Latest / Absolutely KNOT Another Podcast / Eric Burnett, Fireside Events Owner, Event Producer, & DJ/MC

Transcript

Eric Burnett, Fireside Events Owner, Event Producer, & DJ/MC · Absolutely KNOT Another Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Absolutely Not, another podcast presented by Forever and More Event Planning.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Use code BrideTen at checkout to save 10% off your top tier planning package.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have just finished up Halloween.
• 0:14
  unknown: Yes.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Got our costumes are out.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're all recovering.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're right around the corner for the Big Wedding Game Show happening in exactly one week.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we figured it would be best to bring on someone that is going to be dominating with us at the Big Wedding Game Show.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've been described ever doing that, but I'll take that.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we are uh joined today by Eric Burnett.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is the owner of Fireside Events.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Eric has hosted his hosted his first event back in 2013 and officially launched Fireside in 2015.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Since then, he's grown it into an incredible DJ and AV company producing weddings, corporate events, immersive experiences.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And again, happens to be our event partner behind a big wedding game show.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Best of all.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: But Eric's story is a fun one.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Before Fireside, he was a distance runner at Pitt and even a professional triathlete.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up the around the television industry, which sparked his love for production.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And today he's balancing running and growing a company with being a husband and dad of two.
• 1:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking from things such as weddings, businesses, family, DJ stories, and how the heck we got from that first event in 2013 to Fireside Today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Eric, welcome.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in 2019, I was a firesider myself for about two months.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was brief.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was brief.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we loved every minute that you're here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I still have like at the bottom of my email that little banner that you created.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is yours.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is Garrett's special.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you had to head off for your dream job.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no bad blood there.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: We were just like, dude, I get it.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you got to go and do what you what you got to do.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so happy that we've remained close.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're doing the big wedding game show, and it's just like life couldn't be better.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'm very excited to see everything come together next week.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like getting chills even thinking I'm like, uh oh uh I know.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be great.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be so much fun.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I feel like the industry needs some like refreshers, yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Shake up.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I think it's good, it has the same intentions to bring everybody together and to network and to show off different different pieces of what can be provided at a wedding, but in a really creative, fresh way.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: We uh we've been kind of organizing like how the flow of everything's going and like testing out some of the games.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, we have we have one that deals with the foam finger and we're bringing it out.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't even know if this is gonna like hook and like catch.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then like we got five in a row.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, this is gonna be solid.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Which I also thought like maybe that's like could be a survivor challenge.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of just like testing my skills for whenever they give me a call.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, again, you know, and I forgot to include this on the list, but we do have our firesider package as well, which is a condensed one-day edition of Survivor uh called Firesider.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we should pow wow about that and uh maybe get that in on you know the next Firesider Challenge.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do it in like the Pittsburgh area.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I said we wanted to do it for our 10-year anniversary.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like we had all intentions of like hosting something, but then you're it's wedding season.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like, no, you know what?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll just delay it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: We'll find we'll find the perfect time.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it'll just be within our 10-year anniversary.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It won't be on our 10-year anniversary.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which is another fun fact.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We do share the same wedding anniversaries with our couples, too.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's right.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: 10 years too, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: 10 years as well.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, you guys.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Congrats, did up.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you guys do anything?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I forget.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit before, but did you end up doing anything special at all?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We went, yeah.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: We went to Lamont.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, never been.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Never went to Lamont in my life and had a nice dinner and got a good skyline view of the city.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Kids were with grandparents, so we got did a night stay, little hometown staycation downtown at what the Fairmont we stayed?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hotel Monaco, one of those two.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's all fluttering towards me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was a truly Pittsburgh experience.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'll edit this part out, but because I don't know if my mom will listen.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: We just stayed back at our house.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Little Mont and then we stayed back.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we were like, Stay at a hotel if we want to do something nice.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: We really just want to be kids.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do not blame you.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron and I, half of the time when we go on dates, we just go down to the office.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because we've got like a little living room set up down at the office, and we're like two minutes from home, and you know, can't it's cheap, it's easy, you're comfortable there.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_05: We did look at hotels, but it was I don't remember.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Something was going on in the city.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_05: Into town, and like so, because if I go, I want to stay either at Hotel Monaco or Omni William Penn, like somewhere that we a little different on scale.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then they were both sold out, and I'm like, well, the options was like Hampton in and sweets across from the history center.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, you are talking uh Aaron and my language.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: That is exactly what we want to done too.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: We ended up skipping town.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: We went out to Ohio Pile and we brought the boys, and just it was it was fun.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, always a good spot to go down that way.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We love going like near like Seven Springs, Ohio Pile, even to get down to Deep Creek.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, dude, deep.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: We had our first Deep Creek experience this last summer.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: That place is awesome.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so awesome.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Gotta get out on the boat for it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: We did that this past one.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, had a boat captain that just took us around for three hours, and then we got the inner tube with it too, and just hung out on the boat all day.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I can't be in charge of the boat.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: Nobody knows how to drive a boat in our family really.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_05: So we're just gonna get a captain then.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_05: They could drive us around, we could ride on boat.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, trying trying to be a boat captain when you're not is not a great idea.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_04: You've I feel like you have more experience with the boats from when we lived in the skis, but yeah, but I wouldn't trust myself.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sort of similar.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: The good thing is my brother-in-law is like on boats all the time, so and he's completely fine with just taking over the whole thing.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I drove the boat maybe two or three times.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I towed Erin once on skis, and she got so upset with me because I was terrible at it.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I switched it over to Brett and she's like, why didn't you let him do it this whole time?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, All right, you got it from here, Brett.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_05: So you grew up watching your dad in live television and production.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: So how did his journey inspire your interest in your own career?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, man, so many ways.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think initially it was just I actually didn't watch my dad on TV that often, surprisingly.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't do it.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why, but what I loved and what I got the most experience from was probably when I was around eight or nine years old, he started inviting me to come down to the studio on the weekends because on he he had a crazy schedule.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: He got moved around a lot, but he would normally work the mornings in the week.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then every once in a while, or more I guess more often than not, he worked Saturday nights until he did like the 11 o'clock news and then would come home and be home by midnight.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was, I guess, old enough to come down there and stay up that late, he'd invite me to come down.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it was this awesome experience of just like being in the studio, hanging out with dad, getting to meet the production team members and the other hosts on on the show and seeing it all happen.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I also got to just like stay out like stay out late in downtown Pittsburgh.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was just so it was so cool.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just a very positive, exciting experience that got me kind of rooted in the in the industry without me even knowing it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was also just he was a wild guy.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like he would always find the the rules to bend a little bit, like, hey, let's see if we can climb up into the into the catwalk, Eric, and let's go up.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see, there's a ladder right there that goes up into the the um the KDKA 1020 uh radio studio.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see if we can open the door and like jump in on John Cygna and just like disrupt the whole show.
