We Want to Play Your Most Important Songs, But You Have to Do Your Part

I was just remembering a party I DJ'd several years back and what happened that to me had an impact on the entire evening.  In planning the event the client just gave us an unbelievably LONG list of songs they like.  First off, we would never been able to play all of the songs on the list because it was anywhere from 7-11 hours worth of music and the party was only to be 4 hours long.  But what the client failed to do was give us a timeline or any notes indicating special songs.  I wanted to bring this up because it really makes a lot more sense to let your entertainer know about special dances before the event and to limit your song lists to indicate your absolute musts.  So you might already be guessing what happened.  Since the client failed to inform us of the special song, we didn't know how important it would be to them and since they gave us such a long list of music, we were not able to know ahead of time which songs they absolutely needed.  If the party is only 4 hours long, we don't need a list of songs that would take you into the next day.  It would have been better to say, "This is our special song that we want to dance to, do you have it?"  Nothing like being put on the spot and expecting an entertainer to play that special song at a moment's notice.  So it turned out I didn't have the song they needed but they didn't communicate in advance and they refused to use our online song request forms which would have made things more organized for everyone involved.  

If you are planning an event with us, we have all of the tools online including timelines, must play lists, do not play lists, special dance lists, etc.  Oh and the great part, our planning forms add up the length of the songs to give you an idea of how much music you need or have gone over.  If you put in more songs than we are able to play because of time constraints, you have not done us any favors because now we have to pick and choose which songs get played and because of this your favorite songs might not end up in the play list after all.  

Of course you do have to take into account the musical tastes of your guests as well as your own. If you want everyone to dance, take the time to consider what kind of music is going to get your guests up and dancing.  Many times the songs they want are songs you might not have ever thought of, so you might have to rely on the experience of your DJ to choose some of the songs and of course to consider the song requests of the guests.  If you take a little time to do this properly, your party will be everything you ever dreamed of, your guests will have a great time and there will be a lot less stress all the way around.