You have a run of show, a client who changes it at 4 p.m., a venue contact who is on a break, and eleven vendors who each think they are the important one. The DJ should be the vendor you think about least on the night, and that only happens if the division of responsibility is settled before load-in. This is how we work with planners: what we own, what you own, what we need from you and when, and how we stay out of your way once doors open.
Who owns what
The boundary we work to is simple. You own the timeline, the client, and the room. We own everything that comes out of a speaker, and the microphones. Where those overlap, at every cue, you call it and we execute it.
| You own | We own |
|---|---|
| The run of show and every change to it | Music selection within the brief and the do-not-play list |
| Calling cues on the night | Executing cues: fades, walk-ups, stings, mic on and off |
| The client relationship and sign-off | Sound levels, coverage, and speech clarity in the room |
| The venue relationship and the master timeline | Our load-in, sound check, COI, and breakdown against your timeline |
| Speaker wrangling: who is next and where they are | Handing a live, checked microphone to whoever you send up |
What we do not own, and will not drift into: hosting. We do light mic work, which means welcomes, introductions, calling to dinner, reading a name for a walk-up, opening the floor. If the program needs someone to hold the room between segments, that is an MC, and we work alongside one rather than substituting for one. Say so on the first call and we will tell you where the line is for that event.
The cue sheet: what we actually need on it
Send us your run of show in whatever form you keep it. We do not need a separate DJ version. What we need is for these items to be findable on it:
- Every moment a microphone goes live, with the name of who is holding it and whether they are on a handheld, a lav, or at a lectern. The lav question matters because a lav is usually the AV team's, a handheld is usually ours, and someone has to be told which.
- Walk-up music, if any: the name, the song, the version, and the length you want. Twenty seconds is normal. If the client has not picked songs, tell us and we will propose them for sign-off.
- Video and presentation playback, and whose audio it runs through. This is the most common cue to go wrong, because everyone assumed the other team had it. Here is how we split it with AV.
- The hard stop, and whether it is the venue's or the client's. Those are different levels of hard.
- The do-not-play list and the client's explicit requests, marked as such. A CEO's "I love this song" and a CEO's "play this song" are different instructions and we treat them differently.
We would rather have it a week out than the night before, but a version with holes a week out beats a finished one at load-in. Changes on the day are normal; they just need to reach us. Which is the next part.
Communications on the night
One person calls cues. If you are on radio, put us on a radio and tell us the channel; we bring an earpiece. If you are not on radio, tell us where you will stand and give us a visual signal for the three or four cues that matter most, usually the walk-ups and the floor open. What does not work is a cue arriving from three people: the client's assistant says go, you say hold, the venue captain says the kitchen needs two more minutes. When that happens we hold and look for you. Tell your client's team beforehand that the DJ takes cues from the planner, so nobody takes it personally.
Between cues, we do not need you. That is the point. If a speaker runs long, we wait. If the schedule slides twenty minutes, we fill at the level the room needs and pick up the next cue when you call it. If something breaks on our side, you will not hear about it, because we carry backup gear on site and the swap takes seconds. If something breaks that you need to know about, we walk to you; we do not shout across the room.
One thing that helps us help you: tell us the name and role of the one client-side person whose word overrides the run of show. There is always one, and knowing who it is before they walk up to the booth saves a conversation.
What we need from you, and when
| When | What |
|---|---|
| At booking | Date, venue, room, guest count, rough shape of the program. The venue's COI wording, so we can issue the certificate early. |
| Two to three weeks out | A planning call, about twenty minutes, with you or with you and the client. Draft run of show. Load-in window, dock and freight details in Manhattan, house-system requirements if the venue has them. |
| One week out | Run of show with mic moments and walk-ups marked. Do-not-play list. Any video files or their audio format. Name of the AV lead if there is one, so we can talk to them directly. |
| Day of | Our sound check slot, before doors and after AV has set their levels. Your radio channel or your position. Any changes. |
The single item that most often arrives late is the COI request, because the venue asks you, you ask the client, and nobody asks us. We issue certificates at no charge with whatever additional-insured wording the venue specifies; the sooner we have the wording, the sooner it is off your list.
Staying out of the way
A DJ who wants to be part of the show is a problem for a planner. We understand the job: the client's name is on the event, yours is on the timeline, and ours is on nothing. In practice that means we arrive at the load-in time you gave us, not earlier to make a point and not later. We set up in the footprint you assigned. We do not move the booth to a better spot without asking. We sound-check in our window, and if we finish early we get out of the room. We do not talk to your client about changes; we send them to you. We do not take requests that contradict the brief without your nod. And at the end, we break down in about an hour and leave the room the way we found it, because the venue's opinion of you is partly formed by your vendors.
If you work events regularly in NJ or NYC and want a DJ who works this way, the partners page explains how we work with planners, venues and agencies, and the contact page is the fastest way to check a date. We reply within 24 hours.