• 7:36
  unknown: I'm like, yeah, dad, let's go.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we you know, it was not just like taking all this in and me just like sitting in the corner and just like twiddling my thumbs.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was like actively like it was like a playground for me.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's sweet.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's sweet special.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not you wouldn't be taking a leap off of the catwalk.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: You own a business now.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's been the scariest leap that you have taken financially or professionally?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a tough one, Garrett.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it happens all the time.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys know it, you know, you've taken you've taken leaps to go in in this direction.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um you know, anytime you get out of being someone's employee and starting to become your own, it's it's scary.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's just so many, you're taking chances um almost every single day, in a way.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um biggest well, I guess a really big leap was so whenever we started Fireside, uh, Erin was the breadwinner, 100%.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: She was she had the nine to five, and she was she was paying the rent um when we had our little apartment in Highland Park.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the biggest leap was about a year and a half after we started.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um we just realized that that I needed her more than we needed her paycheck from you know from her nine to five.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the best decision we ever made, but it was the scariest one for sure.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because that there was this just like consistent income that was coming in, and now it's like, all right, we are now fully funding our household with this, with this business that we believe in, and that hasn't really let us down yet.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if it does, uh you know, what are we gonna do?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't want to go back to the nine to five after you get out of it, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because you feel that freedom, yeah, you know, and I mean, yeah, there's no problem with going and working at McDonald's if you have to or anything like that.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was kind of what we kept in our mind.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we were perfectly fine with just grinding if if it came to that.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, we saw that through.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was great.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say another big one was purchasing our office, which we did about two and a half years ago.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that was big.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and this is a large building on a lot of lands, and we were just fortunate enough to be able to afford it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: My parents helped out a little bit, thank you guys.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but we've been making our own.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: We've been making our way and um and everything's been going pretty smoothly.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: But again, in this in this industry, like you just you try to create a reputation that you can stand on.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really what supports you, you know what I mean?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because as long as you are doing right by the people in your community, I I feel like I mean, I hope I should knock on some major wood here.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like the community is always gonna be there to have to have your back to and to keep asking you to work.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we've never we have yet to be in a situation where we're really in like dire straits.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So and I think even when it comes to like the Pittsburgh area, when it is the event industry, everyone's always like looking out for each other, making sure that like it the all like I feel like there's just a good network of people in the Pittsburgh area that want to have a good experience, whether it's a wedding, a corporate event, and leaning the people that they know that do a good job doing it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember during COVID, that's a great, it's a great point, Garrett.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: But and I remember during COVID, EF lighting, uh, Zamanda and Mike, we work with them on a lot of things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're great, fantastic.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in a lot of ways, we fireside competes with them, but it's just such a healthy, we have a healthy relationship.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: They've given us lights, we've given them projectors, like it's just we we have each other's backs.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember specifically during COVID where you know there was one third of the events that you normally have.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: They called me up and they're like, Eric, do you do you need some more work?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I did a couple light hangs for them, you know.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like I was their crew member, and it's just like we took care of each other.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You did become a dad recently, a couple a couple years ago.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but how did become yeah, how did becoming a parent change the way that you look at your business?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know you guys feel it too.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just you know, I mean, the biggest change was Erin about three or four months before Shepard was born back in 2029.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So right before COVID hit, she we just foresaw that she wasn't gonna be able.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we made the decision, I guess, for her to be a stay-at-home mom.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so she stepped away from fireside, and that was that was the biggest change.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's when you came in.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, yeah, that that was a big that was probably the biggest shift.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then you know, for me, I when I first started out DJing, I was just like, man, I love this so much.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would do this every single night of the week if I could.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and there was a part of me, I mean, if I was if I was single and it was just me, I I mean, there's everyone has a limit, but I probably would be trying to gig four nights a week, five nights a week.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but ever since having kids, it's we're at a point now where I limit myself to two.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's only during crazy seasons where I allow myself to do any more three, sometimes, sometimes four, but that is very, very limited because I just cherish and try to protect the time that we have with our kids as much as possible.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: It's so short and it goes so fast.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like you point your eyes and you're like, How do I have a five-year-old?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_05: Like, they were just the baby.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know it's crazy.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm and part of it is trying to prepare for what's to come too.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, neither of our kids really do sports yet, but I feel like it's just a matter of time before it's either sports or Shepard's super into all things science.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So whether he's going to like science camps or you know, some sort of I don't know, just diff different think tanks or who knows what.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's I want to be there for those things.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's also preparing for the extracurriculars.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'll have a lot of night wedding on like a Friday night, Saturday night, then you Sunday morning soccer from nine to twelve.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And like having that balance, like I look at it as whenever I I left fireside, went to a company that was all virtual for the first year and a half, I feel like, and then I started to have some travel events, and it was great.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then we found out we were expecting our second child, and I was traveling like every single week.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it got to the point that it was getting me emotionally to realize like I'm gone four days a week and like I can't even see them.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's finally like, yeah, I gotta figure out like a balance.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_05: I would go in and work weddings all weekend.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So like we've never seen each other.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, seeing each other on different days.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was so like eye-opening to be like, I gotta, we gotta do something else.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then it even got to the point I've every job since I left that, I kept looking back, like, did I make a mistake in in leaving that?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've never found like a comfortability of being anywhere.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like the most recent one was Slippery Rock.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm going two hours to and from work every day.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would leave at seven, get home at six.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when can I lean on the breadwinner here?
• 14:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And like take a leap of like, hey, we have this opportunity to grow a business and support each other, and it's been working on so far.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, yes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Knock on wood, knock on wood.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And congrats, guys, because that is so awesome.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's the best thing about owning your own business, is because you can.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, there are outside forces that dictate the rules that you make, but in the end, you make your own rules and you've set your own boundaries, your healthy boundaries, and hopefully you can play them out and and then you create that lifestyle that you want that's best for you and your kids.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: You've obviously grown your company.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_05: You have amazing employees.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like I've worked with several of your DJs and a lot of the people that do your in-house communication.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_05: When was the right time to start building your team?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was just you at first and Aaron.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_05: She kind of took a step back.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_05: Is that when you were like, I need to bring on full-time or is there extra people to help?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_05: How did that kind of Yeah?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good question.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we love our team.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: We feel so fortunate.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's evolved over the years.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just I I think one of the things, and and this is not exactly answering your question, but I just thought it was important too.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Something that we really recognize in the last few years is that when you're marketing a business, um, a lot of people think marketing for sales, right?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I think where we started really see seeing success in the people that we were bringing in is when we realized we're also marketing for growing our team.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so everything that you put out there, everything that's on social media, everything that's on your website, um, people are looking at that and they're considering, you know, being a part of being, you know, people who want to be hired by you are looking at that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you have truly what you're representing on there, you're hopefully getting the same, you know, the people that you want based on what you're putting out there.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So sorry, that was just a little side note that really helped us.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um when we decided to start building our team, it was just kind of, I don't know if organic's the right word, but that's probably what it is.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It it was just when the need around arose.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was when our our we decided to divide fireside up into our different departments.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think I think it's helped a lot to be that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: So weddings and private parties is one of them, corporate events is another, and then school, school dances is our third.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically, when any of those departments, I guess I should say when we first started out, Aaron and I handled all those departments.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, Aaron was weddings and private parties, and I was corporate and school dances.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and then whenever we felt like one of those departments was getting too much for us to handle, that's when we just brought on, you know, another team member.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And most of them started out as part-timers and then they just evolved as the need evolved into becoming full-time.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's, you know, again, those were all leaps for sure.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_05: They understand what we're putting out there.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_05: It is a little scary.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And good people are hard to find.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And good people are hard to keep, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like Garrett, you were, I remember we were so excited when you came in and everything was so great.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you got offered your dream job, and that happens.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like sometimes there are outside forces that you you can't even predict to happen.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I that's I want to, I I'd have to say that probably the scariest part about owning business is is building your team.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because then there are things also like, you know, what if you have to let someone go?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And now you have to you have to do it in a way that you're protecting your business.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to make sure that you're not breaking any laws when you do that, and and you have to make sure that unemployment is is handled properly and things like that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's there's a lot that goes into it.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say, yes, timing is everything, knowing, knowing when you actually truly need it, and then also doing the best that you can to vet the the proper people.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it Aaron and I are always we look for the best in people, um, which I think is important.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I think when you're hiring someone, you can't do that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You have to trust your gut.