Its always great fun arranging a party, but one of the challenges is making sure you choose the right suppliers. The pressure mounts when the supplier in question is key to your function, such as a Wedding DJ, Mobile Disco, or Caterer for example. I have done so very many functions, I thought I would put together a few pointers to help you make the right decisions.
1. Budget is important, but you usually get what you pay for. On the whole, this is often the biggest challenge we have as a professional wedding and party supplier, with customers focussing only on price. My advice is as follows – if you have a limited budget, think carefully about the most important components of your function. A DJ is likely to be responsible for entertaining your guests for the last 5 hours of your function, and that can be a very long time if you have a budget DJ playing the Birdie Song and Agadoo throughout the night! So if your budget is stretched,you may choose to forego chair covers, or an open bar, and instead prioritise the spend on a product or service that adds more value to the evening.
2. Cheap DJ’s are cheap for a reason. They have kept their equipment prices and overheads low, using sub standard gear, with no backups, and they don’t invest in music. Cheap DJ’s often have very limited music selections, playing the same rehash for each function. Choose a DJ like us (SM Discos), who subscribe to weekly professional music subscriptions, ensuring the latest music available for client requests. When you choose a DJ who has years of experience, their library is vast, meaning they have the music available on the night to make your party a success.
3. Unlike Meghan Traynor, its not “All about the Bass”. Good Mobile Disco’s have good gear, meaning sound quality is optised without deafening anyone, or tripping the sound limiter in the venue every 10 minutes. While we do bring a large subwoofer to bigger parties, we focus on clean sound using high end speakers.
4. Experience counts. Like any profession, you cannot forego experience, and a professional DJ offers this. having done hundreds of functions, they know how to read a crowd, select the right music, the right key changes, interact with guests, and deal with situations when things go wrong, and keep your party an enjoyable experience. Ever been to a party where no-one dances??? Well, we haven’t, and there is a reason for that – we know what works. This takes years to achieve, and there is premium to pay for that expertise, but we think its worth it, and we are sure you will too.
5. Don’t do cash on the night. You may think its safer because you pay on arrival, but its not, most clients contacting us last minute are due to being let down by a DJ they haven’t paid in advance, because they have scarpered when they received a better offer somewhere else… or decided to watch the footy instead. Its even more prevalent with cheap DJ’s, I cannot tell you how many times we quote our standard price for a disco, and the let down client says ” well the other guy was only charging £150!”. Well, the other guy let you down! Meet your DJ, talk to them, sign a contract and pay the deposit – that’s how we do it and we have never missed a function. Ever..