It depends on the event you are having but you may need a dj who is comfortable making announcements, running the games you want to play, emceeing your wedding, etc. Some dj’s just don’t like to talk on the microphone at all and other dj’s talk way too much. I’m sure you are just looking for a happy medium. I recall doing a Halloween party one year and the host asked us to have a costume contest sometime during the evening. So, we chose a time when everyone seemed to be there and were having a good time, and announced the contest would start. The host had given us some small prizes to give away. We are very experiences with games and contests so all went on without a hitch and everyone had a good time.

The next year someone else booked us for Halloween and when the same people from the above party called again, it was too late as we were already booked. Then the year after that the above party people called us early to make sure we would be available to do their party again. When we got there that year they told us they had hired another dj for the year we were not able to be there. They said they wouldn’t hire another dj again for their party except for us because the other dj was not good at all. They said they didn’t like his music, he never said a word to the crowd all night and he didn’t do their costume contest. They said they had told him at the beginning of the night about wanting to have a costume contest and they had given him the prizes just like they did for us that first year. Well, the dj never did do the contest and they never said a word to him about it, they just decided they didn’t like him.

Yes, normally a host will ask a dj to do a game or have a contest and they will spell out what they want him to do. They will give him a time to do it, tell him what rules to make, and who to give the prizes to. In this case however, the host wanted to be able to just tell the dj they wanted to have a contest and expected the dj to do everything else. That was totally fine with us and we even like it better that way but many dj’s are just not comfortable doing something like that without directions.

We feel it’s important for the dj to interact with the crowd so they know he is interested in them dancing and having a good time. We know of a dj who came to his bar gigs and sat down behind his table with his back to the audience while doing his homework all night. We heard many people complain about his lack of interest in the party. Most of the time when we go out the dj’s rarely even say a word to the crowd.

Dave and Kimi at the table

So, you’re going to have a party or a wedding so why not just use a boombox?  You can play the same music a DJ can, so why go to the extra expense?  Isn’t a DJ really a waste of money because of all the music options today?These are all points to consider before putting out the money for a DJ.  Dave and Kimi will continue to try to bring our expertise to our gigs at a reasonable price.  Free, however, can be much better right?  Maybe….let’s think about it a little.

Am I just going to have a few friends over for a cookout and maybe a few beers?  If so, throw on some background music from your outdoor speakers through your I-phone.  If you’re going to have a special birthday party, anniversary, or larger party, hire a DJ.

Your guests will appreciate the expense you went to in order to hire a DJ for the party.  Just the visual of a DJ setup at the party puts most people into an excited mood.  The guests are anticipating a night to be remembered because you hired a professional for the party.

When the DJ starts the music you will hear a difference usually just because of the professional speakers he is using.  You’ll feel it in your belly and it may make you want to dance.  The first thing a professional DJ will do is see what ages his audience is.  Then he will start out with music to fit the crowd that’s attending.

The DJ will always watch the floor and note what type of music people are dancing to.  He will attempt to play more of that kind of music.  The DJ will blend the songs being played.  This part is so important in order to keep people dancing.

Wedding receptions and ceremonies today are very expensive

You will pay less for your cape coral DJ than almost any other part of your wedding and yet, the DJ is probably the most important.  If you hire a non-professional DJ who knows what you will end up with.

Your Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples, DJ Riptide will try to be as thorough as possible to help make your reception the best it can be.  There are many hack DJ’s out there with very little experience, no back-ups, no insurance, terrible equipment who sometimes don’t even show up.

Music is usually the part of your reception that people will talk about the most in the years to come when thinking about how great your wedding was.  We’ve seen many receptions where the friends and families of the bride and groom just loved to dance.  Sometimes the crowd will dance every dance and love to celebrate your most important day with you.

Some families and friends at wedding receptions are just not dancers.  We’ve also seen that a time or two.  We play music that most people love and are always very open to requests in order to find the music your crowd loves.  Even those receptions in the past we’ve had where people just weren’t big dancers was still a lot of fun!  The crowd smiled and laughed, tapped their toes, and at the end of the party, told us how much they loved the music.

