School & Teen Events 6 hours of music .. what to play?

[MIXMASTERMACHOM]

Let me tell you this funny story here. We were asked to do a school dance somewhere. I forgot where but it was a good drive. I didn't play at all. The guy that works with me sometimes did the playing. It was in this cafeteria with at best 60 kids there along with the organizers of the event. At one point he got a request to play Cotton Eye Joe and wouldn't play it till I made him play it. He thought it wouldn't work and it was a smash hit. I personally hate country music but love that song!

 

[IceBurghDJ]

I've not done the advance - request thing, but I do have a table and tablet for them to write the requests down, and I check page by page..what's there. Good to keep for a reference as well. And it keeps them from talking to me LOL. At a MS dance that canbe the difference between working and going insane BTW.

I'll probably do some throwback songs - gonna ask if the chaperones want to have some fun on the floor and show 'these kids' what dancing is like, er, what music is like. Depends on who/what the chaperones are but at other proms i've found them to be fun and easy to get involved.

The challenge may be keeping some good songs till the end..they want their faves early, not 4 hours later. I sorta did that at the last HS dance it worked spectacularly, but it was more like 2.5 hours after they hit the floor. And there were 200 of them.

I fear I'll have some near-empty dance floor moments.

 

[kittmaster]

Scott's making a really good point here. I have an online song request system that I use. Pass it to the Prom sponsors about 3 weeks in advance. I usually have 4-5 pages of songs from the kids. I usually take an evening to weed thru them and cross off the "maggot brain" requests. You can easily cover a 6-hour event.

I agree!

I've designed my entire music library around this theory and use my own online built song request system as well. It works GREAT for these types of events because the input comes DIRECTLY from the students as to what they want to hear. Once you remove the "garbage" and then the "you got to be kidding" requests, it allows you to remove most of the doubt about the genres that would most likely fail if you tried to freewheel it. Sure you can say your a jukebox at that point, but it puts the staff at ease with what will be played and everyone has a clear directive of what will happen at the event. Some say your not a DJ at that point, I say you're wrong, you still have to assemble it all in the right order, read the room, and grind through stuff that you may not have normally played otherwise.......oh and the other ancillary benefit of being called back to do repeat work for years to come because you have their best interest at heart. My 2 cents.

 

[imthedj]

Scott's making a really good point here. I have an online song request system that I use. Pass it to the Prom sponsors about 3 weeks in advance. I usually have 4-5 pages of songs from the kids. I usually take an evening to weed thru them and cross off the "maggot brain" requests. You can easily cover a 6-hour event.

Is this online song request system something you made yourself, or is it something that I can find to use? I've been doing
some middle school dances and I would like to make the request process easier.

 

[rickryan.com]

Is this online song request system something you made yourself, or is it something that I can find to use? I've been doing
some middle school dances and I would like to make the request process easier.

Yes, it's my own creation (I'm a programmer by trade). This thing has come in handy, especially on kid events. In fact, this post made me think to go check tomorrow's event. Looks like it got to the kids after all. Check it out.

Request List

 

[steve149]

What the heck is that First song??? Must be a local "artist" .. says he's from Elkmont, AL.

 

[rickryan.com]

What the heck is that First song??? Must be a local "artist" .. says he's from Elkmont, AL.

Yep. They did the same thing last year. Some kid that attends their school and is the local "rockstar". I gotta double-check that I still have that on file.

 

[Proformance]

I don't know, I've done a lot of 8 - 12 hour gigs and I've never run out of music. It helps to have lived through decades of music and to be familiar with what has lived on through TV shows, commercials, movies, and sporting events.

I try not to get reminiscent in my sets with young people because, they haven't lived long enough to be nostalgic. What I call a throw back is fresh to them if their exposure comes from the media and internet. So, to that end - the mixing of old and new tracks spontaneously is completely transparent to them if the recurring oldies still hold a place in current youth pop culture.

The girls are the ignition and the boys are the fuel so, always appeal to the girls taste first - and then the boys. A dance floor full of girls is more reliable than one full of boys - and the boys won't be leaving if that's where the girl's are at.

Advance lists can help - but, it's rare to get one that wasn't drafted by one person, or a few confidants. Every school has it's own culture too, I've had some interesting experiences where the kids were more into Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Reggae, etc. (stuff their parents obviously listen to) than any of the current pop music.

There's less and less commonality these days - music taste is incredibly splintered and individualized.