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you feel, if you're thinking at all, like, oh, I think this person's gonna work out, but I just don't know, then you need to move on.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be one of those ones like we were with you, Garrett.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, dude, this is the guy.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and when you find somebody like that, that's that's when you know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's anything less than that, just keep looking.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other thing I think that's really important too, is you should never find yourself desperate.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like you should never be desperate to find someone.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can it can always wait longer.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's better to to hold off and until you find that perfect person for the role.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because man, the the price that you pay when they're not.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_05: I seen it play out when it wasn't the business that I own myself, but in other places I worked, and I'm like.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I would be hiring staff just to hire staff just to be there.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: To fill numbers, you can't do it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like if whenever there would be summers at any of the properties I worked at that one weekend I knew, I was like, this might be rough.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or these people aren't as like good as even just like the interview process was, and like there would be the opposing side where it was the greatest summer of like staff I've ever had.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like these people are amazing, and it always stinks because it would be typical, like interns coming in, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And they're looking to you know build some experience, and I know they're gonna leave, which is great.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be it's great whenever they get that opportunity, but you want to hold on to them because you know, like, hey, this was like a well-oiled machine going through, and now we kind of have to start back over.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's gotta be so frustrating.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: My cousin owns owns a store that works in a c in a college town, so he gets a lot of college um employees that they come and go.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's gotta be that feeling of like, man, I just got you to the point where things are rocking and rolling, and it's like this is great, and then you gotta go, gotta go home.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I gotta, I would work with the when I would travel for all these events, I would always have a second on hand with me.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be great because they kind of started to understand, you know, what the expectation of the event was.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Mo nine times out of ten, the DJ that we would work out would be phenomenal, but then I'd have to hire staff that's local to that area.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some places had staff that have worked those events before, and I would show up to places that I would have to hire a staff like from a staffing agency, and like I have to just rock this microphone for two hours and hope for the best that they don't mess anything up, like on my end.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you you just have to just be like cautious of that too.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like getting the right people, and so we'll have to keep cautious on our side.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'll bring to work with me if it's not you or like somebody that I worked with in the past.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's difficult.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I don't want to bring someone on that's gonna be either completely clueless or my do or say something.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Your brand is out there, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like these people are seeing you, and your brand is very clear.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like that's one of the coolest things about what you do is that like that's that's priceless because they almost vet themselves.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're there are probably a small, small fraction of people who watch what you do and they're like, I would never want warfare.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Very small, very small.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's invaluable, you know.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: The people know who you are, and and the people who want to work with you, they already come in, they've already been sort of interviewed um at that point, which is really cool.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_05: So like too, they can take a look at my page at like come work a wedding with me.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: They're gonna see what they're getting into.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_05: That's why I'm saying your team worked a wedding with me two kids ago.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_05: It was I mean, the couple themselves was so happy, but it was hands down.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_05: I told my assistant she'd never worked an outdoor wedding before, and she was she's opening her own business.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: So I've kind of been mentoring her, and she's like, Is this how it always is?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't know if this is gonna be the right fit for me.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: I said, they're not all like this.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_05: Out of my like doing weddings for 13 years, this is top five of worst experiences due to the weather.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_05: Like it didn't it was bad, it was terrible, and like we're scrambling around.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: I don't even know how we got it put together.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I and I, you know, I wasn't there, um, but I know the venue, and it as far as layout goes, there couldn't have been many spots that were worse laid out for like a full on rainstorm.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not much protection.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: Terrible circumstances and like it was also a DIY wedding, which no gobble at the DIY wedding, but um when things blow over, there's no other vendors there.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we're placing their stuff out and cleaning it up.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, I mean it was windy, grainy.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, did you I mean, did you see our smoking speaker?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I saw it and I saw your team work as fast as they could to get any not anything on that stuff, but it came in like it was like a tornado.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: I took pictures to Garrett, I was like, We're in we're in the weeds.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my cousin was getting the like all the food and like some of the bar stuff from our house prepped and loaded into a Jeep, and that's coming down at our house.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's it's coming there in 10 minutes.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was driving down the road just yeah, like 10 minutes from there too, and and I was like, they are out in this right now.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, yeah, we lost we lost one of our speakers for good.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like an$1,800 speaker.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it wasn't even supposed to be there because there's they're supposed to use the house sound system, and we were like, and they called on the on the day of they're like, we lost the house sound system, so we brought it to be to be nice, and then one of them died.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: But but again, that's that's the industry, and that's what we do.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: We take care of each other, and if something happens, it happens.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: It was a crazy sight.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_05: Like there was a rehearsal rehearsing like while we were setting up, and they had to have been watching us just like like I wish I had footage of it because it was crazy.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_05: I tried to like get a little bit to like set to them so they could understand like what was going on.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like, don't show up right now.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: The bars like blew over, like everything was just oh my gosh.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_05: It was a mess.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_05: But you know what?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_05: The couple was happy.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_05: It ended up coming together, but uh someone was helping us bring it together because that was and that's that's why you hire good people.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I'm not saying it's a toot our own horn, but I'm saying it for you.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you were in charge, you were the wedding planner, and you just had to pull it out, and everybody was like full steam ahead.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_05: Once like it cleared up, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_05: We were like, all right, guys, we bought this, let's just and we started at 2 33.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: It was supposed to start at 2.30.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: You're three months late.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's amazing.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_05: I say that's a win.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_05: That's the most a win is a win.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_05: Do you remember your first event?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_05: Like your first big wedding or your first.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I remember my first wedding.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, we can go way back if we want to.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my first, oh gosh.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I don't know how deep we want to dive here.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my first like hired paid to DJ event, I wasn't even DJing.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing what people would call like uh, you'd be an iPod DJ or a Spotify DJ at this point, right?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it was honestly, it was a friend of my mom's.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: They they actually now have converted this um farm that they own into a into a barn venue.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but this was like this was 20 years ago.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: This was before I moved out to Los Angeles.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I just legit sat down at like a six-foot table with my with my computer and just legit was was a Spotify playlist back then.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: But that that was the first time I ever got paid to DJ.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: But my first wedding that I actually DJ'd was in 2009.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was right after I moved out to LA.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I flew home, honestly, a month or two after I moved out there to DJ my sister's best friend's wedding.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I actually can't remember the venue, but it was in Pittsburgh, and I only am seated.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I guess it's false for me saying that I DJ'd it, but I I I the the guy who got me into DJing, his name's Jeff Justice.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's here in Pittsburgh, great DJs, goes by JX4, and he spins vinyl.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: He's been over uh yeah at the at the the Wiley.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is, the Wiley, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's been at the Wiley now in their in their vinyl room a few times.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's awesome.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: But he brought me on very early uh at my time at Pitt um because he noticed that I was outgoing and he wanted he needed someone who could be on the microphone for him and also to help like negotiate getting into doors and and you know, working out being becoming DJs on uh being a DJ on site.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so he and I collaborated.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: We do it, we did a bunch of DJing at at Pitt, like in different bars.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but anyways, he DJ'd that wedding and I am seated.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was in 2009.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was the one that I walked away from and I said I was like, I was like, if I could do this every single night, this would be my life, this would be it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I had at in LA linked up at that point with SOS Entertainment.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: That was the company that that the DJ company that I just kind of like by chance walked into out there.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't think I realized that you could make a career out of it at that point.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: I still was like in the dark in that whole area.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then lo and behold, maybe a month or two later after I flew back to LA, I I got linked up with this guy that introduced me to the owner of the company.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and then boom, I just found out yes, you can make a career out of it.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And before I knew it, I was, you know, making plans of coming home to Pittsburgh and starting fireside.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I feel like it's very lucky that you find something that you're super passionate about, and then you're like, okay, I'm gonna do this.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's okay.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it feels super fortunate.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many ways.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'd like to think that if I hadn't have gone to LA, I would have found out somehow.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I don't know.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely I'm not a big fate person, but I am like a a believer that everything happens for a reason.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and I do, I do when I look back on that story, it's like, man, I was meant to go out there to find to find the person who found who showed me the SOS and then, you know, brought me back to here.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really cool.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what makes someone a great wedding DJ versus someone who can just play music on Spotify?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I always say that's I love that question.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we all need to hear the answer more often.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I always say that the best wedding DJ MCs, um, and you can do it, you can do it either way.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it like I did with Jeff, where the D there's a DJ and an MC next to them.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I I personally believe that a DJ MC, the singular person is is always your best bet because it's one mind, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Who's who's it affecting the music and using the microphone.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas anytime that I've co-DJ and MC'd, I almost have to like nudge them a little bit to like turn the music down for me to get on the microphone.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can start getting like a body language going to make it easier, but when it's your own mind, it's just like you know, you're one unit.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but anyways, uh, I would say that there are four pillars to the best wedding DJ MC.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm trying to think, there is definitely a particular order.