Schaumburg. Ah… Schaumburg.

United Airlines had a conference at the Renaissance hotel in Schaumburg. It was a two day event where 450 people spent all day in one room for speeches and presentations and then switched to a different room for dinner and entertainment. The first night, Monday, Brian and I dj’d dancing after dinner. It was a long day for the 450 people that attended and I overheard a few of them talking about going to bed early because the next day was the day to party. The group was made up of people from around the world. All different walks of life. What was tough was that they hired us solely for dancing. We were set up on the far side of the room and found it odd that we were set up and hanging out by the dj table but not playing any music. The house system was drowned out by the crowd. Brian and I talked about what would be best for the party and decided to put on some jazz so the crowd could listen to something. I started bringing the energy of the music up a little before the time our contract started to start molding the crowd into a dancing mood. Once people started dancing, we had a good sized crowd going for about an hour, and then it slowly fizzled out. By the end, we were just playing background music for the few people that remained. These gigs are challenging because there’s very little, if any, acknowledgement from the crowd. It’s hard to know if the party’s successful when nobody’s dancing at the end. One huge learn from this gig is to talk about what I’m noticing in the crowd. It effected my level of satisfaction on the gig because I was getting frustrated that people stopped dancing after a while. I wasn’t seeing how they were interacting with one another, if they were getting tired or drunk, if they were smiling or laughing. All these things are necessary for me to know if I’m doing a good job as a dj and if other factors are effecting them and causing them to leave the party.

--Jonathan Hood