Blog
Buxted Park Wedding Fayre
Jan 15th
As the echoes of New Year celebrations fade out into the distance a lot of couples are now turning their attentions to planning their 2010 weddings. It happens like clockwork each year. Once Christmas and New Year is out of the way, Weddings become top of the agenda and the rush is on to book the best venue, the best dresses and of course, the best DJ!
Buxted Park is one of our favourite venue’s. We play there on average around twenty times each year. It has two main function rooms. A fantastic ballroom featuring pillars and beautiful period fireplaces, great for all year round weddings, or for those choosing the warmer summer months a stunning glass-roofed orangery. There’s plenty of land around the venue to meander through and loads of special places to have those all-important wedding photo’s taken.
From discussions with previous clients the food is amazing and the service provided by both the catering staff and the wedding team is second to none. And because it’s a popular location for us to play at, we know the staff and they know us too!
This will be the first time we have appeared at Buxted Park’s wedding fayre and we’re really looking forward to it. Not only from a meeting current and possible future client perspective but also a chance to network with other companies who we see from time to time but always too busy to chat to.
If you fancy coming along, it would be lovely to meet you and chat about your Wedding. Here are the details…
Sunday, 24th January 2010
Open Midday to 4pm admission is FREE!
Relaxing Times
Jan 10th
It’s always an interesting time of year January. In one hand your skint because you’re waiting for the hotels to pay you for the vast amount of work you did over Christmas therefore leaving you begging for work during January, yet on the other hand you’re really happy to have the time off and re-acquaint yourself with the family.
I’ve really enjoyed the first 10 days of 2010. I went to see my Mum in Manchester and drove back through a blizzard, i’ve been sledging with the kids, invested in the biggest BBQ in the world (bring on the summer!) and of course, re-designed the website. I’ve also done my accounts and a load of other housekeeping duties as well.
Last night was really strange, and it compounded the fact why I enjoy going out most Saturday nights as there was naff-all on the telly. I sent, and received many text messages from my friends whoo too were in the same boat. What was nice though was to kick back and watch that old classic English film, Notting Hill. It really made my night.
Snow Snow Snow
Jan 5th
Well, Christmas came and went and so did New Year – and it’s at this time of year I like to disappear up to my mothers for a week or so to put my feet up and relax. So, last Sunday I took the family with me, loaded the car and off we went.
My mother lives in Rochdale, a town about 15 miles north east of Manchester and it’s fair to say they’ve had a bit of snow recently. I don’t think we were actually prepared for how much snow they had! We made our way up the M40 onto the M6 and saw nothing. Where was the snow? We turned onto the M62 and made our way east past Manchester, Bury, Heywood…OH MY GOD! I think it’s fair to say there was a bit of snow on the ground. Now, I am a Northerner and we have the in-built ability to drive in this sort of weather. A few inches of snow wouldn’t stop me – and it didn’t. That day a whole 12″ of snow had dropped and it didn’t show any sign of stopping.
So today we woke up to even more snow, another 5″ had fell overnight and we heard on the news that it was heading South. We decided to cut short our visit and make our way home – after all, I have gigs this weekend I need to DJ at. So we set off through the blizzards and made our way home. Well, we thought we were going to. We stopped at the first service station on the M62 for petrol, filled up and the car refused to start. Flat battery! I phoned the RAC and they promised a roadside warrior would be with me within 2 hours. As I had a child in the car, and a very cold wife they arrived much quicker, in half an hour as it happens! Result!
The very nice man concluded the battery was wasted and £103 later we were on our way home again. Birmingham was pretty snowy but we were confident we would make it home before the snow got to us.
As we turned off the M40 onto the M25 it was like arriving in a different land. There was no snow, no rain, no anything, in fact it was quite mild.
Upon arriving home it was apparent the snow was nearby, in Southampton to be exact. So, we’re now prepared for an overnight downfall, but it’s just raining at the minute, no sign of the white stuff at all! It will be a nice surprise when I wake up though I guess. I love the snow, but the family hates it!
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!
Nov 23rd
I’m convinced that every year, the following advert appears on our TV’s earlier and earlier….
Now, I don’t know about you, but each time I see it it gives me a warm snuggly feeling inside. Pathetic, I know! Hahah!
For me, it also means that i’m going to be as busy as Santa over the next month or so. This Thursday seems my first Christmas Party at the Ramada Jarvis hotel up in Gatwick near Crawley. After that…well, let’s just say I have a few free days before the new year to put my feet up. I’m even working on Christmas Day this year!