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm trying to make sure that I do this right.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, first and foremost, number one is crowd connection.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to connect with the crowd.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to read the crowd and understand what it is that is going to help elevate their experience, you know, so to get them to have the best time that they possibly can on the dance floor, to say the things and cue up the songs at the right moments so that they feel the emotional response during the first dance, the parent dances, um, if there's a memorial situation honoring someone, things like that, connect with the crowd and connect with the experience so that you can almost empathize.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of times that me and and plenty of our wedding DJs will walk away from the wedding and and and folks from the event will say, How do you know the family?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are you a part of the family?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because they just sense that they get the sense that we're emotionally connected too.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not the case.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're just, we're just, we really are connected, you know, but we're not, we're not family.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, so crowd connection, number one.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um number two, I really think is um is music knowledge.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to have music knowledge and not just like, oh, I need I know Spice Girls want to be, like I know that I know the song title.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know the inner workings of the song.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know which, you know, the verses, the choruses, the bridges, you need to know the best place to mix out.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: You need to know the moments that like the majority of people out on the dance floor are waiting to sing along to.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Beauty and a Beat, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, like you gotta get to the Nicki Minaj part because people are gonna want to sing that part.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah what I mean.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, but that part doesn't come until like two and a half minutes into the song.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've got a crowd out there who's wanting quicker mixes, you know, skip the second second Bieber verse so you can get to Nicki Minaj.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anyways, knowing all those things, that's because you can read the crowd, but if you don't have the knowledge to do what they want you to do, you're kind of stuck.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So music knowledge is number two.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, um, three and four are kind of tied.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say MCing and and technicality are the are the last two.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, MCing, obviously being able to get on the microphone, fill those moments with with meaningful words and you know, efficient phrasing.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the last thing is technicality, you know, being able to control the DJ controller, being able to do what you need to do with the microphone to make sure that all these things that you're doing sound as good as they possibly can.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that was the question, right?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: What makes the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those are the four.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, clip that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we say we go over it a lot.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've got it written up on our wall whenever we train our DJs.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: These are the four, these are the four things.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and yeah, it's it's been working out well, I think.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like you definitely have a well-trained team, like I've seen them in action, which is so great.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_05: But there are some they call themselves DJs, or maybe they're new DJs that are not trained.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I think sometimes they get hired because they're the cheapest price, or you'll see that at a wedding, you know, people are trying to save as much money as possible, and it is just someone like hitting next.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_05: Then you're like, I'm just thinking in my head, where did they find this person?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe Craigslist.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: You get on the mic of all right, ladies and gentlemen.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, here we go.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Strap in people.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I will be honest.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: The word all right is something that I you if you listen to my recordings back, I I use it quite a bit and I need to.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've been like consciously trying to take it out of my mind.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, ladies and gentlemen, has been gone for a while.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: A while.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to be inclusive, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: So but uh yeah, it it's it's a shame.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: It honestly does break my heart whenever I hear stories about people who have not re I I really mean it, not real DJs, people who are claiming to be DJs.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but because you no one deserves that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: No one deserves it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if that's truly what you're okay with, sure, you're that's fine.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I just hope the people who are spending$700 on a DJ, they truly know what they're what they're getting into.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like when I worked venue based, we would see that because we're not involved in the hiring process of they'll just say this is who we hired, and then we're communicating with them after they've been hired.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: As a planner, you get to be more like, hey, I suggest you check out these companies.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_05: People that you have connection with.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_05: So I feel like I have much better left now.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_05: But when you were venue-based, it's like whoever comes to the course of who we're I've seen some bad ones.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm like, I always am like, I hook this DJs really good.
• 32:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but don't have to worry about them as much.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like there are some areas, and I guess it's different for every wedding couple, but and we talk about this with schools too.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever we meet with them, we're like, guys, really, because we meet with the activities team at the school, like the student government board, and we're like, think about your prom.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are the most important things?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that are gonna you're gonna remember the most after this?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it and I again I'm I'm not I'm not bashing any of these other departments of of of events at all, but you do really have to think about it.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: You have to it you honestly have to think, is the food gonna be the most memorable?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is the venue gonna be the most memorable to you?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is your place settings, is, you know, are your rentals gonna be most memorable?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is your music gonna be most memorable?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I I'm not saying that there's a universal most memorable for everyone, but I think everyone should ask themselves those questions before they're planning an event of any type.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then they really should kind of you know prioritize their budget in that, in that way.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: Almost always I say dance floor vibes are at the top of a lot of couples, at least.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and what's so what's what's so great about hiring a good DJMC is that not only are you getting a good dance floor experience, but you're also, you know, the MC portion of it, the master of ceremonies and carry.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: You get it, man.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're that's who you are.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are there curating the whole the whole event.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're guiding those guests, making sure that they're feeling comfortable, they're they're knowledgeable, they know what's coming next, and and they all feel included.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so you almost get like a double, you like double down if you get a good DJ MC.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't DJ'd or MC'd at a wedding, but whenever I'm the officiant at a wedding, I'm always like super, I'm just thinking too much into it like ahead of time.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: But like I ask the right questions to the couple for their actual ceremony so that I know that like whatever I am gonna discuss and say that it has meaning behind it.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not me just rambling on.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And like it comes to spawning something in that you know, like you're in an event and it's a corporate event.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nine times out of ten, if I'm hosting it, if it's a give back event, you want to make sure that you have the meaning of that and the why they're actually doing this.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of a crowd of 200 people, there might be 50 that can care less what this event is and they just have a two hours of hey, a good free time at this conference.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: But you still want to make sure that like there's a big impact whenever they have those two hours, like leave and that be their favorite moment of that entire conference.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I do whenever I walk into something.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you're driving the mission, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're you know, corporate versus wedding, like wedding, you're obviously trying to enrich those moments throughout.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're if you're at a fundraiser for a corporate event, you're driving that the people who hired you's their mission.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: One more question.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, let me do my favorite one.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Bring it on.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_05: Pittsburgh cookie table.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I put it.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_05: Eat one, take one, and throw one away.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Eat one.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I am a sucker for a buckeye.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just hands down, straight to it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: My mom makes the best buckeyes in the world, and and her secret is um she crumbles granola into the butter, into the peanut butter, and so it makes it chunky.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a little bit of it, but it adds that texture.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have probably only come across one ever that's been better than hers, but but they're almost always so good.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, buckeye will be my immediate eat, and it's usually about four of them.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um taking home.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh recently it's been the um, and when and when taking home, it's it's for me, but it's mainly for Aaron because she's back there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and so recently it's been the caramel uh chocolate um, I I wrote it down.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Give me a second, because this is I knew hold on.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Chocolate caramel cookie bar.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I it's just like it's crunchy, but it's also soft, and it's got all these different, again, textures, and it's oh, it's so good.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So good.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I also like a good black and white cookie.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: The good black and white cookies are so good.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Throw away, I hate to say it.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love my Italians out there.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love you all.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I love and I also love any sort of ethnic wedding at ever.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I love cultural touches, but I am not a fan of anything Italian cookie.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're just all, I don't know, they just all seem kind of dry to me.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's each their own.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are plenty of people that are out there, but I also find more often than not when I look at the table at the end of the night, there's more of that stuff sitting about than anything else.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's that's my throw out, or just don't take it.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you'll bring some back, like it's like a whole like heaping of a variety of cookies.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And one will look really good.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is, and I take a bite.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just try.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Go back right in.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just try.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Aaron and I are not afraid to take a bite and just and throw straight away.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And more often than not, if I bring stuff like that home, she's like, Why'd you even do this?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_05: This is such a simple idea of such a good one for weddings.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_05: Wedding Snap gives you one QR code that you can put right on your tables and your guests can scan it instantly and upload all of their photos and videos they take throughout the night.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: No app to download and no sign-up required.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: We all know the photographer can't be everywhere, so this is how you get all those hilarious dance floor videos, pictures of the kids' table, random candid moments, and even voice messages from your guests that you otherwise might never see.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_05: You can have the live slideshow going during the dinner reception.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_05: It takes to about about two minutes to set up.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_05: You get full resolution downloads, and it's only$39.99, one time, no subscription.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: If you want to try wedding snap for your wedding, use code WEDPROCAST10 for 10% off.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: We'll have all the details linked in the show.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, this next segment is absolutely not.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is wedding edition.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I got a series of things.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say it.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: You guys tell me whether or not yes or absolutely not.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: First one giving the DJ a huge must playlist instead of letting them read the room.
