I was asked to DJ a 2.5 or 3 hour father/daughter, mother/son dance at an elementary school. Below was my reply:
My first and strongest thought is that you should limit dancing time to two hours. Why? Because your as you stated below, your goal is to have the generations interacting together. Remember that the idea of “dancing” together is not a usual activity for parents and children these days. Three hours is fine for the kids, but too long for the parents. The kids will start running wild and the parents will start talking among themselves. Once that happens, The DJ will lose the ability to get the group to play together. (even a good DJ)
Next, if you are having more than DJ activities (for example photos) Consider time slots. Like (if you are still tied to the 2.5 or 3 hours) have the photographer work the first hour and then stop. Why? If you truly want generations to interact together, there are key songs and key activities that work. The DJ needs to have everyone available to participate together. There are two reasons for this.
Reason One, if half the room is in line for the photos or over in the food area, or the book sale, That half of the room has missed the the DJ doing a song/activity that was meant for them, and the DJ can’t play that song with it’s activity again- so the opportunity has been lost on half the room. It has also been lost to the DJ. DJ’s work on dancefloor momentum. The people leaving for food and photos are leaving the momentum and making it harder for the DJ to do his job.
Reason Two, Everyone will have a good time with the DJ if they have no other choice, but a full 50% of the adults are going to be nervous about it. They are much more comfortable standing in line for photos and hanging out in the food area. Allowing yourself to have fun with a DJ is a risk for many adults, especially if they are with their kids and other adults are watching. So, you need to structure the night so they have no other option. Food time is food time, photo time is photo time. The dancing time is the dancing time and there is no other. Now you could have the DJ play background music during food and photos, that works just fine.
Next, I’m sure it is too late this year, but next year you might consider one night for mothers and sons and another for fathers and daughters. I’ve worked with many groups who have tried to do them together. It is fine to do, but the end result is more of a “family fun night” (which is fine and honorable) and less of a “parent/child date night” no matter what the DJ does or what you do with the hype or what you do with the room. The biology works against “date night” when you have mother/child and father/daughter in the same room. The group dynamics become, well… business as usual instead like a date which is usually a special and unique situation. Men with only daughters and no adult women present act completely different then men in a family situation. For one thing, they will dance to almost every single song. The whole dress up thing is affected too. Men are much more willing to dress up if it is only with their daughters. Add sons and adult females, and men need to be cool and detached in order to be comfortable with that dynamic. Lastly, there are some activities (like slow dances) that the daughters will be distracted from by their male peers who don’t want to slow dance with mom and would rather run. Take away the running male children, and daughters will dance a ton of slow dances.
Don’t get me wrong, I am an excellent DJ for family fun nights too. I love them too. I’m just pointing out that from a biological standpoint a father daughter mother son dance does not turn out to be as much a date night as it does a family fun night. Family fun nights are still a noble intent, a gift to the community and a positive influence on families, but if you really want to see a date night, do two dances. Friday night just Mothers/Sons and Saturday night just Fathers/Daughters. I do a group for a church in Owego every year that splits them up. It is really a magical thing to see!
Just my thoughts….
Tags: family fun, father daughter, mobile DJ, mother son
