For context, I'm an event promoter and run classic hard trance events called TR!P, and I wanted to do something different for our 9th birthday that didn't involve a headliner. I had been seeing lots of face 2 face sets these days from some of the massive guys in trance like Armin / Maddox and heaps of the hard techno / schranz artists, but never classic hard trance & hardstyle.
So I decided to go for it and it, was a massive success. The setup itself was a bit of a nightmare. Not so much for the setup itself but making it a boiler room setup meant there was slight latency from main club speakers, which we were directly in the path of being positioned in the middle of the dance floor, to our headphones / monitors. Reason being, main sound going to main amps and mixing desk whereas headphones / monitors just coming straight from mixer to us.
We solved the issue by running the monitors straight into the main system which meant we could mix using one ear on headphone and the other on monitors. Still, wasn't easy.
Thought perhaps some of you in this sub might be interested in how it all went down.
The setup involved 4 x SL1200s and 2 x Xone 96 mixers. We basically had decks in channels 1 and 2, channel 3 a mute and channel four as the input from the other mixer coming from it's second master outs into the line in of channel four.
The really interesting and fun part is that you both actually have to communicate heaps and really work as a team because it's one persons job to mix into the tune the other guy is playing, whilst the other person has to do the mixing out on their own mixer. Took a little while to get our heads around it all, but once we got nicely oiled up it became so much fun and the night was a massive success. In fact one of the best we've had in the 9 years we've been around.
Crowd loved it. It was so interactive. I can't wait to do it again some time.
It's nice pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. It could have been a complete disaster as I'd never done anything like this before, but the setup in my head kinda made sense so I went with it and couldn't be happier.
I feel like right now as a small / medium sized event promoter you really have to be doing something different to be able to get the attention of ravers who would usually rather just do the massive festivals with 100+ DJs or large scale events / raves that bring in the biggest headliners in the world.
Since booking a string of class internationals and barely breaking even on some whilst making no where near enough to justify the work load on others, I decided I wasn't doing international or interstate headliners anymore.
I created a new night called Sinergy that's basically just myself doing 6+ hour open 2 close vinyl sets. My first event did ok with about 200 in there, but the vibes were off the charts. My second event 6 months after the first one did 450 tickets and sold out with a month to go.
Truly blew my mind. My theory is that people want to connect with the DJ, someone they know and trust will deliver exactly what it is they want. They want to feel like part of the experience. They don't really care if the person playing the tracks made the tracks.
People just want to feel like they are a part of something special, and forget the world for a few hours with like minded humans. That's it.
So if anyone's thinking of pushing boundaries, taking risks, tying something different, I say back yourself and go for it. Because doing the same thing everyone else is doing is not going to set you apart from the rest.