Wires!
Nov 17th
Had a few spare hours so I thought I would replace a few wires in my main equipment box today, not that the other ones were crap mind, but with such a busy season coming up it’s better to do this now than have to do it on the night.
The main trouble these days for DJ’s is that if you go to your average DJ equipment shop in town for an “off the shelf” wire, you’ll pay a tenner or more, depending on what you’re getting and these will be Lidl quality, think value baked beans at 4p per can. They look like beans but they taste rubbish. If you want quality cables then you have to for Van Damme cable, Neutrik long-life connectors and so on. Before long, your average £10 wire now costs £40 (but will last a lot longer).
I did a rough bit of maths on Saturday night as to the replacement value of the cables in my cables box and came out with the most frightening figure of over £800. This really surprised me especially as I only use about 20 wires in my whole show, but they are good quality, and I also have replacements ready just in case. On top of this I have a whole load of other cables and bits and bobs i’ve picked up along the way, just in case you get to a gig and there’s a singer who wants to wire into your equipment.
Cleaned all my gear too so it looks absolutely sparkly new, which is always nice!
See you soon.
November Update
Nov 4th
Well, the memories of Tenerife are now a long distant memory and it’s really time to knuckle down and get into the Christmas spirit. Yes folks, I said Christmas. You’ll have noticed all the shops are getting their chrimbo decorations out now and i’m sure you know that the idea behind this is that it will give you something to look forward to instead of worrying about the credit crunch. Ahh, but there is no credit crunch is there!
Christmas for DISCOfever began in April this year when we started taking bookings for 2009. We’re now playing at over 80 Christmas Parties at various locations all over Sussex. Obviously, i’d love to be able to do them all myself. The idea of running the DISCOfever “empire” from a disgustingly long yacht parked up in Monaco is most appealing but it’s not going to happen, so thankfully I have my band of merry men (DJ’s) to help me out.
This year is a little different in that I will be working both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which is most odd as i’ve never done it, ever. One of the hotels we provide entertainment for has got a booking for a coach-load of elderly Christmas revellers all coming to Brighton in search of a good old game of Bingo, a race night and a disco. Well, I can do all of that! It will be very odd, unwrapping prezzies with the kids in the morning, enjoying dinner with the family (and the Queen) then off to work. I’m not moaning…it will just be odd!
We recently provided the entertainment for talkSPORT’s Ultimate Night In (in association with Carlsberg). talkSPORT basically moved into a house in Haywards Heath, kitted it out with radio gear and all the booze you could ever want. Superstar footballers turned up with a few random FHM girls and basically provided the best night in, ever for the winner of a radio competition. You can see the pictures here! (fast forward to photo 15 of 19 to see our DJ Dave playing some phat beats in the guys garage!)
Last Saturday I played at Ashdown Park which is a beautiful venue over in Forest Row. It was a fantastic day (although it rained) and it was a great wedding, but slightly different in that it was being filmed for Living TV’s Four Weddings which should be on your screens next February. If you’re not quite sure what sort of programme it is, think of Come Dine With Me, but with Weddings. Four Brides battle it out to provide the ULTIMATE wedding day. The other three brides then vote and give each wedding a score out of 10. The winner wins a fantastic all-expenses-paid honeymoon somewhere exotic. There was a lot going on at this wedding. The Bride & Groom turned up in a horse-drawn carriage. As well as having me for the disco, they also had a Frank Sinatra-style singer, a chocolate fountain, tarot reader and casino tables. It was a brilliant night and hopefully I can look forward to another 15 minutes of fame when it comes to air next year. I’ll let you all know first!
Just looked in my diary…oh my!
Sep 28th
Got a really busy week lined up in DISCOfeverland…
Tonight i’m going to a clients’ house to show them exactly what uplighting is and what it can do to a venue. I feel that this is really the best way to show it off because it’s great looking at pictures but you just don’t get the WOW EFFECT unless you see them with your own eyes!
Tomorrow night i’m in Maidstone for a SEDA committee meeting. Despite what some of my peers think these meetings are not like a group of stuffy pompous old men sat in a function room at the back of a pub singing God Save The Queen. In reality it’s a group of stuffy pompous old men sat in a pub just off the A20 eating steak and ale pie with chips and diet coke.
