Wedding Entertainment
Platinum Discos take your wedding reception very seriously as it’s one of the most important days of your life and you can’t rewind it and do it again if mistakes are made.
We provide the cream of Scottish Dj talent to entertain you at your wedding and we only supply top class, 100% reliable Djs who have been very carefully vetted.
Your wedding day is so important that you really need to spend an appropriate budget and make sure you can hire the very best that you can afford. Your wedding reception is something that will be remembered for a long time after and I will do everything I can to make it a very memorable one, for all the right reasons.
All of the Djs I use are excellent comperes and will introduce you onto the floor and play your first dance and announce all the guests that you’ve asked to join you by name and also by their wedding title. (best man etc) If your doing a father and daughter or mother and son dance we will introduce them too.
All other announcements like buffet time, cake cutting and “your buses have arrived” will all be taken care of too.
Music at your wedding is a huge thing too! It has to suit a very wide age range from the children to the grandparents, so everyone has the opportunity to hear several songs they like and may wish to dance to. We all play the ceilidh dances and can call them too.
All of the Djs I use play requests and will accept a playlist in advance of your favourite songs. I always suggest a playlist of 20-40 songs is more than enough. If its more than that the Dj will cherry pick the songs he thinks will fit in at the right time and suit the style of music being played.
This is a bit of an art and it’s one of the reasons why you should pick an experienced Dj over someone thats just starting out. There is no substitute for experience.
Sound Quality. Platinum Discos and the Djs that work for us all use top quality sound systems!
The reasons for this are very simple. If it sounds crystal clear and if the music is always played at a comfortable volume then people will find it a pleasurable experience. Top quality disco equipment isn’t cheap with a decent pair of speakers cost typically £2000-£4000.
The other reason to buy good quality equipment is probably the most important one:
Reliability.
In 42 years I’ve never had to abandon a disco due to equipment failure. Just the thought of it puts shivers up my spine.
Lighting. I think that most brides and grooms don’t really think too much about lighting unless its been pointed out to them or demonstrated. I’ve always loved transforming a plain room into something that looks classy and spectacular and it gives a huge wow factor when the guests walk into the function room.
I’ve heard all sorts of compliments from “wow” to “look at the lights” and my customers continually mention it in their reviews. I’ve always found it very hard to explain just what a difference it makes and trying to type it is even harder.
I feel like taking the people to a venue and showing them at a gig I’m doing, but now I can video it and show you on my You Tube channel. This is my favourite video of mood lighting in one of my favourite function rooms in Scotland:
Lighting provides a certain ambiance that really helps create an atmosphere all on its own! I use wireless mood lighting which is incredibly expensive at over £4000 for a set of 12. But the advantages are huge.
Speed of setup as they are battery powered and don’t have cables that need taped down. They are controlled wirelessly and can be set to multiple different colours, dimmed, strobed, or made to do chase patterns once the disco starts! Wireless mood lights have one other major advantage!
The left hand photo was taken at a wedding I did in Hawick Rugby Club and the right hand photo was taken at Drumtochty Castle near Laurencekirk.
If you are in a venue that has poor controls for its lighting with no dimmers and just on and off switches these lights come into their own. All the house lights can be switched off except behind the bar and then the Dj can have perfect control of the lighting.
These lights provide enough light to light up any venue so you can see very well and not be worried about tripping over an unseen object! They are especially useful at marquee weddings which tend to suffer from power cuts as the lights stay on even when the power is cut off and act as emergency lighting!
Disco packages: Platinum discos provides a number of different sound and lighting packages and these are the two that are the most popular:
Platinum Discos Silver package includes one pair of full range speakers, 6 – 8 high quality lights plus your Dj and this includes all travelling expenses etc. Here are two examples:
The left hand photo was taken at an 80th birthday party at Pumpherston Golf Club and the right hand photo was taken at a wedding at Bunchrew House Hotel near Inverness.
Platinum Discos Gold Package includes a 4 speaker sound system including two full range speakers and two sub bass speakers and this produces a more rounded sound. This package also comes with 10-12 lights and also comes with 12 wireless mood lights included.
The left hand photo was taken at a wedding in Smoochies Bar in Annan and the right hand photo was taken at one of my favourite venue in Scotland, The Atholl Palace Hotel in Pitlochry.
Fully Insured and P.A.T. Tested. In this modern era that we live in all Djs should have P.A.T. tested equipment and above all public liability insurance! I have both of these on my website for you to see, and to let your venue see, so they know I’ve got it. I’ve also put up my pat testers certificate to prove that I’m a qualified pat tester. There is also a method statement and risk assessment on this page too.
Reliability. I think has to be the most important thing when booking a Dj. What back up plans does he have in the event of a breakdown, car crash, traffic ,equipment failure.
