A DJ for the company party: why it runs differently
3 min read
A company party is the hardest event we play. Not because of the equipment, but because of the starting position: the guests did not choose to be here, know each other to wildly different degrees, and are anywhere between 22 and 64. At a wedding everyone wants the evening to work. At a company party you have to earn it.
The evening has three parts, not one
Plan a company party like a party and you lose the first half. In practice the night nearly always breaks into the same three sections, and each needs something different.
- Arrival and dinner – music people can talk over. The most common mistake is being too loud already
- Speeches and programme – sound where the last table hears every word. This is the part where an evening can fail
- The night itself – this is where it is decided whether anyone dances. Usually from ten, rarely earlier
The critical moment sits between part two and part three. Let the speeches trail off and only then wonder what comes next, and half the room is already gone.
Speeches are where it goes wrong
A speech the back of the room cannot hear is worse than no speech. The managing director speaks more quietly than they think, the microphone is held too low, and cutlery is clattering. That is not bad luck, that is the default – and you plan against it.
In practice: a wireless microphone somebody has actually held before, a second one for when a battery gives up, and a level set for a full room rather than an empty one. If there is a presentation, the sound from the laptop needs testing beforehand, not while everyone waits.
Music for a room that did not choose to be here
At a wedding the DJ knows the couple and roughly their taste. At a company party the room is a cross-section: apprentices and department heads, shop floor and administration, people who work together and share little else.
What works are songs two generations like for different reasons. What does not work is a themed night – announce a nineties party and you lose half the room before the first track. The exception is a theme the company set itself and everyone is in on.
What to settle as the organiser
- How late you may celebrate – that is in the contract with the venue, not in what management hopes
- Who is speaking, for how long, and exactly when
- Whether there is a programme – awards, a raffle, a band beforehand
- How many guests are actually coming, not how many were invited
- Whether there is a smoking area and how far away it is – that shapes the dance floor more than the music does
The last line sounds trivial and is not. A smoking area two doors down costs twenty minutes of dance floor every time.
The Christmas party: the date people book too late
For suppliers, the weeks between late November and 20 December are the densest of the year, denser than the wedding summer. Ask in October and you are no longer choosing who you get.
September is realistic. If you already know the date in spring, you can fill it in spring – it costs nothing and takes one job out of November.