SwingDJs

Hello fellow dj's,

I am having a DJ Battle of the Bands at Camp Jitterbug's Saturday night dance. I have been pondering over how to do the format for months now...I would love to have some suggestions:

Here are my ideas:
-we could have names of bands in a hat and have the dj's select a band and play 3 songs from that band (each dj would pick a different artist) and then continue to do that until the night is over.
-we could pick a band out of the hat and have each dj play one song from that band and then select a different band.

Any ideas or suggestions? There will be 4-6 dj's in the battle

Thanks
Tonya

I would allow the DJ's to pick their artist before hand and play only the music by that artist. This would allow the DJ to prepare and really provide a wide perspective of the artist. Pulling names from a hat could lead to trouble of DJ's not knowing the particular artist, pulled from the hat, very well—or shudder to think not having anything by that artist.

main_stem wrote:I would allow the DJ's to pick their artist before hand and play only the music by that artist. This would allow the DJ to prepare and really provide a wide perspective of the artist. Pulling names from a hat could lead to trouble of DJ's not knowing the particular artist, pulled from the hat, very well—or shudder to think not having anything by that artist.

I agree, I definitely wouldn't use the hat trick, that can really be a flop.

A few other ideas are themed sets or music recorded within a particular time frame.

I've always wanted to do a DJ battle much like would be held at a DMC competition. Give each a three song set, and let the Dj's go to town. Allowing the DJ's to work off of each others moods would be interesting. How does each DJ make their mark????? Do they go with th flow, or totally change it up??

Now that I'm in the middle of my post, I thought of a way the hat trick could work. If you filled the hat with broad themes (food, animals, colors, trios, big band, vocals, instrumentals, etc...) and had the moderator choose from the hat, then each DJ would have to play three songs fitting that theme, then a new theme would be drawn...repeat.

OOOOHHHHHH THAT SOUNDS FUN! I may have to organize one of these myself.

Any DJ contest that interferes with dancing I think is a bad idea. Pulling names out of a hat coulb be just that. It might decrease the quality of they music because you may get an artist that the DJ has but is not familar with or has very little of that kind of music. I agree broad ranges would be better. Maybe regionally(harlem, KC, Chicago, etc) or by era , or by band leader say piano leads, or female vocalist, etc.

For me, as a DJ, I'd have a lot of fun with the pull the Artist out of a hat, but then I know my music very will and have it very well organised.
You could go with the hat draw system, but only have 3 or 4 artists. You would tell the DJ's in advance all the artists that are in the hat, and then its up to the DJ's to know their stuff.
Good DJ's will know their artist and music as long as the artists are with in their genre of music taste.

Brian

Lippy wrote: Now that I'm in the middle of my post, I thought of a way the hat trick could work. If you filled the hat with broad themes (food, animals, colors, trios, big band, vocals, instrumentals, etc...) and had the moderator choose from the hat, then each DJ would have to play three songs fitting that theme, then a new theme would be drawn...repeat.

To me, that still runs into the same problem as pulling artists out of the hat, if you don't know your collection or have too much overlap with other DJs you're screwed.

Ultimately it comes down to what the dancers are going to enjoy. While we as DJ might love the idea of pulling names out of a hat and streching ourselves, or just showing what a bad ass we are—dancers probably just don't care. The more you brake up a night to pull names or explain what you're doing the more you interfer with dancing and iritated dancers.

Thats's where having the DJs select their artists and playing only from them is the ideal situation. They know their artist and can play off the other DJs—plus it reduces the amount of tiem spent pulling names out of a hat or explaining what teh heck is going on.

Another wat to improve the overall effect is th have a marque in front of the DJ booth. When a DJ starts their set you post the name of the artist (in very big letters) on the marque. You could also add an large head shot of the artist.

main_stem wrote:
Ultimately it comes down to what the dancers are going to enjoy. While we as DJ might love the idea of pulling names out of a hat and streching ourselves, or just showing what a bad ass we are—dancers probably just don't care. The more you brake up a night to pull names or explain what you're doing the more you interfer with dancing and iritated dancers.

Thats's where having the DJs select their artists and playing only from them is the ideal situation. They know their artist and can play off the other DJs—plus it reduces the amount of tiem spent pulling names out of a hat or explaining what teh heck is going on.

I agree. people just want to be dancing especially if the night has already been divided up with contests. Since there are 4-6 djs, assign artists and the dj is that artist for the night. Then they can battle in mini-sets, three songs, and single songs, or whatever.

and then if you get assigned an artist that you don't have quite enough of you have a great excuse to buy more music - always a plus!

I do agree that assigning an artist to a DJ before the event will most likely give you the highest quality of music. And it will allow you to work more DJ's into the night if you want - i.e. 4 artists might be limiting, but 6 would be pretty cool.

I'd suggest giving each DJ at least 3 songs in a row. We had a DJ battle here where we alternated tracks, which was fine, but nobody knew (or cared) who was playing what. I think small brackets would work better - especially if you ae going to declare a winner.

When I was involved in organizing the MLX 2003 Battle of the DJ's we had 6 DJ's. We gave them 15 minutes each to play what they wanted to.
We split it up in to 2 heats (3 DJs per heat) with one DJ coming out of each heat. Before the DJs spun they where announced.
In the Final the 2 DJ's got another 15 minutes each again.
So the whole thing took just over 2 hours.
Worked well.
Brian

Bob the Builder wrote:When I was involved in organizing the MLX 2003 Battle of the DJ's we had 6 DJ's. We gave them 15 minutes each to play what they wanted to.
We split it up in to 2 heats (3 DJs per heat) with one DJ coming out of each heat. Before the DJs spun they where announced.
In the Final the 2 DJ's got another 15 minutes each again.
So the whole thing took just over 2 hours.
Worked well.
Brian

That's what I think is wrong with DJ battles. I've seem a couple and I noticed that people don't vote on the music they hear but on the DJ. It is mostly a popularity contest. Now if you put those DJs in a booth and people do not know who they are voting for. Then it is a pure music played contest.

So you recon the DJ’s should have balaclavas over their head and be called DJ 1 to 6.
That would be interesting.

I’ve also seen some battles in Melbourne and some of the results have been quite surprising. They definitely were not a popularity contest. I have, however seen others that were.
At the last one in Melbourne there was a panel of 3 judges that made a 50% contribution to the scoring and also marked the crowds cheering for the other 50%. It worked really well. I happened to be of the judges. And was surprised by the outcome.
Battles are just a little bit of fun. Don’t ever view them anything more than that.

Brian

1) Buy a hat
2) Fill it with slips of paper each reading "Count Basie"
3) Draw from hat
4) Shoot in the head any DJ that plays from "Basie Does Bond" or "Basie's Beatle Bag"
5) Perfect evening ensues.

I'd be bored after two songs.

Yeah, but you've got issues.