Booking a DJ for a school prom or disco

Booking a DJ for a school event comes down to five pieces of paper and one conversation. The paper: a DBS certificate, public liability insurance, a PAT testing certificate, a risk assessment and a written quote your office can raise a purchase order against. The conversation: exact timings, clean music, and who's in charge on the night. Get those sorted and the rest is just a good party.

I'm Musha, a mobile DJ based in Shelley just outside Huddersfield. I DJ Shelley College's sixth form prom every year, and school events sit alongside the weddings, 18ths and corporate dos in the 213 events I've played. Here's what I'd want to know if I were the one organising.

The paperwork to ask any DJ for

1. DBS certificate.
   Non-negotiable for anyone working an event full of under 18s. A DJ who does school work will have one and won't be surprised you asked. I'm DBS checked.
2. Public liability insurance.
   Your school or the venue will want proof before the night. I carry £1,000,000 of cover and send the certificate over whenever it's asked for.
3. PAT testing certificate.
   Speakers, decks and lights are all electrical kit coming into your building, so site managers usually want to see this one. My equipment is PAT tested and the certificate is available on request.
4. Risk assessment.
   Plenty of DJs go quiet when a school asks for this. I have one written and ready to send, covering the setup, cabling, lighting and manual handling.
5. A proper quote and invoice.
   School finance offices don't do cash in envelopes. Ask for a written quote up front and an invoice the office can process. That's how I work with schools as standard.

Planning a sixth form prom

A few things that make the difference between a prom that goes off and one where everyone stands round the edges:

• Book once the date and venue are locked. Prom season is a handful of Fridays and Saturdays in late June and July, and every school in the area is fighting over the same nights. The good suppliers go first.
• Get song requests in before the night. A quick form in tutor time gets you a playlist the room actually wants, and it kills the "play something we know" problem before it starts. Send me the list and I'll build the night round it.
• Expect a slow start. Nobody dances in the first half hour of a prom. They're taking photos, finding their mates and working out who's brave enough to go first. That's normal, and a DJ who's done proms knows how to bring the room in rather than panicking and cranking it up.
• Clean edits, always. At a school event I only play clean versions. The chart stuff students request nearly always has one, so the floor doesn't lose anything and staff don't have to wince.
• Setup happens before students arrive. My rig takes about half an hour to build, so I'm set up and tested before doors. No gear being wheeled past students in formalwear.

PTA discos at primary schools

A different beast to a prom: earlier, shorter and louder in the best way. Most primary discos run as two sessions, infants first then juniors, so tell your DJ the exact slot times and how long each group gets. The music is the current chart songs the kids ask for plus the party classics that get them all up, every one of them a clean version. My lighting rig is on wide tripod stands set above eye line, which matters more in a hall full of fast moving seven year olds than anywhere else I play.

And if you're wondering whether a kids' crowd fazes me: DJ Musha started as a lockdown street disco on Far Bank in Shelley, the same street as Shelley First School, played to whole families out on their doorsteps, and it's still the gig that taught me the most.

What it costs

It depends on the hours, the distance and the kit the room needs, so I won't pretend there's one number. What you'll get from me is a fixed written quote within 24 hours of telling me the date, venue and timings, and an invoice your office can process. No surprises on the night.

FAQs

If you're organising a prom, a leavers' do or a PTA disco anywhere round Huddersfield, Kirklees or the wider Yorkshire patch, message me the date and I'll tell you straight away if it's free, with all the paperwork ready to send to your office.

Written by DJ Musha, the DJ behind Shelley College's sixth form prom, with 213 events under his belt.