Another day for a DJ

You know it amazes me how little respect a DJ gets (boo hoo) from venues, clients and guests - pretty much everybody who hires a dj or uses a mobile dj really. No I'm not looking for sympathy (ok just a little), but a little would be nice.

Yesterday, after realising there was one requested track that I didn't have, I bought it from Napster - then I loaded up the truck at 3pm. For insurance reasons I can't leave all the gear in the vehicle as mobile dj insurance only covers us when the equipment is in use (attanded) locked away in a secure building, or in transport.

A quick shower and shave gets me all set for heading out the door with my lovely wife as my assistant/producer/roadie by my side. Today the venue is the Devere Hotel in Belton Woods, near Grantham so it's about an hour and a half drive for this mobile disco trundling down the A153...

Thanks to traffic, we get to Belton Woods at 5.45pm and I'm feeling pleased because being early means no stress, no rushing about to get all the gear in and be set-up on tim (even though we always are but I still stress a little).

But... Well, I was told that the reception was 'upstairs' and that we would have 'easy access'... As soon as we park the truck I sense that we are in for a long walk with the disco equipment, but I've been assured, on the booking form, that there is easy / close vehicular access, so smile this may not be as bad as it first appears.

In reception we are told there's a lift 'just over there' and we can use the front doors (yep, the fron doors of a grand hotel for lugging all our mobile disco gear). So we took a ride in teh elevator to explore the venue and find out where, in fact, the wedding reception is to be held.

Up the elevator, round this corner, through this set of double doors, through this massive hall with the bar and beyond that... We stop at the bar to explain who we are 'hi we're the wedding disco' type thing... And she (the girl at the bar) goes and gets the lady who is organising everything. I'm thinking, maybe they'll be having the wedding disco in this area, it's got seating, it's got the bar... Oh no! This is just the entrance part, we'll be through there when they finish the wedding breakfast.

A young chap takes us on another tour of the Devere Hotel in Belton Woods and shows us the 'best' entrance to use. It was the back entrance via a loading bay, to a service elevator, up to the kitchen area, through another function hall where a band was setting up, through a maze of halls and doorways, right back to where we were earlier!

I looked at the stairs over to my right and thought, surely that's the quickest way in... Aparently not. So we lugged the gear a couple of hundred paces from the elevator to a room behind the function room where the reception was being held. The speeches were nearly finished. We had time for a short break before moving our gear, once again, into the reception hall.

(I'll come back to this later as, right now, I have a truck to unload and prepare for tomorrow's wedding fair at Kenwick Park).