their customers use the recommended in-house DJ. Our services are promoted, but ultimately it is the customers’ decision as to whether they wish to employ us or their own outside choice of mobile DJ. And we are very happy with this agreement. I would hate to think that a bride and groom had been bullied into using us when they had their own choice in mind.

So if you are reading this whilst planning your wedding day or corporate function, and you feel that your venue are pressuring you into hiring their own resident DJ even though you have one in mind, then take a step back, question their motives and insist on your own choice!

The post Resident DJs beware! first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

One of the advantages of DJing at weekends is that I get to miss all the ‘fun’ of the X Factor on TV, so reading Facebook updates from friends about ‘James’ and ‘Rylan’ means absolutely nothing to me! And I’m happy to keep it that way! People have suggested that, as a DJ, I should take a more keen interest in who wins and who comes second, etc, etc…..but this years winners will be next years desperate C-List celebs….it’s the same every time. Having known an incredibly talented young lady who entered (against my advice I might add!) and was then unceremoniously voted off after they changed her song mid-performance, I can’t subscribe to such a heavily pre-influenced/predetermined Cowell cash cow. The show may be fantastically entertaining  to the viewer, but to the rejected youngsters (the ones who can sing…not camp idiots or spikey-hair Irish twins who couldn’t  hold a note in a carrier bag) it’s a devastating blow to their confidence.

Well, that’s enough moaning from me….time to catch up on the Sky+ recordings of QI and the best music programme on the telly, Jools Holland.

until the next time……….

The post Ahhhhhhhh, feet up at last! first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

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 as Hengrave Hall employ such an inexperienced DJ to host the party? Don’t get me wrong, the guy had guests dancing for the majority of the evening, and he certainly had good technology at his fingertips (for DJs reading this…..2 x CDJ1000s, CDM 700 and HK speakers) but he lacked two very very important skills……beat mixing and vocal dexterity. He played dance music for the majority of the night, but the top level decks were clearly wasted on him when it came to seamlessly blending the beats, often fading the out-playing track to almost silence before dropping in the next one. But more importantly, he was very poor when it came to addressing the crowd. His introduction for the first dance was simply one line, and then we never heard him again until he uttered, “This is the last song from me.”

Now no-one wants to hear banal DJ chatter all evening, but this fella was the polar opposite. He never once mentioned the bride and groom, and ending with just a solitary good-bye without any kind of finale left us all (not just me!) feeling somewhat shortchanged. In summary, it almost seemed like he’d forgotten the reason for being there.

As any DJ will tell you, it’s hard attending parties as a guest!

The post Whatever happened to the DJ microphone? first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

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 early doors, playing cheesey stuff like Abba and Tina Turner to warm them up. Switched to 60’s Motown and added a few more dancers, but the place wasn’t exactly alight with rhythm. A dear old girl then asked for some ‘Fats Domino’ so I turned to rock n roll whereupon we gained another four on the dancefloor….and that was it. No more. But as soon as I tried to play something a little more recent (i.e. living memory for me, b. 1968) they asked me to change it despite the fact that most weren’t dancing anyway.

My gripe here is that the world today is full of such a wide variety of good new music that there MUST be something contemporary (or at least in the last 20 years!) that they like. Sticking their heads in the sand and continuing to insist that “everything’s shite since Roy Orbison died”*  is both ignorant and slightly amish! Rant over.

*Taken from the movie ‘The Commitments’

The post You don’t get out much, do you? first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

So…..to anyone out there who’s thinking of buying something from Cash Converters…..bear in mind that it probably still belongs to someone else! And to other DJs and people looking for a party venue…..avoid Ardleigh House in Hornchurch. It’s a scruffy, barrel-scraping sh*thole that most drafty village halls would put to shame.

The post Cash Converters – You Steal it, They’ll Deal It! first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

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 simply play them in the exact order listed by them. Now I’m not one to turn business away lightly, but in this case I kindly declined to play at their function, offering instead our small PA system hire so that they can plug in their own iPod. They were quite taken aback, offended even, that I had refused the job. And this made me ponder………I wonder if plumbers/electricians/plasterers, etc get this kind of demand from ‘control-freak’ customers. The simple truth is that music is an art form, so everyone has an opinion on it. Not everyone can rewire a house or fit a new bathroom, but everyone knows music. However, not everyone can programme music, not everyone can read a dancefloor and not everyone has the wide spectrum of taste that a good DJ possesses. Therefore to ask a DJ to stick rigidly to a music list that someone else has created removes all of his/her training, instinct and know-how. They may as well not be there.

So……………yes, we do accept your playlists but only as a guide to the music you love! Please……leave the rest to us!!!

The post Who’s the DJ? first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

Example 1 – I played a wedding three weeks ago in a fairly large and popular hotel venue. The nearest houses are at least 100 yards away and we were in a brick-built room (not a marquee). I checked my levels beforehand to ensure no embarrassing loss of sound during the evening, and then handed the mic to the Toastmaster to introduce the First Dance. After the song had ended, he raised his voice slightly to encourage the guests to applaud and Bang! All the power cut out and we waited three minutes for a staff member to reset it. The rest of the evening involved me constantly watching the meter whilst fielding complaints that it wasn’t loud enough. The end of the night saw it blow once more, and purely from the crowd’s cheering and clapping and nothing to do with my speakers!

Example 2 – A few years ago I arrived at a venue to discover I was sharing the stage with a live band. Everyone set up their stuff and I was looking forward to hearing some live music for a change. The band began their soundcheck, and within five seconds the power cut out and left the guitars, keyboards and singer without sound. It transpired that just a single ‘thwack’ on the snare drum had triggered the sound limiter. There was no way around it, so the band simply packed up and went home.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that venues have to pander to every resident who lives nearby and complains at the slightest noise. I sometimes question whether they can hear anything at all living 100 yards away and they are just being sheer bloody-minded!

So….if your party venue has one of these devices installed, prepare to be underwhelmed by the sound system!

The post Sound Limiters – The 21st Century Party Pooper! first appeared on DJ Ian Scott.

After all, I am hired for my musical knowledge and dancefloor know-how aren’t I? If you just wanted the equipment and do the music yourself, I can recommend a really good hire shop!

Rant over…

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