I have stood in rooms where the DJ was the reason the night went flat, and I am on the other side of them when someone is deciding whether to book me. Ask all five. They are free and they sort a shortlist fast.
1. Which DJ, by name, is playing my event?
At a lot of multi-operator companies, the person you meet at the consultation is not the person who shows up. Sometimes you find out who it is the week of. Sometimes on the day.
The question is not rude and the answer is not complicated. If it is a named person, get the name in the contract. If it is "one of our team," you are buying a category, not a performer, and you should price it accordingly.
2. What exactly happens if a piece of gear dies at 9:40pm?
Everything fails eventually. The only real question is whether there is a second one in the van.
A good answer sounds boring: a spare controller, a spare mic, backup cables, the music on two drives and offline, and a plan that means nobody in the room ever knows. A bad answer is enthusiasm about the primary gear.
3. Can I see a certificate of insurance?
Most serious venues in Austin will not let a vendor load in without one naming the venue as additional insured. Plenty of DJs quoting for your event do not have it and are hoping nobody checks.
You are not really asking about insurance. You are asking whether this is a business or a side hustle, and the answer arrives in how fast they can produce the document.
4. Who runs the timeline, and what happens during the toasts?
For a wedding or a corporate event, the music is maybe half the job. The other half is announcements, cueing, walk-on music, handing a live mic to a nervous person and making sure the back of the room can hear them.
Ask specifically: who builds the run of show, who is holding the mic, and how many wireless channels are on site. If a DJ has not thought about backup frequencies, they have not thought about what happens when a channel drops in the middle of a toast.
5. What do you do when the floor empties?
This is my favorite question and almost nobody asks it.
Every night has a dip. What you want to hear is a specific, unglamorous method: I drop the energy on purpose rather than chase it, I go back to something familiar and warm, I give the bar three minutes to do its job, then I rebuild. What you do not want is "that does not happen to me."
The floor emptying is not the failure. Panicking when it does is the failure.
One question they should ask you
A good DJ will ask for a do-not-play list before you think to offer one. If nobody asks what you hate, nobody is planning to avoid it.
If you are running through this list for an Austin event, my answers are on the booking page along with real prices, which is a sixth question worth asking everyone.
Got a date?
Tell me about the room.
Weddings, bars, shows and corporate parties in Austin and the Hill Country. Real prices on the page, no quote form maze.
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