Dissecting a gig

I like studying people. Sociology was one of my majors in college and one of the things I like about dj'ing parties is that I get to watch people all night and study how they interact. It is also one of my goals to go back to school and get a masters and PhD in sociology. With the support of my colleagues at fig, in particularly James Gustin himself, I am turning my blogs into little dissertations. From my blogs, I hope the readers get a sense of the dynamics that happen at a party in order to predict the success or failures of future events.

The study of today's blog is Reed Smith, Sachnoff, and Weaver's company party at the Palmer House. Reed Smith recently merged with Sachnoff and Weaver this last year. The party was for about 200 guests, employees only which comprised mainly of lawyers and secretaries. During the night, two skits are performed. One by the secretaries and one by the lawyers. These skits act as an outlet for the employees to voice their opinions, thoughts, feelings about the events that have happened over the last year and although it's not necessarily designed this way, anything unexpressed throughout the year will come out in this forum. Skits are an excellent way to see any underlying hostility or appreciation towards the company. In this case, there was more hostility than gratitude. Subjects like the merger and employees that are not present anymore came up. While the tone of the skits was geared toward making light of these subjects, because they have not had the opportunity to be expressed throughout the year, the humor sits on top of anger, hurt, sadness that will remain until it has a chance to come out. Leaders of companies often take the brunt of these unexpressed feelings. In this case, it was the managing partners who were present at the party. It also manifests itself within anyone planning the event. This is often unbeknownst to the person (people) planning it and should not be blamed for any mishaps that happen with the planning or hosting the event, but rather supported by the coworkers that much more.

These dynamics were present at this party in three forms. One was present within the guests as a whole, another within the host, and the third within myself and my assistant. I stress that people are often unaware of these factors. It is best to deal with these scenarios with compassion and understanding while asserting what is best for the party. The best example to use is at the beginning of dancing. It took the crowd a few songs to get warmed up and feel comfortable enough to approach the dance floor. Once the crowd was dancing, I worked them through some disco, funk, 80's, and into some old-school hip-hop. At this point, the host of the party asks to switch directions and put on something more exotic, like motown or salsa. I switch from the hip-hop I was playing into some salsa and then into motown. Half the crowd left the dance floor for the salsa and the rest left for the motown. After a couple songs, guests started leaving steadily from that point on.

The first dynamic was the song request. It didn't fit in with what most of the crowd wanted, which caused half of them to leave. Very few were into the motown which caused the rest to leave. If this were the only dynamic about this example, then it would be no problem bringing the crowd back. The second dynamic was the crowd's reaction. While most crowds would stick out the party through a set that doesn't agree with them, this crowd chose to start leaving. The urge to celebrate wasn't high enough for people; there wasn't a central theme that united everyone together. This party centers around the skits which were filled with references about people who aren't there anymore, people who are dissatisfied with their jobs, people who are dissatisfied with decisions being made without their say, and decisions being made that they did not agree with. The central them was hardly celebratory and thus people did not feel the urge to stick around. The third dynamic was myself and my assistant. We did not let the host know about the dynamics happening in the room and what effect the song request might have. I actually thought it wouldn't be a problem to bring the guests back after playing the salsa and motown if they didn't hit. Unfortunately, I did not understand the dynamics in the room fully and thus went ahead with the requests.

I would say that this was the turning point in the evening. While I eventually got the crowd dancing again, it was not the same party after this. There was a heaviness in the room, and I was often scared of clearing the dance floor again. The party died about 30 minutes left to go and we played lighter music for the few people who stayed. Reading a room is tricky, and little things can effect the outcome of a party. My biggest concern is that the person (people) planning a party may think the deejay is doing a bad job when really it could be a few different factors coming to play all at the same time. If at any point you feel that the party isn't going as well as it should be, talk to the deejay about the dynamics in the room. If the deejay doesn't know, then you have a bad deejay. If the deejay does know, then getting him/her to talk about it may help him/her see the party differently and begin to play music that counteracts the dynamics in the room. But how to counteract negative dynamics is the topic for another conversation. Until, happy partying.

--jonathan hood
dj operations manager

(tim musho assisted)