Wedding Band/DJ?

clairus

Hi everyone,

Just looking for a little bit of guidance from yourselves. We are considering whether to get a band for our reception, but are unsure on a few different bits:

• Our musical preference would be to have indie and rock rather than pop, but would we do better to get a party band that will play the party pop that will get our wide variety of guests want to dance to?
• If you get a band, what happens during their interval? Do you just do an iPod disco?
• If you have booked a band, have you booked through an agency or direct with the band?
• Can anyone recommend any bands in the Merseyside area?

Thank you
xx

Spencer_Li

Although it's your day, I personally think you have to cater to some of your guests wants too. eg if you want indie music, get them to play some poppy stuff like Kings of Leon.

All the bands I've looked at will typically play for 2, 1 hour sets. As you book them for the whole evening (say 8 till 12) they will us a laptop or ipod for the time they are not playing.

Have not managed to find a band we like the look of without going through an agency.

Good luck! We're trying to find a band in the Kent area but are having problems getting to hear them play live before we book.

elliebobs

OH went to see this band at the weekend and said that they were brilliant.http://www.thetombiddleband.co.uk/index.php/biography. He was at a beer festival with a wide range of ages and everyone was loving them.

We're getting married in Jan 2013 in Scotland but having a reception/party afterwards here at home in Lancashire so it's not too far for them to travel.

Not sure if you have to go through an agency though as we haven't got that far yet. They're due to play at a couple of venues near us so I'm going to go and then we'll decide.

ETA; OH asked them how much they charged and they said about £180 which I thought was pretty good and comparable with other bands that friends have had at their do's

minerva_windsong

My boyfriend's sister had a really good band at her wedding - they played two sets of about 45 minutes to an hour each, playing loads of different stuff like the Beatles and Stevie Wonder as well as more recent chart stuff, and then there was an iPod disco during their breaks. I think they booked directly.

Alternatively you can get some bands who will just play straight through for an hour and a half or so and then you have the disco afterwards - the band my uncle had at his wedding did this, although they were a tribute band so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. Again they were booked directly.

Idiophreak

clairus wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Just looking for a little bit of guidance from yourselves. We are considering whether to get a band for our reception, but are unsure on a few different bits:

• Our musical preference would be to have indie and rock rather than pop, but would we do better to get a party band that will play the party pop that will get our wide variety of guests want to dance to?
• If you get a band, what happens during their interval? Do you just do an iPod disco?
• If you have booked a band, have you booked through an agency or direct with the band?
• Can anyone recommend any bands in the Merseyside area?

Thank you
xx

Most bands will do 2 or 3 sets of 45mins to 1 hour each.
They may provide a DJ between times, or may need you to provide an iPod.
I booked our band through alivenetwork, but some of our friends have gone direct.

In terms of the rocky-ness, it's down to your audience, really.

Ours did a mix of stuff, with slightly different feels to each of the three sets. One was quite rocky (once all the old folks had sloped off) the others were more "wedding cheese". (although still a little rocky in delivery).

You can get away with quite a rocky sound with pop-rock, anyway...killers, franz ferdinand, kings of leon, darkness, reef, Fratelli's, Chillis, primal scream etc etc.

Wedding I went to this weekend, however, was a much younger crowd so they went rockier than most - nirvana, rage against the machine and a particularly surreal rocked-up cover of "reach" by SClub7 were highlights...

You know best the range of guests that will be coming and how many will appreciate your own musical tastes...

AutumnBride85

Hiya

Were having a band which does live music and djs in the breaks. They play live for 2 hours in total. It might be worth looking for a band that does the same so you havent got to worry about keeping the music going.

Also Ive chosen a band that does a mix of covers from the beatles to the stereophonics when playing live. For the dj bit Ive collated a wide variety of songs that will suit all audiences so that should keep em happy!

Theres alot out there so keep your eyes open. i found mine by accident when I saw them playing at someone elses wedding!

Good luck!

Spencer_Li

elliebobs wrote: »

ETA; OH asked them how much they charged and they said about £180 which I thought was pretty good and comparable with other bands that friends have had at their do's

Anyone had any negotiation on price?

We've found a band we think we like and are hopefully going to see them in a showcase later on in the year.

The initial quote, however, is £1400 for a five piece - and from others we've seen, this seems to be the going rate.

How have people been getting bands for under £200?!

Idiophreak

Spencer_Li wrote: »

Anyone had any negotiation on price?

We've found a band we think we like and are hopefully going to see them in a showcase later on in the year.

The initial quote, however, is £1400 for a five piece - and from others we've seen, this seems to be the going rate.

How have people been getting bands for under £200?!

The three weddings I've been to where people have paid for a band, the cost has ranged between £800 and £1200 for a 3 or 4 piece. More room to negotiate if booking direct. People doing it for much less must be paying friends, or finding bands that are just starting out (high risk).

Put yourself in the band's position...If you were a 4-piece and you had to
* give up your Saturday night
* travel half the way across the country
* transport and set up all your equipment
* probably be there 2 hours early to sound check.
* play 2 hours of music, plus DJ inbetween for 5 or 6 hours total
* pack up and drive home in the middle of the night.

I just can't imagine any band doing that for £50/person if they were any good at all, it just doesn't make sense - even when you throw in a couple of cheap drinks and a meal. Just my thoughts, might be wrong

VICSH

Hi we were going ot have a 6 piece band and they were going to do it for £650 which was really reasonable but i know them throught my work so I think they were doing a bit of a discount.

Anyway we decided against a band in the end we couldnt afford both band and DJ and after being a loads of wedding recently we felt the DJ was appreciated more by the majority of guests as they can play a mixture of songs that will get most people up. i found with the bands people were more self concious dancing when the band were on. With that said I LOVE live music we jsut thought for our day a DJ was more suitable.

If you are looking to book directly could I suggest putting an advert on local gumtree or asking friends on Facebook for recommendations. where abouts are you based?

picklepick

We had the Redhouse band at our Wedding. They were fabulous. They do rock covers and the dance floor was filled and we had lots of compliments.
Inbetween the sets they played a mix of songs from an ipod from a playlist we had given them. They travel too as we got married in Bromsgrove and they came all the way down from Leeds. They were relatively cheap too compared to other quotes we got.

http://www.redhouse-band.co.uk/

HTH

Idiophreak

Another thing to think about is just hiring speakers, rather than getting a DJ.

For when the band weren't playing, and for after they left, we hired a set of speakers, amp, lighting rig (with 3 sound-activated lights on) and an ipod cable for something like £130 for the night.

We spent some time going through the ipod, ordering playlists, picking start/stop points for each song and it worked perfectly in the end - everyone was up dancing, nobody missed the DJ at all and we saved ourselves a fair few quid