Written by curator Eric Sampson (Jem) of The DJ Firm:

Big shout out to all my 2022 couples and the 2023 couples starting to get into planning their big day! It's the middle of the wedding season and we have already rocked a significant amount of dance floors, so I thought it would be a great time to give you some quick tips on how to set your dancefloor up for success!

Setting your dance floor up for success.

Place your DJ near the dance floor

I think this is the one thing that couples, venues and planners underestimate the most. The placement of your DJ in relation to the dance floor is so important when it comes to creating a vibe. The DJ feeds off the reactions that your guest shows when they are selecting the music and reading the room. Your guests are doing the same as they feed off the energy from the djs body language, so you want to keep this connection close. Never put tables and/or guests in between the dance floor and the DJ. This just creates a disconnect that may be hard to overcome for your DJ.

Know your crowd's music taste

When you're planning music and vibe with your DJ, try to keep your music in line with the people that are going to be at the wedding. Be open to the DJ delivering an open format set that can include all genres within the scope of your guest music taste. If your crowd has a specific taste in music then you need to prep your DJ for that, especially if they do not specialize in a certain genre.

Don’t let requests dictate your party

Give your DJ the freedom to navigate requests as they see fit. If the DJ starts to play too many requests, then the vibe can become dis-jointed. The music needs to keep a good pace and requests can disrupt that if they are not managed properly.

Let the DJ have creative music direction

You should always give your DJ some “must plays” and “do not plays ''. I would say about 30-50 songs is a good number to stick around. However, you are paying for a DJ experience and part of the experience is not knowing what the DJ is going to play. Give them the opportunity to play the music you love creatively. If you picked the right DJ for your wedding, then this will happen naturally.

Keep it simple!

Don’t overthink every song the DJ is going to play and trust your entertainment vendor. You hired him or her for a reason, so let them do what they do.

Hopefully some of these tips can help add to your upcoming wedding or you can start working them into the planning with your DJ. Please remember to give my team a follow on all platforms and you can find all of our links here (https://linktr.ee/thedjfirm). We would love for you to join our community so give us a shout and share this post if it was helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to connect in advance and please reach out to Eric@thedjfirm.com with any feedback, questions, or comments.

Setting your dance floor up for success