Now its easy to prep for a dj night. Well I cannot say too easy but we definitely have to carry less to events. We used to play at the clubs 3 nights a week. We would have the latest tracks on record and we had all the classics. We would bring 6 crates every time we did events. We would have the classic hip hop and the latest hip hop and the current pop and funk. We would always focus on the current music but we would always dive in the older stuff in the beginning of the night. Why not play some 80s new wave then jump into some funk? 90’s hip hop was always a hit and then once the crowd started to show up then we would go with the current music. Once it hit midnight, I would have to go with the midnight mix. From 12 to 1 we would go hard with the biggest hits. That had to be the peak of the night. Then from 1 to 130 we would tone it down a bit. I would always do a slow song as the last song of the night. There was one club that would always wants Journey at the end of the night. No matter what that had to be the last song of the night. But I would like to do a r&b song to end on. The greatness of vinyl is you can only play what you bring. Never have to download any track and you just say you don’t have it on record.
To have a good party is like a good business, you need good marketing. Usually it’s the folks who were in the student leadership spearhead the whole event. It would be ideal to form a committee since it is a lot of work and they can cover more ground in numbers. They can reach out to the school and advertise it on the marquee. They can create a facebook reunion class page to let folks know of the event. It would be great to send save the date notices by snail mail or by emails.
Plan to have the Reunion on a Saturday since it gives folks an opportunity to come to town and not have the feel to rush back to their place of residence.
They find a dj that knows music for their high school period. Typcially the dj looks for the top hits the 4 years the students were at school.
There is no such thing as the older the class the less chance of them dancing. With a good playlist, people will be dancing. A good dj will keep the soft hits for the dinner portion of the night but save the floor fillers for the end of the night.
A good host will reach out to guests and ask for their favorite songs of their high school years and record the list and give it to the dj. Its best to send that list at least a week in advance so the dj has enough time to organize the music for the event.