Every DJ intake form has a box for it, and most of what gets typed in that box is not useful. "Nothing inappropriate." "No country." "Keep it upbeat." Those are moods, not instructions, and they leave the DJ guessing at exactly the moments when guessing is expensive. A good do-not-play list is short, specific, and paired with its opposite, a short list of what you do want. This is how to write both so they change what happens on the night.
Why "read the room" needs a starting point
Clients often skip the lists because they have hired a DJ precisely so they do not have to think about music. "Just read the room" is the instruction. That is the job, and it is what we do, but reading a room is a feedback loop: play something, watch, adjust. It takes two or three songs to get a signal from a floor. The first two or three songs are chosen on prior information, and if the DJ has none, they are chosen on averages. Averages are fine for a Saturday at a rooftop where nobody knows each other. They are a waste of a company event, where the people in the room share a history the DJ cannot see.
A do-not-play list and a please-play list are that prior information. They shorten the loop. Ten lines from you save the DJ the first twenty minutes of the floor, which happens to be the twenty minutes that decides whether there is a floor. The reading-the-room post covers the loop itself; this one is about what to hand over before it starts.
The four kinds of do-not-play, and how to write each
Almost everything worth excluding falls into one of four categories. Label which one you mean, because the DJ handles each differently.
1. Songs
The easiest to act on. Title and artist, one per line. The reasons are usually personal to the company: the song that played when the layoffs were announced, the one a departed executive used as a walk-up track, the one from an ad campaign that flopped. You do not have to give the reason. A named song is a hard exclusion; it will not be played even if fifteen people request it.
2. Artists
Also easy, with one caution. "No [artist]" excludes their catalogue, their features, and usually their signature samples. If what you actually mean is "not the explicit stuff," say that instead, because excluding a major artist from the last fifteen years of pop or hip-hop removes a lot of the songs that reliably cross a room. We will honour it either way; just be sure it is what you want. Where an artist has become a reputational problem in the news, that is a legitimate and common reason, and a corporate DJ should already be tracking it.
3. Themes
The most valuable category and the one nobody writes down. Themes are subjects, not words. "Nothing about drinking to excess." "No breakup songs; there is a recent divorce in the leadership team." "Nothing that name-checks a competitor." "No songs whose whole premise is money, we just did a round of cuts." A theme exclusion is an instruction about judgement, and it is the one the radio edit cannot make for you. A DJ who knows the catalogue can apply a theme rule across hundreds of songs in a way you could never list by title.
4. Eras and genres
The most common and the most often overstated. "No country" usually means "do not play a country block." It rarely means the one crossover country-pop song that half the office knows the words to should be skipped at 11pm. "Nothing before 2000" usually means "do not make this feel like a school reunion," a fair concern, and one we address anyway. Write the real intent: "Do not build sets around 80s rock; a song or two in the mix is fine" is more useful than "no 80s." If you really do mean a hard exclusion of an entire decade, say "hard" and we will treat it as one.
One more category worth a sentence: formats. Line dances, group participation songs, anything that requires an MC to lead the room. Many corporate clients do not want them, and some do. Say which.
The please-play list, and why it matters more
The do-not-play list closes doors. The please-play list tells the DJ which ones to walk through first, and at a company event it is the more useful of the two.
What goes on it is not a playlist. Ten to twenty songs is plenty; a hundred is a playlist, and if you want a playlist played in order you do not need a DJ. What the list should carry is information: songs that mean something to this specific group. The track the sales team plays when they hit a number. The song from the summer offsite. The artist half the engineering floor saw in concert last month. The one the CEO always requests. Those songs do two things a generic hit cannot: they tell the DJ what this room's shared taste actually is, and they give the DJ a card to play at the moment the floor needs a reason to stay.
Mark which ones are must-plays and which are flavour. A must-play goes in the set whatever happens, and we will find the right moment for it. Flavour tells us the direction; we may play three of them and use the rest to inform the choices around them. If there is a must-play with a specific moment attached, the executive's walk-up, the last song, the track for the team photo, say so and it goes in the timeline as a cue, not a suggestion.
The single most useful line on any please-play list is a description of the room. "Mostly 28 to 45, New York and Jersey, a lot of Latin and Caribbean backgrounds, a loud finance contingent who will ask for 2000s hip-hop, and a leadership table that will leave at 10." That sentence is worth more than any twenty song titles, because it lets the DJ pick the songs you did not think to list.
Writing it so it works: a short template
You can send this as an email. It does not need a form.
- Who is in the room. Two sentences: age range, where they are from, any strong contingents, who leaves early.
- Hard do-not-plays. Song titles and artists, one per line. No reasons required.
- Themes to avoid. One line each, with the reason if it helps us apply it.
- Soft exclusions. Genres or eras to keep to a minimum, with "hard" written next to any you mean absolutely.
- Must-plays. Up to five, with the moment if there is one.
- Flavour. Ten to fifteen songs or artists that sound like this group.
- Request policy. Whether guests can request on the night, and who has the final say. The requests post explains the options.
- One name. The person the DJ should look at if something borderline comes up.
Two practical notes from the receiving end. First, send it at least a week before the event, not the morning of; a must-play with an odd version, a specific remix, or a song that exists only on one streaming service takes time to source properly, and we play from local files, not a phone. Second, if several people at the company have opinions, consolidate them into one list before sending. Three conflicting lists from three stakeholders puts the DJ in the position of choosing between colleagues, which is not where you want the entertainment on the night.
Everything above gets confirmed on the planning call, where we will read the list back to you and ask about anything ambiguous. If you are at the point of booking, send the date, venue, and headcount to the contact page; the lists can come later. We reply within 24 hours.