What if your DJ or MC
- gets sick, has an accident or their vehicle breaks down on the way to your event?
- experiences equipment failure at a crucial moment?
- experiences a power outage?
- has a medical or family emergency?
- does not have a contingency plan to address all these and other scenarios?
Throughout life, we take certain precautions to ensure that should something not go to plan, we minimise or eliminate the likelihood of any disruption. For example, many of us subscribe to a road service, we carry a spare tyre, we take out insurance, we carry a power bank for our phone, etc.
Similarly, your DJ or MC should also be taking precautions to ensure that your wedding or celebration will proceed with little or no disruption. When researching potential entertainers for your event, delve into what back-up processes and procedures a DJ or MC has in place. This might include things such as equipment failure, dealing with inclement weather, staffing, technology and so much more.
Those that understand the significance of your celebration will be able to clearly articulate all of the back-up measures they have in place to ensure your celebration will not be put in jeopardy due to their unpreparedness. Those that truly wish to go above and beyond, will not only have contingencies for all the situations you may be specifically concerned about, but also those that you may not have even considered, such as a sewing kit, a spare garter for weddings, batteries, safety pins, etc.
As a guide, the DJAA suggests that your DJ or MC have the following backup solutions available;
- Equipment Failure – built in redundancy and/or additional items on site
- Staffing – staff on standby or if a sole trader, reciprocal arrangements with other comparable services
- Technology – multiple devices for music playback, multiple microphones (wireless & wired), spare parts, tools for minor repairs
- Power – generator or battery powered solutions
- Inclement Weather – solid Plan B and maybe even a Plan C
- Wardrobe Malfunction – additional appropriate clothing on site
- Physical paper – based backup of timelines and other important information
You will invest a significant amount of time and money into planning your event. Why would you risk it all on an entertainer that may not value your celebration as much as you do, by short cutting things and not having adequate backup procedures and contingency plans in place?
An experienced DJ and/or MC service should have adequate contingency plans for events such as illness or equipment failure. A backup DJ/MC should be available in case of an emergency and solutions the DJ/MC can use to ensure the show goes on in the event of any equipment malfunction.
You don’t want to worry about “what if” scenarios with your DJ or MC, so make sure to discuss what options are available if the worst should happen. Behind almost every good wedding or other event is an equally good backup plan. Knowing that there is a backup plan will help you feel extremely confident in the choice of your DJ or MC and help ensure that your celebration goes off……without a hitch!
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.