On the day of a corporate event, a planner is running a dozen vendors on a timeline that is already slipping by 6:00 PM. The DJ is one of those vendors, and the handoffs between the planner and the DJ are small, specific and mostly silent. This is what they look like from our side, from reaching the room to the house lights coming up, and how we prefer to communicate during each one so that your attention can go where it is needed.
Arrival, setup and sound check
Arrival: the handoff is the room
We arrive at the load-in time on the rider, usually two to two and a half hours before doors. The first handoff is not a conversation; it is a room that is set enough to work in. Tables in position, the DJ table where the floor plan says, power live. If the room is still being flipped from a lunch, we wait, and every minute we wait comes off the sound check.
What we need from you at this point is thirty seconds: where we are going, and who the venue's operations contact is today. Then we are out of your way for ninety minutes. We do not need you in the room for setup. We do need you, or the venue's person, to know we are in it, so that nobody rolls a catering rack through the spot where the speaker cable runs.
Sound check: the one handoff that needs you present
Sound check is fifteen to twenty minutes, once the room is quiet enough to hear it, and it is the single point in the day where five minutes of a planner's attention saves the most trouble later. We test each wireless microphone at the position where it will actually be used, which means walking to the lectern with it, not talking into it from the booth. We set the dinner bed from the far table and mark the level. We run a short burst at dance volume so the venue's manager hears what "up" sounds like before there are guests to complain about it.
What we want from you during sound check is the microphone plan: who speaks, from where, in what order, and whether anyone will accept an award from the floor. If the CEO's chief of staff wants to hear the mic before the CEO does, this is the moment. If there is a video with sound, this is when we find out whether the AV team's feed reaches our mixer or whether their audio plays on their own speakers. Working with the AV team goes deeper on that split.
Doors through dinner: text, do not walk
Once doors open, the handoffs go quiet. We agree the protocol on the planning call and it is almost always the same: text messages, one word where possible, and a hand signal for the two cues that cannot wait for a phone. If your team runs on radios, we will take one and stay on your channel, but a radio on the DJ table is a radio the room can hear at the wrong moment, so we listen through an earpiece or not at all.
The handoffs in this stretch, in order:
- "Doors." One text. Music is already playing at arrival level; this tells us to hold it there and start watching the room fill.
- "Dinner in five." The catering lead tells you tables are ready; you tell us. We bring the bed down under a short announcement calling the room to tables, then back up at dinner level. If you would rather make the announcement yourself, or the venue's captain does it, we hand over a mic and drop the bed on your first word.
- "Speaker up." A text or the hand signal, from a fixed spot we agreed at sound check, usually stage left where we can see you. Music goes off on the signal, not on the applause, because a room that applauds while music is still fading sounds like a mistake.
- "Hold." The most useful word in the protocol. The speaker is late, the video will not play, the award list has changed. One text; the bed stays where it is; nobody in the room knows anything is wrong.
The program: who says go
During the speech and awards block, one person cues us. Agree in advance who that is, and make it someone who will be standing where we can see them for the whole block. The presenter is a bad choice; they are looking at the audience. The client is a bad choice; they are being congratulated. It is nearly always the planner or the planner's lead, and if you have to leave the room during the block, hand the job to a named person and tell us by text who it is.
The cue that matters most is the last one: the sentence that opens the floor. We ask the final speaker to end on a line we have agreed, and the first song starts on that line. If the speaker goes off script, your thumbs-up is the backup. Everything in opening the floor after speeches depends on those three seconds going right, and the thing that most often goes wrong is a presenter who says "thank you" and then keeps talking.
The floor and the close: fewer handoffs, but they are timed
Once the floor is open, we do not need you. Requests come to the booth; anything on the do-not-play list is declined at the booth without bothering you. Two handoffs remain.
- "Last song at [time]." Fifteen minutes before the venue's hard out. We build the last twenty minutes to land on it and announce the last song from the booth in one line. If the client wants to extend, this is the moment to ask us and the venue, not five minutes after the lights come up; Extended Hours is on every quote for exactly this reason.
- "Lights up." The venue manager usually owns this. Music off first, then lights, in that order. Lights up over a track that is still playing feels like being thrown out; music off under dim light feels like the end of a night.
Breakdown takes about an hour and needs nothing from you except the same freight access we came in through. If the venue's overnight security has a different sign-out process than the daytime desk, that is the one thing worth telling us before you leave.
What to put in your own timeline
If you are building the master timeline and want the DJ rows to be right, these are the ones we would add, in the language your other vendors already read:
- DJ load-in, with the room-ready time next to it.
- Sound check, with the planner present and the mic plan on hand.
- Doors, dinner call, each speaker, awards, floor open, last song and music off, each with its cue trigger written out.
- One named person who cues the DJ, with a phone number.
- The venue's day-of contact.
We fill in the music column on the planning call; a complete example is in our run-of-show template. The rest of your timeline does not change to accommodate us, which is the point. Planners who work with us regularly can find the standing vendor details on the partners page.
For a specific date, send the date, the venue and the headcount through the contact page. We reply within 24 hours.