Where to Place the DJ?

Hearing and seeing!  I was once told about a psychological experiment where a person was driving a virtual car and listening to the usual noise inside the vehicle (radio, cell phone, etc.) then a siren would blast and the person would jerk the car toward the noise.  The same type of experiment was done visually where the person was driving and a distraction was placed on the side of the road at different intervals.  Every time a distraction was on the left and the person saw it, within milliseconds the person jerked the vehicle in the direction of the distraction.

Why am I telling you all of this?  With experience comes knowledge and we all know that knowledge is power.  I don't want to harp on how important the music is to the party or reception right now so I will just say that gone are the day when the DJ remains out of sight or seen and not heard.

The DJ today now has improved not only the sound of the system with all digital mixes and reduced skipping and stopping of CD's, tapes, and vinyl with the MP3.  The DJ today has also added visual to the show.

Let me get to the point, stop worrying about all the wires hanging out and making your pictures look bad.  Put the DJ in front of the dance floor to attract the crowd to the noise.

DJ Ting of DJPorkChop.com demonstrates proper placement of the DJ Equipment in front of the dance floor.

If your guest see a blank dance floor with music coming from the corner of the room guess what? They will gravitate toward the sound and the visual of the DJ in the corner and not the dance floor.  Place your dance floor in the center of all activity and make it small.  The smaller the dance floor the larger the crowd will look.  A good rule of thumb 1 ft per person, meaning a crowd of 100 will need a 10' x 10' dance floor.

If the DJ is in front of the dance floor, the DJ will exercise control over the entire event as you hired them to do.  You control the DJ, the DJ controls the crowd for you.  You hired them so you and your guest can dance to your selected tunes so put them in the center and get your moneys worth.    

If you use DJPorkChop.com, we use DJ Skirting and we have a Professional White DJ Facade that has LED lighting in Sync with the music.  If you have hired another DJ, make sure they have a Facade to cover all the wires.  If not, then it is simple, go spend about $10 for a couple of yards of fabric and have the DJ cover up the wires or use the venues table cloths and ask them to place a screen in front of the DJ.  Either way, have your DJ hide wires so they don't get into the pictures.

Hiding wires is not the most important point, the most important point would be to make sure that the DJ is where the crowd will be.  You hired the DJ to do a job and that job entails using DJ expertise to get people to dance.

Don't handicap your DJ by placing them in locations I can testify to: like underneath a house when everyone is upstairs, all the way in the corner, in the middle of a room full of tables and not dance area, outside on a pool deck with no one around.

I am not saying you need a dance floor in all circumstances, just an area with a DJ in front of it specifically set aside for dancing. In all of these situations, we have still performed. However, the event will have a better flow and the dance floor will have stayed busy if the DJ and dance floor are interconnected.

I will testify to this, the best parties we have had where we have kept the crowd dancing all night have been where we were in front of a 10' x 10' dance floor in the center of the room with a crowd of about 120.  The dance floor looked packed and stayed packed all night long.  For examples just look at our website at www.djporkchop.com or check out our You Tube videos at www.youtube.com/djporkchop68.

By the way, if you need a dance floor, we have connections on our links page.

Looking forward to celebrating with you.  DJ PorkChop