• 38:40
  unknown: I don't know, it's easier.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um like a must-playlist, I feel like, is uh better than like a do not playlist.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll it's very easy just that because someone might come up and request a song and it's like the couple didn't want to listen to T Swift, they're not Swifties.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_05: I guess a must playlist gives you a lot of direction, probably, to help know like what they actually want to hear instead of just being like, oh, we like country.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: Well, what country do you like?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_05: I guess more that I think about it, it makes sense.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I always love I I always say that music requests are a cheat sheet.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're if you don't give us any requests, and we had this recently happen, um, and it happens maybe like once a year, we get like zero requests from a wedding couple, and um, you know, then it's our job to go in and we basically have to crack the code.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to read that room, and it takes us maybe about 20 minutes of dance floor to figure out what your people want to hear.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you give us a robust playlist, man, now we've got like we're we're hitting the ground running, and it's really nice.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the only reason I hesitated because of the big must playlist is because we obviously when you say you give us 40 must plays, just basically based on time restraints, we probably can't play all of it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: So what we love to see is we we never put a limit on how many requests that people can give us, but we like to kind of keep the must plays to, you know, between 12 and 15 or something like that.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I am all for bring the requests, man, you know, big time.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what about having 10 or more bridesmaids and groomsmen on each side?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_05: It doesn't bother me.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, like some people will say, absolutely not, that's too many.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: It's overwhelming.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think if all those people are important to you and your partner, then have them in the wedding.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we had 11 on each side.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm like, oh, I'm like, whatever.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can't really say no to that.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm a yes for that.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I again, Aaron and I, when we started Fireside, we and even before that, when we were working at SOS together, our our basis of everything is that it is the wedding couple's day.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And whatever they want to have happen, as long as it's not hurting someone or breaking the rules of the venue, let's let's do it, you know?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: So but it it's fine.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the entrances.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like uh it's more days to rattle off for sure.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I I love those challenges.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite entrances are the ones that we have a different song for every two people that are coming in.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely more work, but I I think it's sweet because they get fired up because it's their own, you know, it's their own anthem.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with their own twist, like what dance move are we coming out to?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or exactly.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love or who's gonna be like, you know, fish hooking the other person or who's gonna get chugging a beer, yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_06: Throwing them football.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna act like they got hurt and then they start twerking?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's my go-to.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as a vendor, both of you, asking for alcoholic beverages throughout the night.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand that like approach.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_05: It's so crazy to me because I'm like, when you go to work, you're there to work.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, I'll have couples that are like, hey, like have a drink with us.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm just like, sorry now, I'll have a drink after when I get home.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: If I were a bus driver, would I be drinking a beer?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like if I if I was sitting at a desk job, I'm not gonna be like cracking one open while I'm on the computer.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I don't know.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_05: I have had I have like had conversations with band members that will like be like, well, I like to have a couple of drinks, and I'm like, I'm sorry, you're here to work.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: They're not paying for you to have an open bar, you're not a guest.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's just from a liability standpoint too.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like the moment that you put any alcohol into your system, like if anything goes wrong, it's just a whole different conversation.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: So like you just you have to cover your butt and it's just respectful.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this isn't your party.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think I think like DJing, um, it's a very ego-driven like job.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people who are in DJ, DJing uh have some sort of an ego, you know what I mean?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and so like a lot of I think the worst DJs who are out there confuse the the party to be about them, and it's and it's not.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, you're there to make their day as best as as great as it could possibly be.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Having a five minute plus best manner made of honor speech.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_05: As a planner, I'm not a fan, but again, if it's a meaningful speech and they have it written down and it's prepared and they're not too intoxicated to get a speech, I'm okay with it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I am too.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think as long as, like you said, Cass, I think if as long as it's meaningful or if you are hilarious, like if you can keep that crowd, if you can keep the crowd engaged for that long, yeah, let's do it.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I mean, I do think that if you'd go beyond 10 minutes, even if you are like engaging, it's like, does the wedding couple really want you to be taking up that much time?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of people don't understand how long five minutes is when you're on a microphone and you have 150 people staring at you.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_05: Five minutes is a long time to be speaking.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_05: So if it's not going to be capturing their attention, keep it short and sweet.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amen.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I'll go on like all of a sudden I'll watch one video and it's somebody giving a best man or made of honor speech, and it's hilarious.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be like a part one, part two, part three.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then now it's like then I'll get bad ones.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the ones that are like long, and like you said, like if it is a if they're out there giving a little comedic, like it's like they're at stand-up comedy, like I'm gonna watch it on TikTok.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: I might not like it as much if I was a guest at that wedding, but when I'm just sitting there scrolling on my phone, I don't mind it.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, also if it's long and it's competing with dinner service happening at the right time, that can get really messy because like the catering team has to drop the need at certain times as the right temperature.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_05: So from a timeline standpoint, I'm usually not a fan of long speech.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta respect all the other components.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right, last one having a weekday wedding and expecting everyone to stay until midnight.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a school night.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_05: I have no problem with a weekday wedding at all, but I think.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_05: That everybody's going to be able to stay till the end or stay till midnight, even on a weekend, I think is crazy.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think because of that, um, it it it's sort of an absolutely not.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you should expect people to ever to ever stay.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: I personally think that every wedding should end at 10 o'clock.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I think anything beyond that, like go to an after party, like set up an after party if you want to keep going.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, I the weddings even at 11 that I'm that I just and maybe I'm getting old, you know.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I come home, I come, all right.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm letting Aaron know this is gonna be an 11 o'clock wedding.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're both just like, what again?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: But but yeah, I think midnight, holy smokes.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And especially if you had a you know a ceremony that started at two o'clock, like that is a long day.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I like to think that the average wedding guest cannot go more than eight hours throughout the whole day.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they can't do it.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: So don't push them beyond that eight hour start of ceremony to end of the night.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's usually two to two to ten o'clock.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there'll even be like an after party somewhere.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's some like the one we had in Chicago, they were going somewhere after the wedding, but we dipped an hour.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: After like the wedding went until midnight, and then they were having something after.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: All right, okay, that's a little bit better.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we left at like 11 and didn't intend anything.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we were an hour, we're in central time, so we were already just like if you feel like you want to go beyond a normal end time, just make it an after party.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: This segment is brought to you by Ling's Moment.
• 45:57
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• 46:05
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• 46:11
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• 46:17
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• 46:24
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• 46:29
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• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Next segment is save the dance floor.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give Eric increasingly terrible situations and ask him, what do you do?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: First one, the bride disappears for 45 minutes.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean you play to the people who are on the dance floor, right?
