prom – DJ Johnny Only

In short, a wedding DJ has all of the different demographic groups together in one audience.

Therefore, a wedding DJ needs to know old trends, new trends, how to work with young people, old people and all people in between. They need to know how to work with large weddings, small weddings, elegant weddings, casual weddings, personalized weddings, traditional weddings and radically non-traditional weddings.

A DJ develops the ability to meet your unique needs by working in varied environments.

The more variety a DJ is capable of, the more fun and personalization they can bring to your reception.

Here is me DJ’ing for a pre-awards gathering in 2013. Organizers told me there were around 2500 people in the room at the time. I decided to lead an impromptu Harlem Shake bit.

What can you learn about me as a DJ, just by looking at this 30 second video?

You want a DJ that can do more than just weddings. Cutting edge music and entertainment styles emerge from outside sources. If your DJ does nothing but weddings, they are not being exposed to those newest trends, so they are not able to bring as much cutting edge excitement into your reception.

You want a DJ who can come up with an idea and follow through. I did not plan on doing this routine, nor did anyone else. It just came to me as an idea that would be fun. Thirty seconds before I played the song, I gave instructions to the crowd and look at the response!

You want a DJ that can lead crowds of different sizes and get results. Do you want guest participation at your reception? Do you want your reception to be the first time your DJ has tried it? No, you want them to be practiced and polished in front of live audiences.

You want a DJ that has different speakers for different room sizes. Obviously, my speakers here are filling a huge space. I don’t bring those speakers to your wedding reception unless you are having 450 guests. But you want your DJ to have different options available for you.

You want a DJ that can step outside the box and do what is fun for your guests in that moment. With the same group at a different time in the event, this may not have worked. Similarly, that trend was for 2013. I would not try it today. But I keep track of the latest trends, so it would be something different for 2015 and beyond.

Being a quality DJ is a skill that needs to be practiced. A DJ that only works 30 or so weddings per year will never be as smooth, polished or as effective as a DJ that works 150 or more major events per year.

The more time a DJ spends in front of live audiences, the more skill they will have with Master of Ceremony work, with both new and old music, with dance-floor trends and of course, sensitivity to your guests.

Lastly, tastes in entertainment change over time, it is the DJ that is out there working all types of events that will pick up those changes first and bring them to your wedding.

Choose a DJ that that puts in the hours and your reward will be guests talking about your reception years later and saying they still remember how awesome it was!

My dancing lights are in the foreground of this picture. They liven up the dance floor by moving, changing color and ‘dancing’ to the music.

The uplights are in the background. You can see the plasma screen on the left.

Dancing Lights at the Owego Treadway — A photo of Johnny’s dancing lights. Uplights in the background and plasma screen on the left.

This was the Maine Endwell High School Prom. We showed photos of the seniors, courtesy of the yearbook committee, on the plasma screen and projected their “Spartan” mascot emblem on the dancefloor.

The uplights ran patterns of blue and gold to match the school colors.

Johnny DJ's the Maine Endwell Prom — The Maine Endwell High School Prom used their mascot emblem as the projected monogram

It was huge success! Administrators told me it was the best prom they’d had in years.

The class president was so pleased, he wrote me this note of testimonial below:

Johnny Only did a fantastic job as the DJ and MC for our High School Prom. He played a great mix of both our requests and popular hits. Johnny Only knew his audience and kept the Prom rocking for hours with music that we really wanted to listen to and dance to. His speaker system is very powerful and easily filled our large venue with sound. His system has an excellent range, with crystal clear vocals and deep pounding bass. It was everything that one would expect out of a professional DJ and more. As an MC, Johnny did an excellent job of announcing our Prom Court and kept the Prom flowing smoothly all night. His up-lighting synchronized with the music and created a really cool unique atmosphere that changed for each song and served as the perfect backdrop to our simple decorations.. The projected monogram and TV picture slide show were cool additions that also really helped to personalize and commemorate the event.

Thank you Johnny Only; you made our Prom night the best that it could be.

Anthony Taylor, Maine Endwell Class of 2014 Officer anthonytaylor@college.harvard.edu

Category: prom

Why Your Wedding DJ Should Be Able To Do All Types of Events

A photo of DJ Johnny’s Lights in action