We won’t blast the crowd with ear splitting volume so they can’t hear each other talk.  We have the equipment to make it loud when the audience wants it but we keep things at levels appropriate to what your guests want.

We will go over the list of songs you might like when you hire us and we will try to do everything we can to come up to your expectations on your special day!

Dancing

A while back some regular dancing customers hired us to do their every other year Halloween party.  We had been doing their party twice in the past, so over a period of about 4 years.  When we showed up this particular year the client was so happy and he said grateful that we could come again because the other DJ they had to hire last year was terrible.

We’ve always had good luck getting people to dance.  Dave jokes with the audience and knows the songs to try to get people up on the floor.  There are times however, that nothing you do will get them going.  Some crowds are just not dancers.  They do love to toe tap and move with the music, they just don’t like to get up in front of others.  No magic will get people to dance who are just not dancers.

We promise to try our best to get a crowd up on the floor and Kimi gets up there first a lot of times to get them going.  Even though at times there have been crowds that didn’t dance, they still let us know how much they enjoyed our song lists.  We have had rave reviews from people who never dance but just enjoy listening to the music.

Source: Games, Contests, Trivia, and Dancing

A while back some regular customers of ours hired us to do their every other year Halloween party.  We had been doing their party twice in the past, so over a period of about 4 years.  When we showed up this particular year the client was so happy and he said grateful that we could do his party.  As it happened, the past party which had been a couple years ago he tried booking us too late for Halloween, (we were already booked).  He had to hire a different DJ for his event that year.

The client told us that the whole event that year was a disaster and the DJ was just terrible!  He said the song choices the guy played were no good and he had told the DJ about their costume contest.  The first year we did his gig he just told us they were having a costume contest but didn’t know anything about how to do it.  He said he had 5 prizes to give away.  The client was actually stressed out about it because the contest was important to him and he didn’t know what to do.  We told him not to worry about it and we would take care of everything.  We asked if 9:00 p.m. would be a good time for the contest and he said, “yes, I think that would be perfect!”  We told him to go ahead and have fun, dance, enjoy his guests because he wouldn’t have to worry at all about the contest, we would take care of it all.

At 9:00 p.m. that evening I started playing the old funeral march and asked everyone to come to the dance floor that had a costume on.  As they filed up and arrived on the dance floor I started playing “Ghost Buster” theme song and asked them to go in single file around the pool, giving them plenty of time to dance or just walk in the conga type line.  I had told them that two secret judges had been chosen that would decide on the best costumes for the evening.  When they got back to the dance floor I started playing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  I invited everyone to the dance floor to mingle with everyone with a costume.  They loved the music and everyone danced.  It was a great time.

A little while later we announced the winners and gave away the prizes.  Well, the client was very happy with us and we feel like one of the family even today.  That year that he had to hire a different DJ he asked that DJ to take care of the contest and the DJ said, “ok yeah, I’ll take care of everything.”  Well, the contest never happened at all that night.  The client kept waiting for the DJ to make it happen but it never did.  This client is a very nice, laid back person and he didn’t even ask the DJ why he never did the contest.  Needless to say, the client said that he will never hire another DJ for his party besides DJ Riptide.

Your Naples DJ, also works in all the towns around our area to include Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Punta Gorda, etc.  We are very experienced in doing games, trivia, contests, but we can just play dance music too.  Hire this Fort Myers DJ today.

Fort Myers DJ Reviews

Hi Dave and Kim,

Just wanted to say again a big thank you for helping to make our party successful. I got a lot of positive DJ comments and there is buzz to do it again next year.  Everyone is saying what a good time it was and some wished they would have come.  We think the costumes made it so fun and people will have a whole season to plan for next year so don’t be surprised if I call on you again.  Nice meeting and working with you, thanks so much! Deb Hawkins

The above review was sent to us in our private email from a satisfied customer!  Our reviews that you see on the right side of this website came from another website that we belong to.  We also get customers from that other website and they have a form that our customers can fill out with reviews.  All of our reviews are real and have come from actual customers.