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you make sure that yeah, even if you can peck out like four people who are having the best time, you are playing for them because they're now becoming the energy starters for sure.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you highlight those moments on the microphone too.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody's like if somebody does the worm, or if or if say like the uh flower girl comes out and she's rocking it, you find her name and you you call her out by name, things like that.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe send your assist uh to go to to get a read on where the bride is and see if they're coming back anytime soon.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um just like passed out and missed that.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_04: I met her wedding, like laying on a couch.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we're going to the dance floor.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we we had we had um recently a bride do the worm on the dance floor and she hit her chin so hard that it just broke open and started bleeding.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: And fortunately, my assist was an EMT, so he went over and he was like butterfly patching her up for about 45 minutes, but the party kept going.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then she actually rallied and came back out for like the last 45 minutes of dancing.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the coolest things ever.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: But um, the other thing that I would do is if they do, I would immediately, if I do see that there's that they have their must plays, I'm gonna not play any of their must plays until the bride comes back.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of hold up.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Smart, smart get out of like the four the formalities all shifts too, and you're like, oh no.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, the best man, he just won't give up that microphone.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh that's a tough one.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: I oh I've I've fortunately never had a situation where it got so bad where I I had to like step and be like, okay, let's get let's hear it for him.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't come to that, but that's probably what I would do.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably try and make it into like a positive thing and and just like almost kill him with kindness.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey Jerry, that was so great.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like just really hammering it home.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I've I've it's never gotten to it's thank thank goodness it's never gotten to that point because that is awkward.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't even for someone who I consider to be like a professional in it for a long time, it it would be really hard for me because I I have a hard time I have a hard time being um like criticizing people.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have a hard time doing that.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're doing that, you really are being like, dude, you're done.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the academ, like you win an award and they're given a yeah, the playoff music just starts going.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they just keep keep happening.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: The couple's first dance song won't play.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh you just go a cappella yourself.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would have to do it.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, I would honestly, in a situation like that, I think you just have to own the moment and you have to say, guys, we're having some technical difficulties.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: Please, we we really apologize, but bear with us for about you know two minutes so that we can get this song.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I will tell you, there has been one or two instances where for whatever reason, and I'm not proud of it, I just didn't have it downloaded.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: I and I and I I didn't double check.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, this is one or two times in like thousands of thousands of instances.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: But but I I recognized it right before, like during the grand entrance, I recognized it.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to like put on my multitask hat and I had to download it on on site because I didn't know I don't stream any music.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have to, I have to have it native to my computer.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: I do not trust it.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I downloaded it on site and I was able to get it off and and there were no problems.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: But so I haven't had to have those situations yet where guys were having technical difficulties.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: But you just have to, you do have to think of the wedding couple and you have to like let that selfishness go away because I feel like a hesitation to say we're having technical difficulties is more like, oh, I want to seem perfect.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: I as the DJ in the production want to seem perfect.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if I ask that, I'm admitting that I'm not.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas if I asked the wedding couple to sit through me singing their first dance, I love that idea, by the way.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I it if it came down to it, if I couldn't, if I couldn't, I might honestly ask everyone at the at the reception to help sing along, you know, whatever it is.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, you gotta I think that the wedding couple would much more prefer for that very important moment to be how they planned it to be and to just have like a two-minute break to to get it ready for them.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: All right, last one.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: A guest, they just keep grabbing your equipment.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, uh, you know, we at Fireside, we are strong believers in having an assistant at every single wedding.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: We just we've thought about removing it because honestly, a lot of wedding companies in town don't do it.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so to compete with their pricing and also the amount of pay that they give their DJs, it's tough for us to have another person on site.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's moments like that where it is so important to have another body there so that the so that the DJ and the MC can focus on what they're doing and that assistant can have a very real adult conversation with them and just be like, you know, listen, you we can't we can't have you here.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um you're disrupting the day.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the thing.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just put it on.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't even make it seem like, hey, we need to protect our equipment.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's more so like, hey, if you keep doing this, like you're going to you're going to disrupt the wedding couple's day, and would you really want that?
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if it really came to a point where that's not even getting through to them, then we then we would go to, you know, to to you uh to UCast so you could just like lay it down.
• 51:54
  unknown: No, no problem.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know, I know, I know.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I I think you know, finding finding someone uh who who really is authority there, like strong.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're you know, the DJs are an authority to a point, but really finding the venue, and they can they they probably would, I'm sure they would um talk about calling police.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like by any means necessary.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yikes.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: So this is VIP table.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are the songs that need to retire at a wedding.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: And are we explaining why are we just saying it?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'll give you reasons why.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, Eric, you as our guest can have the honors of going with your first pick.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is probably gonna stir up a lot of people right now.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I this isn't a full retirement, but I do think we need to trim down on the contemporary pop instrumentals during the ceremony.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: I love them.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that they're great, but full ceremony, it almost feels like people are phoning it in.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like I feel that.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: I like it, but it's like I like it too, but a little less.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're just like, all right, yeah, just give us the whole Bridgerton soundtrack.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right, guys, let's put some more thought into it a little bit.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_05: Bridgerton is like the hot thing, so it is.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_05: Bridgeton.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_05: Bridgerton.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: I love Fridger.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_05: And I also the fan of like vitamin string quartet, but I love it.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_05: Like most people will just be like, yeah, just put that on.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's almost like the same thing over and over again.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a cop out to me, it is.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: So my favorite ones are people who they they choose songs that actually have vocals, but they're they're nice, they're pleasant, and they're meaningful.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I'm gonna fight you on that one.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: I love I will cry every time to a thousand years.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_05: I can't think of this movie now, but it's like that space movie where he's like caught in uh he's like trying to warn his daughter.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, and interstellar to the Interstellar song, and it was so good.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like I was crying back.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, wow, that was such an interesting choice, but so good.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is the thought, and that's what I so I will see.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's awesome.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: See, that that's the sort of stuff that level of uh customization, that level of care and detail, that is what will take people's weddings from being like, oh, that was a good wedding to an unforgettable wedding.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be a song.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, songs are great, obviously from a DJ standpoint, but you could also put that level of detail and thought into your centerpieces or into so many different elements.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: But when you do, that's when you elevate your wedding.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: You actually looked up the song name, see?
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Chasing corn.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't think of the name, but I'm like, that's what it was called.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I'm going with one that I honestly haven't heard, but sometimes that it does happen at the weddings, chicken dance.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_05: People put that on, and I'm like, what are we doing here?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like this is the wedding.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's not even like a lime dance that gets people on the dance floor.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, it's just weird.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I feel like it throws off people that are having a good time dancing, and then they throw the chicken dance on.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, this is not a kid's dance.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and usually it's like in a big circle.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why that one?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because then you like grab, then you just go back and forth with each other.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a while since I've done it at a wedding.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not about it.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I will never play it unless it's requested.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I mean like really requested by the wedding couple.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um like someone can't just come up, and if they do over and over, I'll have to clear it with the wedding couple before I play it.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that was one of those ones that whenever I first moved home to Pittsburgh, I was just like, I would be proud of it.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say I could I can count the amount of times I played the chicken dance on one hand.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: But since I've been home now for 15 years or 12 years, I've realized that we're in very polka-based community here in Pittsburgh, and that is very much a polka song.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I own it.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Again, for me, any song that gets people having a good time out there, so if it's played at the right wedding and people respond to it well, I love the chicken dance.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but yeah, or if it's a wanted, I'm like, cool.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_05: But when like some random person's asking, I'm like, that's probably I'm very much with you, Cassie.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: That if it's if it's not on their list, yeah, you don't retire from that wedding.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just did it at Donuts with that at Tyson's Preschool, the chicken.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Still got it.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: It belongs there.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: It does, yeah, yeah.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's there.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: My first pick, it probably wouldn't have made this my list until the last like few weddings that I've attended, or last few like places I went to where this dance would be played.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the wobble, because they've changed the dance.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: The wobble isn't the same dance that I knew the wobble from originally.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm sit there.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Was the first time I felt like old.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm doing it.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, I'm twerking my booty.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you like burning forward, burning back, yeah, there's like a whole new method.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I see it.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_05: If I still can't do the line dances, and there's like people leading it that are doing it incorrectly.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, yeah, I don't want to be out here anymore.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been seeing it.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's legit, huh?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: So next time you like I have I'd have to do the wobble again.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to uh research the new method, but I like my original method.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, we're on the same page.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: My other pick, it's not it's it's another line dance, but it's I don't hate the song, but I don't need to do the entire cha cha slide.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just only need to have like two minutes of cha cha sliding, and then I can go and do something else.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that way exactly about the Cupid Shuffle because the Cupid Shuffle is just the same thing over and over again.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: Cha-cha slide, I'm a little bit more open to doing the whole thing because if you don't do the whole thing, you don't get to like Charlie Brown or hands on your knees or get down low, you know.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: There is a little bit more variety, yeah, but amen on Cupid Shuffle for sure.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I love Cupid Shuffle, the beat is sick, but dude, it's that same thing over and over again.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: Left, right, kick, kick, kick, you know.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: So let me hear you clap your hands.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't need to clap that much, though.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of clapping.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of clapping.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of clapping.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_05: You might get mad at me because I heard you say this.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm already mad.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_05: Pick in a thousand years by Christina Ferry.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_05: And every day.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's a good song.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_05: I do, I'm not saying the song, but I have heard it.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_05: I would say, like, out of my brides, 40 to 50% of them have walked down the aisle.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've heard it every day.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_05: Again, one of those things like pick pick something else.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_05: There's lots of really great options out there.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_05: And to me, that one's so overused.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's the goat.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: It is a beautiful.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not saying it's dumb, but I'm like, when they pick it, I'm like a little disappointed.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've gotcha.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I I can Yeah, no, I know what you mean.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer like the Boyce Avenue version of A Thousand Years, not the original Christina with Perry.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_05: I get why you're picking the song, but yeah.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why it speaks to me too.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I haven't read the books, but Aaron Aaron did, and we went to see every movie in the theater.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a special, it's like a it was like one of our early dating traditions.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it really does speak to me, and it became a hit whenever I like in that era when I was first starting DJing weddings.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it really like draws me back to some special times.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I see why it could be really annoying to some people, but to me, it I cry every time.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I text Aaron, and I'm just like, I love you.
