Doing a Senior Prom by myself again

I go out on about 100 jobs a year.

At my age, I don't DJ by myself anymore. I usually MC, run and program our light shows, run the video set-up, etc. I also like to walk around with my clipboard and shout orders to my Son, Grandson and the other guys working with us (of which no one listens to me). Makes me feel important.

This is the second year in a row that I got booked to do this Senior prom all by myself. Now your wondering...how can a 69 year old guy be able to go out and do a Senior Prom by himself.

BECAUSE...this is a real Senior Prom. All the guests are 62 years and older. Each year the Teen Center account we have decorates and runs this Senior Prom for the old folks.

It was great last year. Reminded me of when I use to work in nightclubs.
The old ladies were coming up and flashing me for tunes. This year my wife is coming to the Prom so I don't think to many of the ladies will flash me.

Had a fun time and the job went real well. Had to beat off the groupies in the walkers at the end of the job...LOL

First time I got to do a whole job by myself with VDJ. I arrived early and set up a quick play list. Had to dust off some of the tunes I played. They were hidden way down in the bottom of the hard drive...LOL

Took me about a half hour to get into the groove again. After that I was un-stop-able. I was worried about memory loss (you old guys know about this) hitting me while I was DJing but with a playlist in VDJ there was no problem.

I like the idea and wonder if it is something they already do here or would be interested in implementing.

Who was your contact for such an event? If you wouldn't mind sharing.

Click to expand...

We have a privately funded Teen Center as an account here in Greenwich, CT. Once a year, at this time, they have a "Senior Prom" for the folks from the Town Senior Center. It was decorated real nice and they get teenagers to help out.

They also bring in the Greenwich HS cheerleaders (about 30 of them to dance and have fun with the seniors. (It's like when I do a Bar/Bat Mitzvah with 2 of our dancer/motivators, but last night I had 30). They also put on a rehearsed USO show for the Seniors.

Our contact for this is the Director of the Teen Center. We have built a real good relationship with him and he's a real nice guy to deal with. It's the kind of account where we get a lot of last minute calls to provide screens, sound reinforcement for bands etc., so we have to be able to provide this on call. We've always come through for him. The place is only 10 minutes from our warehouse and he trusts us enough to give us keys to the place so we can go in at any time to set up/teardown.

The amount of quality work we get from this place is just great. The Teen Center is sponsored by Diana Ross, Tommy Hilfiger, Steve Young, Frank and Kathy Lee Gifford, etc. etc. The Director recommends us to private parties as well. All our dances (2-3) a month at the center are with big sound, Intell Light Show, Video Screens so each job is up in 4 figures. They have the money to spend.

I'm a firm believer that you need to develop a good relationship with your contacts in order to keep them. We take the Director out to a real nice restaurant for dinner, send him and his office staff goodie baskets, etc. If I can get the time to get my boat in the water this year we will have him out with us as well. It's all part of running a business.

Was this concepted, packaged and sold by Ambassador entertainment or was it brought to you as a theme from the teen center?

Click to expand...

The Teen Center came to us with the job.

The Director is very creative. Here's a pix of a "Beach Party" theme we did at the center. He brought in bags of sand and built a sand box to create the theme (keep in mind that this is up on the 2nd floor...LOL)



We get great turnouts (300 - 400 kids - 7th & 8th grade) at the dances. I believe it's because he is very creative in theme settings. It's then our job to work with him to come up with things to support the theme.

Most of the HS jobs are not DJing. We provide sound Reinforcement for bands they bring in.

Johnny are you saying you did the set-up by yourself?? I don't find doing the set-up by myself to be a problem, it's the tear down........(which occurs well past my normal bedtime)

Click to expand...

Since we have keys to the place, my Son and I went in Thursday night to set-up. This was actually an easy set-up as it was just two EON's on sticks. The job was 5-8 on Friday night and my Son stopped by for the teardown.

When we do the big dances there we always go in the night before to set-up. Most of the work is on Friday nights so going in on the Thursday is no problem. The place is so close to where we live that it is convenient for us to do this