I was watching this week’s 4Weddings this evening (I taped it on the PVR) and one of the weddings was held at London Zoo.

This got me to thinking about the most unusual place where I have provided the entertainment for a wedding and I think I may have been a venue that rivals London Zoo.

As you can probably guess I have worked in many different types of venues; village halls, five star hotels, garden marquees, football clubs, converted barns, private schools the list is nigh on endless. However, there is one location more than any other that stands out as the most unusual.

It was a marquee wedding, there’s not much unusual about that, however the location was somewhere rather special.

Just outside of Maidstone is the location of the Wildlife Heritage Foundation’s big cat sanctuary and it was here, on a Saturday in May 2008, that I found myself setting up, along side a band, for a wedding reception. I am pretty sure that the venue is not open to the public and so count myself among a very special list of people that have had the chance to wander the grounds.

Between the wedding breakfast and the reception all of the guests were given the chance to tour the park in groups. The cats; Lions, Tigers, Snow Leopards, Ocelots etc were all fantastic looking and I’m including a few pictures that I took on the day.

Whether you have chosen to have your wedding reception or function in a country pub, a high class hotel or a boat house you can rest assured that we will be happy to provide the entertainment for you.

Incidently the rainbow LED picture on our venue uplighting page was actually taken at this function.

Phil

‘Don’t leave it to the last minute book a professional today!’

Lately I’ve been thinking about spare equipment and what other professional mobile disco operators carry with them in case the worst happens.

For me the worst has only happened once, I was doing a dinner dance at Leeds Castle we’d set up and everything was fine. It was during the reception we were playing background music when the amp died. Unless you are using powered speakers – i.e. they each have their own amp – no amp equates to no music.

Now I have always carried two amps with me to every gig and it was a simple matter of swapping the dead amp out and putting the live one into it’s place. Music back playing again and nobody really noticed the problem.

For me it’s paramount that I am able to continue with the entertainment for the function I am working at. Therefore I do as much as possible, short of carrying my own generator, to ensure that I am able to deal with any unforeseen problems. A major part of this is ensuring I carry replacement items of equipment so that come what may the show will go on.

Phil

‘Don’t leave it to the last minute book a professional today!’

Usually my gigs go off with out a hitch! I hear all sorts of horror stories from other DJs with whon I am aquainted. However, it’s a rarity for such things to happen to me. I have to say that I have always considered this  a major blessing.

Last night I had a fantastic wedding reception at a lovely hotel in East Sussex. The gig turned out to be great, however, the night could have been oh so different.

About 4 maybe 5 tracks in, actually I can tell you exactly:-

First Dance – Jack Johnson – Do You Remember (as an aside this is an interesting first dance track it’s nice and short with great lyrics)

Then I played:

2 – Barry White – You’re the First, My Last, My Everything.

3 – John Paul Young – Love is in the Air.

4 – Michael Jackson – Don’t stop til you get enough.

It was about half way through Michael Jackson and the power in the room went.

My immediate first thoughts were to look for the sound limiter. If you have never heard of one of these they are set – sometimes at impossibly low sound levels – so that if the sound is too loud for too long – usually about five seconds – they trip the power and kills the disco and possible the DJs disco equipment.

We realised fairly quickly there was no sound limiter and also noticed that all of the room lights were out and the emergency lights were on. Oddly though the bar on the other side of the room had power as did other rooms and the corridor directly adjoining the function room.

Between myself and my technical assistant Andy we quickly decided to reroute our power from the room opposite and while he set about running our extension lead to a new power socket I was left to explain the situation to the happy couple. The function manager was also on hand to explain that the power outage had also effected the kitchens and other parts of the hotel.

We got power restored and the disco was resumed in less than five minuets and I cracked on with the night. After that little hiccup it turned out to be great night right up until the New York New York finale at midnight.

Basically speaking what had happened is that one of the 3 phases of power that supply the venue had fused and before we left an electrician managed to get it started again.

Unfortunately my photos of the function are not so great. We were set back from the dance floor and my current camera, a Fuji F-30 compact, doesn’t have the most powerful of flashes which means you loose a lot of the light the further away the subject is. There’s also a skill to taking decent disco shots. The vast majority come out blurred and out of focus.

A discussion about cameras can be the topic for another post I think.

Phil

‘Don’t leave it to the last minute book a professional today!’

I am happy to announce that we will be exhibiting at:

The Sundridge Park Wedding Fair

on

25 October 2009

It you are interested in booking our services why don’t you come come along and meet us for an informal chat.

Entrance is free and the event starts at 11:00

http://www.thesundridgeparkweddingfair.co.uk/

Please keep in mind that our 2010 callender is starting to fill up fast.

‘Don’t leave it to the last minute book a professional today!’

]]> http://www.mpentertainment.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=1 0 http://www.mpentertainment.co.uk/?p=65 http://www.mpentertainment.co.uk/?p=65#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:27:20 +0000 Phil Tolhurst http://www.mpentertainment.co.uk/?p=65 Those of you that have visited our site before will realise I’ve given the business a huge make over.  For those of you who have not visited before, welcome, I hope you find it both interesting and informative. The website is obviously our primary adveritsing vehicle and has been improved in every aspect. There are [...]]]>

Those of you that have visited our site before will realise I’ve given the business a huge make over.  For those of you who have not visited before, welcome, I hope you find it both interesting and informative.

The website is obviously our primary adveritsing vehicle and has been improved in every aspect.

There are well over 200 images used on the website now and we are I’m proud to say that every single one of them is from a function where we have provided the entertainment.

I’ve designed a new logo for the company, it’s a little more refined than the last one we use and we’ll shortly be ordering in new stationery for the company for future use.

Now it’s really down to advertising and raising the profile of the company.

Phil

‘Don’t leave it to the last minute book a professional today!’