All the Djs I use are part of Pro Dj Network. The code of conduct insists that all Djs set off in plenty of time and will arrive at your venue very early. Its very reassuring, I’m told, when I arrive at a venue and I go and see my bride and groom 3-4 hours before I’m due to start.
I do this so they can relax and not worry that their Dj isn’t going to show up. I have full breakdown cover which will take me to your gig in the event of a mechanical breakdown that can’t be fixed at the side of the road and I insist all my Djs have it too.
Traffic can happen anytime and affects all of us, but in the disco industry there is no excuse for being late. Its why particularly when I’m travelling a long way from home I set off first thing in the morning and arrive several hours early.
I take my dog for a walk, go and eat in a local restaurant or sit and watch the wedding guests and talk to them. It’s amazing the funny stories that people will tell you, that you can use during your performance. It all adds to the interaction and that can really make a night!
All my Djs must bring a backup playout system,this means if there laptop or decks stop working they have another device with them that will allow them to finish the night and you’d probably not even notice that they’d had a problem.
They all bring a spare mixer, amplifier and a spare microphone and a spare of every cable they use. One other huge benefit of being part of Pro Dj Network is that we have Djs based all over the country who cooperate with each other and would help each other in a crisis.
This might be a Dj falling ill on the day of your event. Its nice to know that there are lots of other Djs in the group who would stand in or help find another Dj to stand in at short notice.
Platinum Discos provides a huge range of optional extras from mood lighting to photo booths, magic mirrors, specialist lighting, dance floors etc. You’ll find them on our optional extras page with photos and a description and should you require some optional extras we will add them onto your disco package and give you a discounted package rate.
My You tube channel is packed with just under 600 videos from events that I’ve done and will give you an example of different lighting setups and sound setups but more importantly you’ll see full dance floors and people having fun.
My job is quite simple: to get you dancing, to play your requests and to make you happy. What goes on behind the scenes, the early starts, the long drives there and back plus bringing heavy equipment in and out of venues is the hard bit.
It’s hard to believe that at some venues even walking 100 yards from car or van to the stage can mean carrying equipment 4000 yards (2 miles) on the way in and then out again at the end of the night!
People think that being a Dj is easy, just playing music and pressing buttons as someone once said. Oh I wish. But don’t let me make you think that I don’t enjoy it because that would be far from true. I love my job. I’m paid to travel all over our beautiful country, to do weddings in castles, beautiful houses, nice hotels, village halls and everything in between! I wouldn’t swap my job for anything.
The feeling of euphoria when you’ve had an amazing night and everyone is coming up and thanking you for a great night is like a drug and it’s seriously addictive. After 42 years I’m still loving it, it keeps me young and fit and I love meeting people and travelling.
I think my body has a few different thoughts on it these days as lifting half a ton of equipment up stairs twice a night and a minimum of twice a week does take its toll. At the end of the weekend I can be totally shattered.
I’ve seen me travel 1500 miles in a week from the very north of Scotland to Yorkshire and Lancashire in England. I get very little sleep from a late Friday night gig and typically get in at 2-4am. Then I have to get up early on Saturday morning to travel to my night time gig and do it all over again.
We Djs are a strange breed of what we call introvert extroverts who are gluttons for punishment but love what we do.
I’d like you to watch this amazing video that one of the other Djs found and posted on a forum. It’s all about a Djs life and deals with a lot of things that effect mobile Djs too. Although the video is talking about the big name celebrity Djs, we mobile Djs also suffer in the same ways and we have to deliver our own gear too.
I hope that all the information I’ve provided has been very useful to you and gives you a bit of an insight into a Djs life and explains why the professional Djs charge more than the beer money Djs.
Please remember that Platinum Discos provides a nationwide service throughout Scotland and Northern England from north of Manchester to Caithness and Sutherland. Some of my most memorable gigs have been in castles like Glamis Castle which is amazing.
Kildrummy Castle has the most incredible wildlife right outside the dining room window! Red squirrels and deer plus pheasants and lots of other rarer birds can be seen eating and playing as you have your meal! Its one of the perks of being a Dj.
If you like going to beautiful places and meeting interesting people from all walks of life it’s an amazing job! My most southerly castle that I can think of is Clitheroe Castle where I did an amazing birthday party!
One of most unusual gigs I did was for a group of Dutch people who hired Glencanisp Lodge Hotel near Lochinver. My job was to light up lots of trees and bushes and to do the disco in a barn with walls made from logs.
It was amazing and I had to run power from all over the place as the barn didn’t have any mains electricity. I finished at 0430 in the morning. These guys really knew how to party and were staying there all week and had different entertainment every night. Here’s a photo of the barn at night after I had decorated it with red mood lighting.
To provide a top quality service you need to put in the hours, perfect your craft and listen to the needs of your customers! You also need reliable transport, good quality equipment and be bang up to date with music.
CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR WEDDING CHECKLIST
If you have any questions please feel free to call up to 10pm, on: 07472 287 151.