Too many followers / leads.

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Bob the Builder
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Too many followers / leads.

#1 Post by Bob the Builder » Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:34 am

Too many followers / leads.

So you turn up to a gig to start DJing. You select your first song and press play. You adjust your Equalizer and then start to read and study the floor / room. You look over the floor and notice most of the people standing / sitting around are follows (or leads).
So you are now DJing a night where the ratio of leads to follows is very uneven. How do you adjust your DJing to accommodate this?

Some of my thoughts:
- Keep the tempo level down, so that the group with the lower numbers (leads or follows) will have more energy to dance the whole night.
- If you know the dancers in your scene know jazz strolls like the Shim Sham or Jitterbug Strolls, it is a way of getting people up, and they don’t need a partner. Charleston songs are some times a way of getting up people that are confident with there dancing up in mini big apple circles.

Have you ever come across ways of getting up and rotating dancers when you have to many followers / leads?

Brian :D
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djstarr
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#2 Post by djstarr » Mon Feb 20, 2006 3:49 pm

Interesting thought. Can't say that I really have thought about this too much; being in a scene for a long time with too many follows it's something I thought was always up to the dancers to deal with.

I think playing songs that you can do Charleston circle to is a nice idea; also some mid up tempo (175 - 200) that people can do line dances to. It would also help to play tried and true songs; experimental songs when there is already a reason why a lot of people aren't on the floor may not be a good idea ;-)

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Lars
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#3 Post by Lars » Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:04 pm

A while back at Hot Water someone noticed that we were lead heavy with the comment that it was a "sausage fest" tonite!
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Fortunately we are usually pretty well lead-follow balanced.
Last edited by Lars on Mon Feb 20, 2006 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bob the Builder
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#4 Post by Bob the Builder » Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:33 pm

djstarr wrote: It would also help to play tried and true songs; experimental songs when there is already a reason why a lot of people aren't on the floor may not be a good idea ;-)
Yes, I was thinking the same.
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