A university event puts the widest age range of any room we play under one roof on purpose. A reunion weekend has the class of 1975 and the class of 2020 at the same bar. An alumni gala seats a dean, a donor in his seventies, and the student ambassadors working the coat check. The music has to belong to all of them, and the building has its own rules about how it gets there. This post is about how we play those rooms in New York City and New Jersey, and what campus venues ask that hotels do not.
Reunions, galas and the events in between
University and alumni events come in a few shapes, and the DJ's job is different in each.
Reunion weekends. Usually a Saturday-night party for several class years at once, in a tent on a quad or a campus hall, after a day of panels and tours. The room arrives in class-year clusters, and the music has to move between decades without stranding anyone. This is the purest version of the mixed-generation problem, and we come back to it below.
Alumni galas and scholarship dinners. A seated program with a president's welcome, an honoree, a student speaker, sometimes an appeal, then a floor. The cue work is the same as a corporate gala: every microphone checked, walk-up music cut clean, silence where the program needs it, and a floor opened deliberately out of the last toast. If there is an auctioneer or a professional MC, we work alongside them.
Young alumni and regional chapter events. A rooftop or a bar in Manhattan, a Jersey City chapter mixer, a happy hour for recent graduates. These are networking rooms first and parties second, and the music sits under conversation until the room says otherwise.
School-spirit moments. The fight song, the alma mater, the chant that everyone from one school knows and nobody else does. We ask for these in advance, get the recordings the university approves, and cue them where the program calls for them. The fight song played at the wrong moment, or the wrong version of it, is the fastest way to lose a room of alumni; the right one at the right moment is the loudest sing-along of the year. We keep it on a separate deck, cued and ready, from the moment doors open, because the request for it never comes when the run of show says it will.
Brands and organizations we have played for include New York University and Mount Sinai, alongside the corporate clients listed on our services page.
22 to 75 in one room
The age range at an alumni event is not a problem to solve so much as a shape to work with. What we have learned:
Class years are the decades. A reunion is already organized by year, which tells us exactly which eras are in the room and in what proportion. If the 25th and 50th reunions are both present, the 1970s and the late 1990s each get real time. If it is a young-alumni night, the set is the last fifteen years and we do not pretend otherwise.
The big songs, not the deep cuts. Every era has records that everyone in the room knows regardless of age, and those are what we play when the whole room is together. Deep cuts from any decade split the room. Broad ones bring it together, and then we go one layer deeper for the people whose era it is.
The older classes arrive first and leave first, mostly. Not always, and a 50th reunion class can outlast everyone, but in general the early part of the night belongs to the earlier classes and the late part to the recent ones. We program the arc that way and watch the room to see whether it is holding.
Clean edits, always. A university event has the institution's name on it, senior administrators in the room, and a reputation to protect. Radio edits without exception, and a do-not-play list from the alumni office if they have one.
Our post on music for a room aged 24 to 64 covers the general approach; an alumni room simply stretches both ends.
What campus venues ask for that hotels do not
A university is a landlord with its own rules, and they are usually stricter than a commercial venue's.
- Vendor approval and insurance. Most universities require outside vendors to be approved in advance and to file a certificate of insurance naming the university, and sometimes its trustees, as additional insured. Some have a vendor registration process that takes weeks. We issue the COI at no charge with the wording the school specifies; ask the alumni office early for the exact wording and where it goes.
- Campus security and access. Load-in on a campus often means checking in with campus security, a vehicle pass, and a specific dock or door that is only open at set hours. Ask who to call on the night, because the building manager and the campus operations office are often different people.
- Sound and time limits. Campuses in residential neighborhoods, including those in Manhattan, often have quiet hours and an amplified-sound cutoff, and a tent on a quad may need a permit the university obtains. We ask about both and plan the set to end before the cutoff rather than at it.
- House AV. University halls and auditoriums frequently have installed sound run by the school's AV office, and require vendors to patch in. We work with the university's AV staff, take a feed from their board where required, and bring our own system only where the space has nothing.
- Current students in the room. Events with students in attendance have their own rules, and the alumni office will tell you what applies. It affects the tone of the set more than the logistics.
Off campus, at a Manhattan hotel or a Jersey City venue, the rules are the venue's, and our post on the certificate of insurance process covers what those look like.
What to send us and what it costs
A reunion party or a chapter mixer is usually the Corporate Celebration at $3,500 or the Corporate Mixer at $2,500, depending on whether there is a floor. An alumni gala with a full program is the Corporate Premier at $4,500, with the scheduled-cue preparation that a president's welcome, an honoree and a student speaker need. All three are up to four hours with setup and breakdown; extended hours and additional microphones are quoted on the estimate, and the full list is on the pricing page.
Send us the date, the venue, the headcount, and which class years are in the room through the contact page. If there is a fight song, tell us which version. We reply within 24 hours.