Somebody is drawing a floor plan for your event, and there is a rectangle on it labeled "DJ." Usually it is the wrong size, and usually it is in the wrong place, and neither is anyone's fault, because nobody tells planners the numbers. Here they are: what the booth takes up, where the speakers go, how the cables get there, and what the DJ has to be able to see. The dimensions below are typical for our setup and for most single-DJ corporate setups in this market; the venue's own rules always win.
The booth footprint
The booth itself is a six-foot table with a facade in front of it. Call it 6 feet wide by 2 feet deep for the table. The DJ stands behind it and needs room to move, reach a case, and not back into a wall, so add about 3 feet of working depth. The realistic booth rectangle is therefore about 6 feet by 4 feet, and if you want a comfortable one, 6 by 5.
Behind the booth there are two or three equipment cases that stay for the night. They stack and hide behind the facade if there is depth for them; pushed hard against a wall, they end up beside it and the footprint grows a foot wider.
Then the speakers. A standard setup is two speakers on tripod stands, one on each side of the booth. Each stand has a base that spreads to roughly a 3-foot circle, and the speakers sit best 8 to 15 feet apart, which usually means a couple of feet outboard of the table on each side. A subwoofer, when the event has a dance segment, sits on the floor next to one stand and takes about 2 feet square.
Put it together and the whole DJ zone is about 12 to 16 feet wide and 6 to 8 feet deep. That is the rectangle to draw. In a small room with speakers close in, it shrinks to 10 by 6. In a large ballroom where the speakers need to be wider apart to cover the floor, it grows, but the extra is stand space, not table space.
| Element | Typical footprint | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| DJ table with facade | 6 ft x 2 ft | Plus 3 ft working depth behind |
| Booth including DJ | 6 ft x 4 to 5 ft | Cases stack behind the facade |
| Speaker on stand (each of two) | 3 ft circle at the base | 8 to 15 ft apart, flanking the booth |
| Subwoofer | 2 ft x 2 ft on the floor | Dance events only |
| Whole DJ zone | 12 to 16 ft wide x 6 to 8 ft deep | Draw this rectangle |
Where it goes: a diagram in words
Picture the room from above. The dance floor is a square in the middle or against one wall. The booth goes on one edge of that square, centered, facing across it. The speakers stand at the two front corners of the booth, angled slightly inward, so they fire across the floor and not into the wall opposite. The subwoofer sits on the floor beside one stand. The equipment cases are behind the facade. That is the entire arrangement, and it works in almost any room.
A few rules that follow from it:
- The booth faces the floor, not the door. The DJ has to see the floor to read it. A booth tucked into an alcove with a view of the bar and no view of the dancing is a booth that plays blind.
- Nothing between the speakers and the people. A pillar, a bar, a tall centerpiece, a step-and-repeat: anything that blocks the front of a speaker leaves a dead spot behind it. The most common version of this is a speaker placed behind the DJ instead of beside, which fires into the DJ's back and over everyone's head.
- Tweeters at head height or a little above. Speaker stands go up to about six feet for a reason. On a standing crowd, the high end needs to clear the front row; on a seated dinner, it can come down. This is a stand adjustment, not a floor-plan issue, but it is why the stand needs room to extend.
- Not in a corner. A corner throws the low end into the room unevenly and gives the DJ a diagonal view. If the room forces a corner, the speakers come out of it along the two walls and the booth goes in the angle, which needs a bit more depth.
The booth does not need a riser or a stage. Stages are usually where the podium is, which brings us to the next problem.
Distance from the podium and the speeches
The person at the podium is holding a microphone that goes through the DJ's speakers. If the podium is directly in front of one of those speakers, the microphone hears the speaker and the speaker hears the microphone, and that is feedback. So the podium and the speakers need a relationship, and the simple one is: podium beside the booth, speakers in front of both. The speaker faces the room, the microphone is behind the speaker's front edge, and the loop never closes.
If the podium has to be across the room from the booth, it can be, but then the microphone is out in the field the speakers are covering and the system runs a little lower during speeches. It also needs a sightline: the DJ has to see the podium to bring the music down when the speaker walks up and back up when they finish. A podium behind a pillar from the booth means those cues come late.
Ask for the lectern to be within about 20 feet of the booth if the room allows. Our post on speeches, awards and microphones covers the program side.
Power and cable paths
The DJ setup wants one outlet on its own circuit within about 25 feet of the booth. Two outlets on the same wall is better. It does not need three-phase power or anything a venue would call "show power." What it does not want is to share a circuit with the coffee station or the caterer's hot boxes, because those switch on and off all night and the audio hears every click, and a heavily loaded circuit can trip when the subwoofer hits.
Cables run from the booth to the outlet and from the booth to each speaker. On a plan, these are three lines, and the question is what they cross. The rule is that nothing crosses a walkway without being taped down or matted, and nothing crosses a doorway that the venue needs to close. So the ideal booth position has a wall behind it with an outlet on that wall, and the speakers a few feet to either side along the same wall. Every cable stays behind the line of the booth and nobody trips on anything.
When the booth has to be away from the wall, the speaker cables go out along the floor and get gaffer-taped wherever a person will walk. Some carpeted venues do not allow tape and want a rubber cable ramp instead; we bring both, but it is worth knowing in advance.
The dance floor, and what to ask the venue
The dance floor is the other rectangle. The rule of thumb rental companies and venues use is that not everyone dances at once, so the floor is sized for roughly a third to a half of the guest count, with a few square feet per dancer. A floor for 150 guests is usually around 15 by 18 feet to 18 by 20 feet. Bigger is not better: a half-full floor looks empty and empties further. If the venue offers a choice, take the smaller one.
Before the plan is final, ask the venue four things. Where are the outlets on the wall you want the booth on, and is any of them on a dedicated circuit. Is tape allowed on the floor. Is there a house sound system the venue requires you to use, in which case the speaker positions are already decided and the booth just needs to be near the patch point; we cover that in venue sound system versus DJ sound. And what the load-in path is from the dock to the room, because a booth that fits the room but has to come up a passenger elevator in pieces changes the setup time.
If you have a floor plan already, send it. A PDF with a rectangle on it is enough for us to say yes, or to suggest moving the rectangle ten feet. Send it with the date, venue and headcount through the contact page and we will reply within 24 hours.