• 58:33
  unknown: They did it again.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you have uh two picks, two straight picks.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: Two picks.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right, closing time, closing time.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's so I I like I will until the day I die be be proud to say I can count the amount of times I've played closing time on one hand.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it is so corny to play it as the last song.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Find something else, man.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_01: I uh again, I'll play whatever y'all want me to play.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: It ends in a certain like it, they everyone gets in a circle and the couple's in the middle of that circle, and they're like, uh no.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, yep, here we are.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you're describing this though, I understand.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get it, but it it makes me cringe a little bit.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, definitely cringe.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: And third pick.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I had some good ones here, but I think I've got it.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is tough.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is tough for number three.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think I'm gonna have to go with Marry You by Bruno Mars.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I love it too, but I I love it too, but I just don't I can't get down with the line.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for something dumb to do.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, baby, I think I want to marry you.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: That just doesn't mean I'm looking for something dumb to do.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_05: It's not, it's not someone on the dance floor, it I wouldn't be getting out dancing.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it's definitely you're right, you're right.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a good ear for it.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I it's definitely like um a grand entrance track, I feel like.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, they're coming through the door, it's a beautiful night, you know.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then they say it's like I'm looking for something dumb to do.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't, I don't know.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's I know it's witty and it's whimsical, but like that's that doesn't sit right with me.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: When you listen to the lyrics, you're like, oh.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maybe it's not.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: I said, and he also shots a patron, it's like, hey, let's get drunk, let's do something stupid, let's get married.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yes.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe Vegas wedding, 100%.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere else, let's honor the wedding.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_04: Where you spent a lot of money playing it.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_04: This wasn't dumb.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, my next pick.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_05: I actually do dance to this one at Wedix, but it does annoy me a little bit because again, I'm like, I don't know, the vibes are weird.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_05: Love Shaq.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was I almost put that on my list.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: I almost put it.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I do, like I'll dance to it.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I I'll dance to whatever, but that song that plays at a wedding, I'm like, there's so many other good songs that I just why are you wasting three minutes dancing to love shap?
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's the problem too, is it's a track that like if you start playing it, you've got to get to Tin Roof Rusty, like you gotta get there.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's one of those ones you're you're locked in.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I'll I'll play it.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and but it almost it was right on the edge of making my list.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_05: It is a cringy song now.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's like Aunt Sherry out on the dance floor.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't I don't mind seeing like a little Aunt Sherry like jive that she's got going on there.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you do for Aunt Sherry again.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_03: Not none of these songs are bad, just I see them and I'm like, Yeah, I'm not I might lead the dance floor for some of them.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or I just I'm like, oh, here we go again.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my last two I don't know which route to go.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: It okay, this it's not like a particular song, but if it is their first dance song and then you find out that it's not like a love song, it's like Boys to Men, end of the road.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: It can't be further from a love song.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: The water runs dry.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a great song.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds beautiful, but it is let's listen to the lyrics for a second before we choose it.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a like how was it sun songs are love songs?
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I tried to do I didn't try to do a love song, so to say, with my mom.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was it?
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_04: Your mom wanted to do sugar, so sweet button.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's what it was.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, mom.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Big time.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: Won't you come and put it on?
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_04: She was like, why?
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_04: It has such a good beat.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, it does have such a good beat, mom, but let's let's listen to it.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's listen to the lyrics.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great one, Garrett.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: Great call on that.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: What is my last one gonna be?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no beat.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I gotta pick mine too.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is great, by the way.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: My last pick.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's probably the worst one that has like dance moves to it.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the watch me whip, watch me nay nay.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, watch me.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: Silento.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Watch me, watch me.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I it's the same moves repetitively.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really like the song that much.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is a like kid pleaser.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's kids at the at the wedding, they're going out there and whipping a nay nae.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Read the crowd, man.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not whipping a nay nae.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it comes out, I'm not staying out to to whip a nay nae.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't do the stanky leg in there?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean that's that's the thing it's a conglomeration of all of them.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: I will do like the stanky leg on just like any of the songs.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably I probably stinky leg to every single time I'm on the dance floor.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like at some point, I'm just like, oh, oh, here we go.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: Crank That Soldier Boy comes on.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely doing it.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's other ones that I have that I might not even do, but like if it is that in particular one, help me out.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's good to know.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it in, keep it up here.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't play that next week.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_05: My very last pick, it's not a specific song, but any song from Nickelback.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not even like you remind me.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_05: Like at every wedding, especially like some of the ones we go to with our friends.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_05: Like one person requests one nickel song, and then they're coming on every once in a while.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I don't want to like the first time, it's funny.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_05: But then, like, if there's multiple songs, I'm like, I don't know.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_05: I just I just want to be up there like grooving and nickelback is not it for me.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a joke.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on, people.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking directly in the camera.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's a joke.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: That guy's voice, like, come on, it's him and Creed.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they're both, yeah, they they were made so that we could make fun of them.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I don't know.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's it might sound rude, but like it's so easy to be like uh and I'm down, one last prayer.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, yeah, you're never singing it and actually trying to sing well.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're right.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to mimic.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're not doing it out of respect.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, but it's a song that you should maybe play at the Bachelor party.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_04: You had a couple beers, not not at the wedding.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was I think it was my uh Max's wedding.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: We definitely, like, as we were waiting to go to the ceremony, we're in the hotel room, and we definitely listen to Creed and definitely listen to No Kleback because he likes it.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I shouldn't, of course.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and of course I'm gonna belt out.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I agree, it's one of those things that it could in most circumstances it's probably done as a joke.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's okay for maybe one song.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem is the people who think it's funny will the floodgates will open.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that you gotta keep that nickel and creed floodgate closed.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hole in the last pick for you.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Last pick.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I feel I feel bad on all of these because again, we've said it a million times.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if it's what you want, I I'm all about it.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: I really am.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Butterfly kisses, man.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Father-daughter dance, butterfly kisses.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I say this, and even while I'm thinking about the lyrics in my head, every time I hear it, I cry.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: I actually cry.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's successful, it's emotional, and it's great.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: But man, talk about cringe and corn.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you'll change your name today.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just seeping with corniness.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_04: Like I think that song was specifically made for father daughter.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: 1000%.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I I don't know.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: That one, that one gets me.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's again, it's another one of those, like, okay, could you try a little bit more to find like it's a little bit of a phone-in.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_05: It's almost like the equivalent to the Tarzan song from Mother Sun Dance, whatever that one is.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll be in my heart.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm like, it's a every every song that's which one is going.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the fallback.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can't get anything.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: They definitely like search it, yeah.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: I the other ones I had on my list, I did have um Cotton Eye Joe, but I will get up there and dance to it.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Go, you're hurting my heart right now.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do it.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_04: That's it, it's you gotta be in shape to do that.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: You do, yeah.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would do it for like a school dance prom back in the day or crit like a Christmas dance.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would always be doing the cotton eye joe.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna cotton I Joe that much of A wedding.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if I like need to.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I have I got a feeling black eyed peas.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's just something about that song.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the original retired one.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's been um it's been resurrected for me.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm now playing it again, but it was on Aaron in my do not playlist because that was during a time where it was like five years in that it was at every single wedding.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's back for me, it is now.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_05: You put uh perfect in thinking out loud by Ed Sheeran.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_05: Love them both, love both those songs, but they're played a lot.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's another phone in.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: They are great, fantastic, but they were clearly made for a first dance.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like Ed Sheeran was writing, like, hey, I want to I want to make millions of dollars.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I was thinking about those two.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_01: Caught Night Joe does hurt me, Garrett, though.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's one of the greatest.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the beat is infectious, it's so good.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you don't feel like you can do it for the whole song, the beat keeps you going, and it's so good.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have contests, we have contests where we'll speed it up as we go along and we will legit play the song as and we don't do this at weddings, but we do this at like dance marathons.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_04: We're doing this at the big wedding game show.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's actually in the final song.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, how fast can you do that?