Thursday morning i’m off to a venue near Gatwick to discuss their Christmas parties. Yes folks, Christmas is nearly here, in fact we’ve been working on it since around June time. All of the hotels we worked in last Christmas have rebooked which is very good and we are looking forward to being almost as busy as Santa himself this year!
Thursday evening i’m DJ’ing at one of the local colleges. This is a regular and popular gig for me, such a great crowd!
Friday night i’m at the Tithe Barn in Petersfield and Saturday night at Ghyll Manor in Horsham.
Sunday is another Geek DJ bonanza! I’m off with the wife and meerkids to the NEC in Birmingham for BPM which is basically the same group of stuffy pompous old men x 1000 all meeting up to look at the latest DJ innovations. However this time, I get to stay in a really nice, plush hotel to keep the wife and kids happy. Must remember to pack my swimming trunks!
Busy Week Ahead
Sep 14th
Hello there folks, yes I’m still around!
It’s been a really busy past few weeks, the wedding season really is in full flow and is not showing any sign of ending. November is traditionally a very quiet month as everyone starts to gear up for Christmas, but looking at our calendar, I have 12 weddings booked in of which 6 I will be doing myself. December is also really busy for weddings, plus we have the headache of juggling around over 60-70 Christmas Party functions at the same time!
We did the Alexander House Wedding Fayre on Sunday. Surprisingly, it was really quite busy. There was another up the road at Ashdown Park as well, so there was definitely some crossover in visitors. We spoke to loads of people and took some business too which always helps!
This week, well, tomorrow i’m up at a Trade Show in London at Earls Court so i’ll be leaving Hove quite early tomorrow to get there for 11am. Wednesday I will be planning for the weekend gigs which are both all-day ones. And Thursday (which is also my birthday) I am off to the Ministry Of Sound in London to witness a global product launch from one of the biggest names in DJ’ing – Pioneer. Should be a good laugh and lots of free champers! Not that I drink champers.
Hmm, tiredness has crept up on me, time to go to bed.
The FSB & Credit Cards
Aug 19th
Good news comes to DISCOfever!
First of all, we have joined the FSB – The Federation Of Small Businesses, the UK’s largest campaigning pressure group promoting and protecting the interests of the self-employed and owners of small firms. Although joining the FSB offers more to us in terms of member benefits than it offers you, we hope that by joining the FSB it will highlight to you exactly how committed we are to DISCOfever and it’s future.
Secondly we have now signed up to Streamline, one of the leading providers of merchant accounts in Europe. This means that in the next few weeks we will be able to start accepting payments by credit or debit card. We ran a poll on our website some weeks ago and it was very clear from the results that if we offered payment by card it would be better for you. So, we listened and that’s what we’ve done!
Soon, you will be able to pay your reservation fee or full balance by credit or debit card. A 2% surcharge will be added to all credit card transactions (including company cards), and debit card transactions will be free of charge.
I will make an announcement both on here and our Twitter page when we are online, so keep coming back!
Cloud Computing
Aug 6th
Ever heard of it? It’s amazing! I was reading about it today and it made me sit back and realise how much I depend on it.
Cloud Computing is the latest buzzword in IT, it’s been around for some time but is becoming more and more commonplace each day.
So what is it? In a nutshell Cloud Computing is a style of computing in which dynamic services are available over the internet. Such services include web-based e-mail services such as Hotmail where the e-mail is available on-line rather than stored on your home computer.
As an ex-computer geek (is there such a thing), I wholly embrace this style of computing for my business and it’s only when I sat back the other day I realised how much I depended on it.
When clients enquire about our services they fill in an online form, the submitted information then gets zapped into our online management system. We can access this data from anywhere in the world. When bookings are confirmed our online calendar is automatically updated, as are our office computers and mobile phones. This ensures we have the most up to date information available to us at any time.
All of our e-mails, both sent and received are stored online. If I reply to an e-mail on my mobile phone, my wife at home can see that I have replied to a particular e-mail and can even see the reply, all automatically updated without any button pressing.
If I needed to ring someone and their number was not in my contact list on my phone rather than ring me up and give me the number over the phone, my wife can simply add it to the contact list on our home machine. This then synchronises all of our office machines’ contact lists and instantly updates the contact list on my mobile phone. She then just e-mails me and I ring the number.
All this is available now and for very very little cost and is an amalgamation of different services provided by Apple and Google.
Plus, it’s just one of the many ways we stay ahead of the competition!
