Spahetti junction in the lounge!

Cables, whilst being the bane of my existence, are pretty damn necessary and depending on the venue we can use miles of the things. The only problem is that the cable trunk can get a little messy at times so what better way to spend a rainy Thursday than with c**p daytime telly and a lot of electrical tape?! Well, the pub’s open I suppose…

It’ll be so worth it with a busy weekend of weddings up and coming although I’ll guess another sort out won’t be too far away. *groans*

Dave Clarke is the West Midlands premier wedding DJ and is available for your event. Contact Dave here for more details.

The weekend started with my old friends from Heart 100.7 on the Club Classics tour at Sence Birmingham. A fantastic venue and a few hours of 90’s and 00’s club classics are a fab way to kick off the weekend. Saturday and Sunday both had early starts with broadcast commitments on Free Radio and Gem 106 and Sunday also meant a few hours at Ettington Park to exhibit sat their wedding fair.

I was at Ettington Park on Saturday for the first of two wedding celebrations this weekend and two MASSIVE nights were had by all. On Saturday Kate and Shaun celebrated becoming Mr & Mrs Barnett with a night climaxing in full on dubstep and hip-hop! I pride myself on the technical rig that we put in for any event and always boast that we are mobile nightclub and not mobile disco (euw, I hate that phrase) and modern music styles showcase this perfectly. The dubstep sounded awesome and was the perfect audio juxtaposition to the traditional surroundings of Ettington Park.

Last night it was the turn of Stephen and Julie to celebrate their big day at Wroxall Abbey in Warwickshire. With over 170 guests to DJ for Sunday weddings rarely come as big as this and the characters were larger than life too. Stephen and Julie are a little more mature than our average clients and the life experience that they’ve both accumulated have made them confident, outgoing people with a real passion for life. This was apparent from their choice of first dance. Let’s face it, rarely do clients opt to do a routine to the theme from Tom Thumb! Brilliant. It’ll so be on YouTube. Julie is a hair stylist by trade and she runs a large business in Birmingham so a lot of her guests are also hairdressers and these guys know how to party!!

Busy but happy is the key phrase but I’m not moaning! Hell no. If you need a professional West Midlands wedding DJ then I’d be delighted to help. Click here for more details.

How refreshing it was to play for Sam and her guests last Friday night (at a venue that shall remain nameless) and what a lovely group of people who were satisfied by a good spread of tunes. The old vs new music debate was put away for the evening with a youthful reveller requesting Billy Ocean’s “Love Really Hurts Without You” and the more, ahem, experienced enjoying offerings from DJ Fresh amongst others!

The best part for me was the last hour of the night with me able to roll out my ‘mobile nightclub’ set and really get in the mix with a bunch of late 90’s and naughties dance & R&B classics. So many happy memories of the 7 years I spent on Galaxy 102.2 Breakfast and all loud and in the mix. Mint!

The only fly in the ointment on an otherwise perfect evening was the terrible attitude of the venue towards our mutual client and to us, the entertainers. It would appear from the general attitude of the hosts that us DJs are only slightly higher in the evolutionary chain than dog mess. Given that these people must have to deal with cowboy DJs on a regular basis I do feel for them but please, judge everyone on their own merits. Oh and don’t just turn the house lights on at ten to Midnight. This looks shit on us all. Still – the perfect excuse to play Katy B’s “Lights On”

Hire a West Midlands Mobile Nightclub for your celebration by clicking here. It’s all about quality sound, light and getting in the mix with some damn funky tunes! Oh and keeping the house lights off…

Dave & Kat - both beautiful - both in dresses!

Kat and Dave, their firends and family are a lovely bunch of people and hell, do they know how to party. The dancefloor action didn’t let up with most enjoying the evening buffet of bacon baps whilst still dancing. (And that’s multi-tasking!) Rarely does a bride give me a music brief that goes from the Proclaimers to DJ Fresh but Kat did and she danced to every minute of every track.

Ettington splendour, Clarkey nightclub!

There is a splendour about Ettington Park that makes the venue a cut above many other Warwickshire hotels. Loading a tonne of sound and light equipment up two levels with the use of just the rickety lift that the heritage venue has to offer is a workout. Even with this pain in the a**e the venue is so worth it. I’ve blogged here before about the magic of Ettington and I’m still unsure what it is that makes the nights there so damn good. Sure, the staff are fab and the grounds and surrounds gorgeous but the people who seem to gravitate towards the hotel as a wedding venue must be party animals!

Dave & Kat and guests – thanks! x

Dave Clarke professional wedding DJ in West Midlands & Warwickshire is available by clicking here

Fawsley Hall. Stunning.

Lucy and Dan made for a handsome couple as they took their first dance as husband & wife to Elbow’s ‘Day Like This’. Their chosen colour scheme was purple (above) and we made sure our lighting reflected this to enhance the early part of the evening. The first dance mood was pure love though…

Mr & Mrs Monro take their first dance on a sea of love hearts!

