Is your DJ or MC insured?
All of your suppliers, including the DJ and/or MC should at the very least, hold public liability insurance. A significant number of wedding reception establishments will require that any contractor/vendor who enters their premises provide evidence of current public liability insurance. If it cannot be provided, that particular supplier will most likely be refused access due to the potential risk it represents to the venue. If your venue has this requirement and you have hired a DJ that does not have public liability insurance, you are left with one of the two following options;
1) Source another DJ who has current liability insurance, or
2) Personally, arrange public liability insurance coverage for your selected DJ.
Unfortunately, both of these options are far from ideal.
In the first option, you probably selected a particular DJ because there was a connection; they can deliver exactly what you are after and/or are within your budget. Because the DJ does not have insurance, you are now placed into a situation where you have to repeat the search process to source a suitable replacement DJ – one that has current public liability insurance.
Depending on when the venue informs you of this requirement (often the week of the event) there may not be sufficient time to secure an acceptable replacement; you may be left with little or no choice and is unneeded and unnecessary stress in the final days leading up to your wedding or event. Some venues may even insist on the supplier providing Risk Assessment Plans/Risk Management Plans and certification that all electrical equipment is Portable Appliance Tested (tested as safe to use by licensed tester in accordance with requirements specified in AS/NZS 3760) in addition to Insurance Certificate of Currency.
Personally, arranging public liability insurance coverage in order to avoid the situation outlined in the previous point will mean you will be at the mercy of the insurance companies and as a once off customer, requiring insurance for one night only, do you think the insurance company is going to give you a great deal? Probably not. You will likely be charged a hefty premium and the closer to the event, the larger this premium might become.
How do you avoid this situation?
Determine if your venue requires that any contractor/vendor who enters their premises needs current public liability insurance. Make this determination PRIOR to booking any service providers (including your DJ) that will be required to be on the premises before, on or after the day of your celebration.
Prior to booking your entertainment (or another supplier), ensure that they have appropriate insurance. You might pay a little more for a supplier that does, but this is an indication that the supplier is a professional and takes their role seriously – no true professional would be without liability insurance, it is just not worth the risk.
Further, you may find that the more expensive supplier could ultimately be a less costly option than if you engaged a lower priced supplier and had to personally cover them for public liability insurance yourself.
It isn’t a glamorous topic, but save yourself the insurance headache wherever possible and hire properly insured event professionals.
Note: Public Liability Insurance is the minimum requirement you should be checking for as it protects the client, the venue and the supplier. However, many professional DJs also hold other insurances such as Professional Indemnity, Personal Accident or Equipment Insurance. These are good indicators of someone who treats their profession and the events they’re hired for, most seriously.
The DJ Alliance Australasia along with our international not-for-profit partner Associations, the Canadian Professional Disc Jockey Association (Canada) and the National Association of Disc Jockeys (UK) are publishing a series of articles designed to help the general public better utilise the industry our collective Associations represent. We hope these articles are helpful and function to assist everyone achieve greater event success with mobile DJ & MC entertainment.
DJs & MCs wishing to publish DJAA “DJ MC Hiring Tips” blog content to their own website is permissible provided the content remains unchanged and when credit is given to a guest author that credit remains intact at the end of the blog post as originally written. Those republishing blog content must also have the following line inserted at the start of the post:
This was originally published by the DJAA (embed link to original article here) and has been republished here with permission.