Reviews can be very important for your decisions about what DJ’s would be best to hire.  Below is a review that is online now that you can read and will tell you a lot about a certain DJ:  NOTE:  I have removed any names in the following.

“Where do I begin…we had our wedding at the Pink Shell Resort in Ft.Myers Beach, everything was amazing except for the DJ….

•Played the wrong cake cutting song.
•My wife and I made a neat list of requested songs..played hardly any.
•Sarcastic on the microphone during the activities.
•Talked us into getting our wedding videotaped, didn’t get the tape until 4months afterwards and my wife’s name was spelt wrong.
•My wife’s father asked to play for another 30 minutes…refused unless he had cash.(which would be fair if he hadn’t have already ruined the wedding).
•Very good talker but doesn’t back anything up.”

When you are looking at reviews to decide on a DJ for your special event throw out the worst one and the best one.  Read the rest of the reviews to make your decision.  Videos is another way you can kind of tell what your DJ will be like.  You should always ask to see videos from past events that your DJ has done.

This is a very important day for you no matter what kind of party you are going to host.  It’s an important decision on what Fort Myers DJ you want to hire and that doesn’t always mean the DJ who charges the least.

Fort Myers DJ Riptide puts a lot of thought into how much to charge people for a given party.  We have to think about the distance we’ll have to travel to get to the venue.  This takes time and longer distances can add hours to the gig we will do.  We have to add in fuel costs as well as driving time.

We then have to think about the preparation time it will take for the party to do it right.  Fort Myers DJ Riptide are professionals and we make sure we do everything we can to make our customers happy with the service we provide.  Some customers just tell us to play whatever we think is good for their group.  Fort Myers DJ Riptide, Cactus Dave is very good at reading the crowd and playing to their age groups.  We have all kinds of music from Oldies to Country, Hip-Hop, Top 40, Spanish, Beach Music, Rock and Roll, House, Techno, New age, you name it.  Some customers give us a list of the songs they want to make sure we play.  This takes some extra time and money at home to get ready for the gig and make sure we have all of those songs available.  Dave puts them all into a special play list to make sure he plays all the ones you want.

Wedding receptions are a lot more work for a responsible, Fort Myers DJ Riptide.  We ask that you fill out our wedding and reception planners to make sure your most important day is done right.  We always make sure we’re on the same page as the bride and groom well before the reception happens.  We can emcee the event and make sure everything goes in order as to when things happen and what songs will be played.  It takes a few days to get everything right and all the correct songs lined up for the bride and groom on their wedding day!

Weddings cost more because they take much more time to get set up and get everything to happen right that’s humanly possible.  Some DJ’s may charge a lot less because they put very little work into any of their gigs.  All they do is get there and slap on some songs, turn it up as loud as possible, and call it good.

When you hire Fort Myers DJ Riptide we will guarantee to try to do everything we can to make our services well worth the money to you.  You will pay more for just about every other service during your wedding and reception than you will for your Fort Myers DJ Riptide.  Think about it though, your DJ will make or break your reception.  Don’t take a chance on hiring just anyone to take on that responsibility.

What age should your DJ be

What is the most important thing you want of your DJ

Do you want your DJ to be young and buff, so he can be great “eye candy” for your guests?

Do you want him to know the latest in club, trance, techno music?

Do you want your DJ to scatch, talk ghetto, etc?

Do you want the music to be very loud with killer base, and drown out everything in the room but the music?

What will your guests want?

I guess when you hire your DJ it will depend on what kind of party you are really looking forward to, and whether you want to please only yourself or your guests too.

If you’re doing a private party, Rave or House, Club dance maybe all of the above will apply.  If you’re doing a wedding reception, birthday, or private party with guests of all ages attending, maybe you may want to change your thinking.

Dave and Kimi are mature DJ’s and have grown up with songs from several years ago on up through the very latest of today’s music to include Hip-Hop, Top 40, Country, Rock n Roll, Oldies, etc. We pride ourselves on how much we know about songs of the ages up through today.