With formality out of the way and the buffet and cake cutting also dispensed with, it was time to ‘give it some’! With the Monro’s heavily alternative influenced playlist of Britpop and indie classics we did in fact give it more than ‘some’! Oasis, Blur and Reef were particular favourites but Rihanna, LMFAO & DJ Fresh all had the desired effect too.

Lucy & Dans' cake - our lights!

Fawsley Hall Hotel is a breathtaking venue and made for the perfect backdrop to a cracking day. I look forward to playing there again very soon. If you are looking for a professional wedding DJ at Fawsley Hall get in touch by clicking here and I’d love to help you celebrate your big day.

Replete with Barclays Blue colour wash and ready to party!

Sands UK and Make A Wish Foundation benefitted to the tune of over £11,000 between them and the night was a raging success. The raffle and auction lots were fiercely contested and the drinking and dancing rocked on til 1 in the morning.

Good work everyone! Thanks for making me feel so welcome.

Dave Clarke Corporate Event Host and DJ in Warwickshire is available for your event. Contact Dave by clicking here.

The Aston Martin of flighcases... but with no engine of course...

Yes, you may think it’s just a humble ‘flightcase’ for some new lighting, but look closer… it’s far more than that. It’s got wheels!!!

Can you picture the scene at my next gig? Not only will the loading in and out be easier but it will become proper, actual fun. Of course you need to bear in mind that I a man predisposed to wheelie-ing supermarket trolleys in Tesco and having chair races across radio station programming offices.

Can you imagine how fast this little beauty will glide across the floor of a very large function room or event suite with me on top of it? There’ll be screams of yeeee-haaaa and white knuckles aplenty (probably to be followed by a crashing sound and a pile of limbs).

I’d guess that it’d be a good plan to removes the £2000′s worth of lighting that the case holds first? Yup.

Hire a professional event DJ for your corporate or private event (who is also a very big kid) by clicking here. Weeeeeeeeeeeee……..

My part is fairly easy – a bit of blab on the mic, spin some tunes… you get the idea? Well not entirely. There’s a fair bit of liaising to do and a whole load of equipment to shift but we live for this!

What does fill me with mirth though is the thought of the ‘fun committee’ at Barclays who are doing all the hard bits. The immature part of me sees them as something akin to the escape committee in the The Great Escape! I know that they probably meet in a meeting room with coffee and biscuits but part of me refuses to accept that and insists that their meetings are clandestine affairs in a stalag with look-outs and passwords.

For you zee fun ist over...

I know. I need to get out more…

Hire a West Midlands corporate event host and DJ by clicking here.

I get to play quality wedding venues on a regular basis and I’m proud to be associated with Wroxall Abbey, Ettington Park and Hampton Manor to name just a few. Fawsley Hall is a stunning venue though and can only be described as quite grand. The Hall that greets you on entertering the venue is so large that you can only gape in awe. I’m sure my polite 3 bed semi-detached would fit in the room with roof and all! The snow on the ground only added to the fairytale theme of the venue and the mile long drive up to the hotel gave arrival a feeling of remote romanticism. What a gorgeous place to get wed and party.

Fawsley Hall. Just beautiful!

Lucy & Dan are definitely indie kids and I reckon that there’ll be a fair amount of moshing going on. What better juxtaposition to the surroundings that they’ve chosen for the day (and night!) Fab.

Hire a wedding DJ at Fawsley Hall in Northamptonshire by clicking here.

The only fly in the ointment was the venue and their parochial view of us, the entertainers. I say ‘us’, I should really say ‘them’. Yes, the cheap, tatty, unprofessional mobile DJ who tarnish our industry with their poor attitude to clients, guests and venues.

My clients were asked to pay a £700 behaviour bond to protect the venue against the likelihood of my volume upsetting the hotel residents! I mean, really, how simple is this? If you’re playing music THAT loud then the guests in the room would be deafened before the occupants of rooms on the 3rd floor started checking out! This has got me thinking. Just maybe there ARE ‘mobile DJs’ who are that poor.

There is a very simple rule of thumb that any professional learns (call it lesson 1) and that is when guests are leaning in to each other and shouting to be heard then the volume is too high. If the DJ can hear conversation over the music (apart from during a background set) then an increase is needed. Simple. I should point out lesson 2 here as well. The person most likely to complain about volume will invariably choose to sit in the chair nearest the speaker! This, sadly, cannot be legislated against

Amateur DJs take note - The volume fader goes down as awell as up.

Needless to say the venue (that shall remain nameless) gave my client back every penny of their bond and there were no complaints at all.

Volume is one thing that sets professionals above the ‘fodder’ and whilst I should applaud the existence of the very cheap mobile DJ (without quantity there will never be quality), I detest being treated as one of them by anyone. Am I a diva?!

Hire a professional West Midlands DJ with high quality sound and light show… and a volume knob! Contact Dave Clarke by clicking here.