Lazy Simon, do you know your SPL, as I think it won’t be much? I think Billy Woods is using a SPL meter to a packed dance floor.
I personally find too loud to be offensive and ruins conversation as well as hearing, adequate and/or tonally nice bass helps keeps the dance floor bubbling.
I can’t stress enough that magical club moments have be made with two basic PA speakers and well timed mixes/selections plus on cue lighting effects.
One thing that I’ve learned over the years is make sure you meet everyone who you don’t know who comes to your event. Be a friendly face, introduce them to everyone else and enjoy the slow community build from there.
Also, don’t be despondent when the numbers are small as it’ll grow, and there will be good days and bad days but patience will go a long way.
I’m not that technical about it. You can generally find the right balance by watching if people are having to shout into each other’s ears or on the other hand you can hear what they’re saying from behind the decks😂
Some feedback from me. If you’re trying to attract a particular crowd you don’t know (yet) it might be worth mentioning on the flyer what type of sounds you’ll be playing/what type of night it will be.
What I’m doing to start mine off is telling everyone it’s a celebration for my birthday, which it sort of is. Get someone to make it a special event where people will go regardless, and suddenly you’ve convinced a few people that there’s a cool new night in town.
In theory, at least.
Best of luck
Just a quick update:
The night was a moderate success. We got very unlucky with a very very cold spell here in São Paulo and Brazilians are truly lazy to go out in the cold. Still we had about 50 people, fun times, will probably do it again in a few months.
Still think it’s the way to go, but adjustments in promotion and maybe lineup will be made.
Also, a PS: loooads of people doing the same as I did, the venue has no free weekends until august! Damn
That’s good though, means there are going to be people who are going to trust the venue so when you run your night they’ll come down.
Got our gig tomorrow night - just organising the visuals and dj times etc - should be fun but it’s fucking freezing here 7c and raining tommorrow which will no doubt keep punters at home under a blanket.
Ugh, it was about the same here, good luck!
Our event went well - all things considered. We started early and luckily nobody showed up for doors opening, as the first 2 hours(!) were spent trouble shooting the insane hum coming from the Pioneer controller deck we had hired for the evening. Cue phone calls to nearby friends who brought down all manner of cables and cords to see if we could circumnavigate the issue. I’n the end we just agreed to play “full tracks” with no ambient sections so the hum wasn’t noticable.
The other hurdle was that we’d unwittingly chosen probably THE busiest calendar weekend to hold our event. VIVID Sydney is an annual cultural event that focuses heavily on music and there were at least 4 big events on that same night )eg. Hiatus Kaiyote, Yussef Dayes, Bumpy, Dameeeela, Jitwam Live, Mildlife all on one event).
Despite all this - we had a great night. Our live act Julien Mier performed a set that reminded me of seeing Herbert in his early days looping objects and voice etc and everybody was pretty blown away by him. We had lots of new faces at this session, which was also a big plus. As for myself, I had to learn “on the job” how to use the controller deck. I’m still a vinyl DJ and prefer it that way, but seems i’ll have to adapt or perish!
We learnt a lot from the hurdles we faced and I know the next one will be really good.
Here’s a few pics from the night
I was just going to ask how the night went 
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce9Vm5WsePX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Good Room NYC
Track played in the clip
Just checked this topic and love it.
Over the years I had all sort of party experiences, for work and for personal pleasure and end up noticing that the best night out/party where at small venue with not much fuzz and crazy promotion/marketing/social-mediating: Plastic People, Dance Tunnel, last minute post-codes, no AC, smoke inside, sweaty, cash only, and other unknown lost and forgotten basements or venue around London, they seems a far memory, probably I’m getting old.
But I have this little dream of organise a small monthly party on Sundays, I wish I can do it on Saturdays, but I always work on weekends, I would like to invite just one guest a month that I like (and can afford) for a long set.
I hope I can manage to do it once I’m back to Europe
Very glad Good Room managed to survive the pandemic, even tough I’ve never actually been there. Seems like its among the few clubs in the last gasp of a genuine NYC night life that has been choked by money.
Not sure I’ll ever top this for a room that fits the topic title so literally, but this Friday night there are 8 DJs playing at my friends house party of which I’m one. The downstairs “dancefloor” will hold 10 people at a push haha.
This is going to be the upstairs chillout room once he’s cleared all his art making paraphernalia and put down a few beanbags etc. Party runs from 10pm - 5am.
I’ll take photos and report back.