Dave and Kimi will do everything they can to help your party be a success and will play any or all music you choose for your party.  Dave is very good at feeling out the audience and finding out what songs they could possibly get up and dance to.  He knows that people in their 40’s and 50’s may like songs that are different than the guests who are in their 20’s.  Dave always tries to play songs that may get some people dancing and other songs that may get other guests dancing.

Dave never plays songs in long sets because he knows that people sometimes get disgusted with their DJ for playing all songs directed toward only one age group.

If you hire DJ Riptide you will get DJ’s who really care about your party and will work with you to play all the music you love.

Naples DJ Radio Edits

It doesn’t make sense nowadays for a disc jockey to buy songs that are not radio edits.  Mobile DJ’s play to many different types of audiences, some adult, some mixed.  At many parties and receptions there are a mixture of very mature people as well as young children and all diverse groups in-between.

Many top 40 of any genre can have one or more curse words, ethnic slurs, slams, etc. that can be very offensive to certain audiences.  I used to be against the radio edits because I felt it took away from the original.  I would spend a lot of time trying to categorize my music into songs with curse words and songs without.  It was a never ending job and there were times at a gig I had to quickly cut a song off if a song had curse words I didn’t catch.

Invariably if I did a gig with children present or older generation I would have to refuse to play a song or two that was requested because I knew it wasn’t appropriate for the audience.  I didn’t even do children’s birthdays, graduations, school parties at all because I knew they would probably be requesting songs that were downright dirty or suggestive.

There are many, many songs out there that are great dance songs and very popular with children and adults that have a few really hard core cuss words in them.  I was missing out on playing these songs for my audiences because they were inappropriate for the setting.

A few years ago a friend suggested a company that I could buy all radio edits from when purchasing my music.  On a whim, I decided to try it out just for the heck of it.  I bought the top 40 list that week all in radio edits.  At a gig that weekend someone requested one of the new top hits and I was able to play it no problem because I had the radio edit.  What a great feeling it was to have the dance floor loaded and not have to worry about someone being offended by cuss words.  Everyone was happy!

Now I buy all radio edits when updating my songs lists.  I have never had anyone complain that the cuss words were taken out of any song and I’m able to play almost all songs to almost all audiences.

Hire DJ Riptide, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples FL DJ to play radio edits at your next party or wedding reception!

Fort Myers DJ Games

Some mobile DJ’s are good at doing games for your party and some are not.  It’s sometimes a fine line in order to get people up and doing a game, and turning them off by trying to force them into it.

Your Fort Myers DJ Riptide is really good at getting people to play games because of years of experience.

Here are some steps to use in order to get people to participate in a game:

1.  Let your crowd know that you are going to get a game going.

2.  Tell them there will be prizes, (if there will be) for the winners.  Might be only first place or maybe second and third place or even more places.

3.  If the prizes are substantial tell them what the prizes are.  If the prizes are minimal, cheap prizes, don’t tell your audience ahead of time what they are.  Your crowd doesn’t know it yet but they are going to have fun no matter what the prizes are.  You just have to get them to participate first.

4.  If it’s a cash prize and substantial let them know how much.  If it’s minimal, just say cash prizes.

5.  Ask your audience to make their way to the dance floor and don’t tell them anything about the game yet except that it’s a very easy game and will only take a few minutes to play.  Tell them “you only live once so come on up and have fun!”  Or, you can say, ” It’s a celebration of so and so’s wedding, and we need you up here to have fun on their special day!”  That’s if it’s a wedding celebration.

6.  If they are not going to have to dance to play the game be sure to tell them not to worry, they don’t have to dance.  Or, if it’s just going to be a slow dance as part of the game let them know that too.  Some people will never join a game where they will have to fast dance.

7.  If there are props for the game, pass them out now, (still not telling game rules).  Some people will sit down when they hear the rules and don’t like them or think they may be too embarrassed by them.  Once they are holding a prop they will be less likely to sit down because they will feel guilty about going this far and not joining in.

8.  At last, tell them the rules of the game and how it will work.  Talk fast and start a practice round.

9.  Now you’ve got most of them so “let the games begin!”  They will have fun for the most part and you have just used a little nudging to help them have some fun.