September in New England usually means wedding season is starting to wind down, school dances are back in full swing and it's time to think about Holiday parties. After a busy summer season it's a good idea to look around your office and catch up some things you've let slide. There's equipment to be fixed, things to be cleaned, social media and marketing to catch up on, etc. Time to switch gears a little. Here is a really spot on list of ideas from a marketing website I follow. I firmly believe that to truly grow your business, you need to digest content from a variety of sources. I came across Josh Pather on Instagram a few months ago. Not all of h... [read more]

I'll bet that at least half of the people that read the title of this blog thought I was writing about computers and the other half thought I was writing about political correctness. The previous statement clearly demonstrates two important miscommunication principles. 1. Misinterpretation and 2. Not saying what you mean. The folks that guessed political correctness would be right (I've never owned a Mac, but I do have an iPad, iPhone and two iPods). I admit I swear like a sailor on shore leave and I'm sarcastic to a fault. Ask my wife. Maybe it's the generation I grew up in or maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy (more likely) but I was rais... [read more]

First, I would like to apologize to any disc jockeys that actually are lawyers. This blog isn't really about you, but it does pertain to you. There was a good discussion on one of the several thousand DJ forums I belong to about DJs offering legal advice or stating something is against the law without offering any proof. These strands start off innocently enough with someone posting a question about the rules on using a particular piece of gear at an event or about music, files, streaming or sharing. The strands quickly devolve into regional DJs stating how one can or can't do that in their market. A good example: cold sparklers. These things are re... [read more]

What qualifies someone to give themselves a title? A degree, a diploma, a certificate of training? If I can change the oil, change a tire and give my car a tuneup, can I call myself a mechanic? Not really. If I can replace an outlet in my house or wire up a new connection, does that make me an electrician? Probably not. If I buy a set of speakers, a microphone, a controller and hook them up to a laptop full of music; am I a DJ? Apparently so. It's no secret that our industry has a ridiculously low barrier to entry. Many people would argue that there is no formal training to become a DJ. Those people would be partially correct. There is no Un... [read more]

One of the many unwanted hats we wear at events is that of lost and found manager. It's not enough to be the host, entertainer, DJ, lighting designer, photo booth operator, babysitter, the "Your lights are on" and "It's last call" guy and whatever else a venue throws at us. Now we have to make endless announcements about lost wallets, shoes, hats, gloves, false teeth and phones. There always is a certain question of ethics and responsibility to do the right thing with other people's property. Sometimes it might be a little too easy to cross the line, especially when technology is involved. A good question was posted on one of the private... [read more]

Have you thought about when your last DJ gig would be? Have you envisioned walking off the stage and packing up for the last time? Do you have your DJ career and retirement mapped out? What if "life" just came in and trashed all those plans and dreams? Have you and your family prepared for something like that? That dreadful scenario is happening right now for one of our DJ brothers. In 2017 Richard Mills (who hails from the kiwi nation of New Zealand) was dealing with life, marriage, kids, bills and a busy DJ schedule when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He pressed on and with the support of his ... [read more]

In the DJ business, things are constantly evolving. My wife and I own/manage our business Austin's Best DJs & Photo Booths, and have run it since 2012. We were both long-time DJs before we even met! I'm approaching 3 decades (yes, decades, since I started when I was a kid) and my wife is approaching nearly 2 decades! We've seen a lot of trends come and go. As business owners, we have to stop and consider the trends and evaluate whether or not we want to be a part of them. DJs seem to always want the latest, greatest new turntable or controller, or light, that just came out. It seems as if DJing has turned into another way of "keeping up with the Jones." DJs like to constantly buy new equipment, and understandably so. Sure, you have to keep up with the trends or get left behind. This brings me to the to... [read more]

All right. DJ tips in under a minute. These are wedding invitations and usually these are done maybe before you're even hired as the DJ, but one thing that wedding invitations can sometimes have is the end date of the reception. It might say, beginning at 5:00, ending at 10:00 or whatever it says. The reason I'm bringing this up is it was brought to my attention that whenever a party has an end time, it tends to give guests a little bit different perspective as to how long they should stay. And I noticed most of my events on the outside of the room will have an end time. See if you can get the end time taken away. So just reception to begin at 5:00 o'clock. That way there is no sense of when am I out of here? Because I think if you have it in your head that this ends in two or three hours, you gauge how long ... [read more]

I've always been a big fan of science fiction and weird stuff. Recently I was hooked on a Netflix series called "Altered Carbon". In the future our "bodies" were nothing more than interchangeable meat suits because we had discovered how to down load the human conscious and transfer it from one shell to another. A new form of immortality. Instead of having a mortgage on a house and car payments, people would pay for "skins" to continue their existence.   Does that sound too far fetched? The Trans Humanist movement has grown tremendously over the last two decades. Their goal is the integration of technology with the human body. Scientists have... [read more]

Spring is here and wedding season is almost in full swing for many of us in colder climates. Time to go through all our wedding gear and test everything. It's also time for a playlist tune up. Like most of you I have a ton of crates built up with wedding playlists covering all the relevant genres and music styles. Each spring I go through and update those crates with more current song choices and weed out less popular tunes. A few years ago I wrote an article for Mobile Beat Magazine focusing on using acoustic versions or different arrangements of popular songs to shake up your playlists and create a different vibe for your weddings. I wrot... [read more]