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's whoever can hang on.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: We play until everyone falls off, like they can't keep up, and whoever's the last person standing wins.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much fun.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we like break our BPM knob while we do that.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you want to see?
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to hear my own?
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I had happy by Pharrell.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um should have been on my list.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I actually I and again, I love all these songs in always, but Forever by Chris Chris Brown has not been hitting the last like 12 times I've tried it.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_02: People that love The Office too, like that's it.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's why they're doing it, right?
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um Hey Yaw has not been hitting either recently.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not been doing it.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is also a tough one song because it it has some weird time signature changes in it from like a from a beat structure standpoint.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's impossible to it's a borderline impossible to mix out of.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like it will be at a millennial wedding, but at like a Gen Z wedding or like the younger, they're not hitting them.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_05: They're not hitting them as much.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, feel so close.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's I don't know, Calvin Harris just takes like a long time to really get to a good point.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's good, yeah.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if I get if I do it, I'm mix, I'm honestly mixing into the build-up to the course just so we can get there real quick.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_01: Baby Got Back.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: I maybe it's just because I'm a dad now.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I just you know, I'll you know, I don't have a daughter, but I still feel like weird.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just there's just some like pretty gross stuff said in there.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: You go baby got back.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, gets that song and then like transitions right to like Anaconda by Nikki McCain.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's even worse.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right in there, man.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I had I think I saw, and I don't know if this is part of this segment or not, but I saw in the prep work like what song what was it was like what song, and I don't know if you're gonna ask this later, but what song it is on my do not play list?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, is is it okay to say that an else?
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's WAP.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be a WAP.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: That is one I played.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or no, I'm down with WAP by by I'm it's we're talking about the the Cardi B.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: Cardi B.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm down, I'm down with J-WAP for sure.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: But but WAP, which is an acronym, which we won't utter here.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I I've played that once ever, and it was just because the bride came up to me and said on the dance where she's like, play it now, play it now.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I like, unless I'm getting a direct order from like a high up level, I'm that song's not being played.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: Noise canceling.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that I don't think I know it.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_05: I probably do with that.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, you do.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: You'll know you'll know if you don't, thank goodness.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's good for you.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it that was the number one billboard track in in 2020, and it just is so perfectly um representative of how bad of a year that was.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, but it would be bad to have like uh that playing, and then I just more comedic if I looked out and like grandma's out there dancing to and be like, Yes, oh my gosh.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you gotta think about grandma, you gotta think about the the ring bears and the flower girls.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, dude, what are you teaching these kids?
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Besides that song, I would say like everyone, every song that's on the list for the most part that we said, I do like them.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I listen to probably like I'm not listening to Cotton I Joe in the car, but like I'm still gonna like vitamin string quartet.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if I want to get some work done or like I'll put that on a little bit.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But so we're not basic.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, I'm over them.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with you.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's personal.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_04: Like personal in a mean way, but like personal to me.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're all on the same page.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go get another like adult beverage while that song's playing.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm back on the dance floor.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What about I don't have it wasn't on either of my I don't think anyone or you had it either, but Bon Jovi?
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Living on a prayer.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like always on like a yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's another one of those ones.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't think of it on for this list, but um, I'm not playing it unless someone's requesting it.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because because again, it's one of those, it falls into the category of like, okay, I'm going to a wedding.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm probably gonna hear this, this, living on a prayer, and this.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to be that DJ, you know.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I want I want to surprise people.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I obviously I say that I I do want to play some that they feel comfortable with, you know, to get things started, but I don't want to be just like, okay, another DJ.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Here it is, another wedding, another DJ.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_05: I think our last question, well, obviously, big wedding game shows covering.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's gonna be big.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_05: Another project, right?
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_05: You guys are waiting on another project.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_05: You want to plug that really quick?
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd love it.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Should I stay as Brenda for this?
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to be.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really excited about our uh fireside immersive movie night.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is something we've been working on, honestly, for six years.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it started in COVID era, um, where no one could go to the movies.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we we played Mulan in the back lot of our um of our office, which we were renting at that time, a different location.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it is we go through um and we've got a great video.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully I don't maybe we can link the link to the video from the video.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but a great way of figuring out what it is is to watch that.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we literally we go through and we time out every single second of the movie um to a light show and a special effect show so that you've got CO2 cannons blasting at you, you've got bubble haze going off, you've got spark boxes and and geysers and and different lights moving around in different directions.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all about emphasizing and amplifying the feeling of the movie.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's like a 4D experience, you know what I mean?
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's of course surround sound system, it's connected to this into this mixer that allows it to be um 7.2 Dolby surround sound, so you feel like fully immersed.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I mean beyond that, we're doing all the you know the planner type stuff too.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we have um we have movie candy set up, but all of the tables are decked out to be themed with the movie.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's different elements.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we did Spider-Man most recently, and Spider-Man was inflatable hanging around and um the other things like the the movie had like a graffiti uh theme to it, and so we had this graffiti wall that all the kids could come in and graffiti on and stuff like that.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just a really, really fun way.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm super the reason I went to LA um back in 2009 was to get into the film industry, but then I detoured into DJing and I'm so happy for it.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: But movies are still a huge part of my life and errands as well, and so I'm just getting I'm I can feel my body temperature rising just even talking about it.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I love movies, and so this to me, it's like, hey, we've got all these toys, we've got all this production capability, and it's it's something that we're really passionate about.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think when you watch the video, you'll see it, and you can almost see like you can see like, hey, this is this looks pretty expensive, and it is that's our biggest setup.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: It it was it's a pretty expensive setup, but we can scale down.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_01: We did something very basic with our bubble haze and our up lights and one speaker in our backyard um for our boys this last summer for Gabby's dollhouse, the movie, and it was sick.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, that's a much much uh more budget-friendly uh option.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, again, we'd love to bring it to people's backyards, we'd love to bring it to people's, you know, corporate gatherings or big family reunions or whatever it may be, like uh movies in the park.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking it to the next level.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we're pumped about it.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet, sweet.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we could have had you on for like another like two hours.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we might have to bring it back for another episode, too, another part two.
• 1:14:39
  unknown: Yes.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, but um, thank you for joining us for this one.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then everyone will, if you did buy tickets for our big wedding game show, Eric's gonna be their exclusive title sponsor of the Big Wedding Game show.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't bought tickets, there's so few left to purchase.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve seats left.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's awesome.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Getting close.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be a nice little it's gonna be a fun shindig.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be great.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna be a trendsetter for sure.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So look forward to having everybody attend next week.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you again, Eric, and we'll see you all next week.