One of the biggest questions that we get from our clients is:
How does it work when we choose the music for my event?
Well, there are 3-4 parts typically to a wedding:
- Ceremony
- Cocktail Hour
- Dinner
- Dance Party
The final three items are typically what folks refer to as the reception and on a corporate event or gala, it would just be these last 3.
Side One likes to work backwards. We anchor the event with our dance bands which is generally the last portion of the event and then can add on extra services as needed. That’s not to say that if there won’t be any dancing, we can’t help, but I would say the majority of our events have the dance band so let’s start there….
When planning your event, think about when you want the evening to wrap up (again, working backwards). Although you may want to party all night, your venue might have their own thoughts about this, hahaha.
Step 1:
Find out what time all vendors must be clear from the venue. If this is a hotel, there usually isn’t any time constraints as most hotels are 24 hours, but everywhere else, there’s likely a venue manager who wants to lock up and go home at some point. You may want to also check about noise restrictions, especially if your venue is outdoors or in a residential neighbourhood.
Step 2:
When you hire Side One with production, our sound team usually takes anywhere from 45 to 90 mins to tear down all of the gear and load out depending on how big of band and venue you have for your event. 9 times out of 10, it’s 1 hour. Armed with the time that vendors must be clear and knowing now that the band and production team will be about 1 hour to pack up and load out, we can determine the latest time the party can go to. If vendors need to be packed up and out of the venue at 1am, the band could play till 11:30/midnight typically.
A note about our sets:
When you book the dance band, this includes 3 hours of music within 4 hours. Usually we do 2 x 90 mins sets with a 30 mins break. Most bands do 3 x 60 mins sets with 2 breaks, but we’ve found that the more breaks you take, the more people are inclined to leave the party. 90 mins sets are quite exhausting for our team, so a 30 mins break is imperative but we find that these long sets make for the best party. This also allows for a 30 mins grace period if your event runs behind (more often than not it does) and you don’t lose any time as we’ll just shift the sets…..again, you have the dance band for 3 hours of music within 4 hours and 2 x 90 mins sets with a 30 mins break gives you 30 mins of play, time wise. THAT SAID, we can also do 3 x 60 mins sets and take shorter breaks if you like. Here’s a typical scenario:
Vendors need to be out by 1AM which means, band can play til 12AM. The plan is that dinner should be finished by 7:30PM, speeches til 8:00, band goes on and does sets 8-9:30, 10-11:30. And on an event that we’re providing production for, we also will play some wind down music after we’re done for about 30 mins so that music in this case will still go til midnight. Most of the band will go home after their soundcheck and return back about 30 mins before the scheduled start time, so everyone in the band will be on site for 7:30 waiting in the greenroom for the nod to go on.. Fast forward to the day of the event and dinner ran 15 mins late and Uncle Bob ran 10 mins long on his speech. No problem, the dance band books on a 4 hour call so we just shift the sets to 8:25-9:55 and 10:25-11:55.
Some have asked if we can play for longer than 90 mins without taking a break and the answer is yes with one condition: we can play a 2 hour set without stopping (we refer to this as the “power set”) provided that’s ALL the dance band is doing. So while you lose an hour of music, there’s no break. This, believe it or not, works the best for corporate events or events that have restrictions (early venue closure, noise restrictions, etc.). On a corporate event or gala, people are less likely to stay through a break regardless of length because they aren’t surrounded by family or friends necessarily. This also allows for “all killer, no filler” sets and our 2nd set doesn’t end up being played to the 10 hardcore people that stuck around.
Step 3:
So you now have a timeline in place for the dance band. Now, we can add on some music for earlier portions of the day/evening. It can be as simple as canned music either manned by our tech for a cost or leaving you a cable to plug a phone in as a no cost DIY option, although most people opt for the manned as we will provide a wireless mic in that case with our tech to mix and fade music up and down as needed. We have playlists galore for this as well but happy to download your playlist to our device. Another option is live music which is of course is our preference and we have some amazing small group options that are not overpowering so people can still chat, but also be entertained.
Check out our video about add ons here:
Our usual recommendations are:
Ceremony: Solo acoustic instrumental is probably our most popular for this. In a ceremony there are typically 4 moments for music and all of these custom song learns are included for no extra charge with a ceremony booking:
- Pre-ceremony as guests arrive. Our musician or tech will start music 20-30 mins before the start of your ceremony as guests arrive. We’ll choose from our extensive appropriate repertoire/playlists.
- Processional. Often divided into two songs (one for the wedding party and one for the bride) depending on how big the wedding party is and how long the walk is. Our musician will arrange any song(s) you like for this, check out Tristan or Rob We often “ceremon-ify” some of the most off the wall requests that have meaning for the couple, no matter what the genre. Also, don’t feel like you need to find someone on YouTube doing say an acoustic guitar arrangement of the song as our musician will custom create their own.
- In Canada, the signing of the marriage license is done during the ceremony and this is often a good moment for another song and again, happy to create a custom version of song that has meaning for the couple. Note that Jewish weddings will have a separate private ceremony to sign the Ketubah.
- Recessional. This is moment where couple is pronounced and they make their way back down the aisle. Often this is a fun, celebratory song. Songs like Signed Sealed Delivered or You Are the Best Thing are pretty popular and but we’ve even done things as ironic as 99 Problems hahaha
A last piece of advice about ceremony songs is don’t have too many songs or too many musicians. There’s an improvised element to every ceremony. You can never account for how long or short things are going to be so our musicians adjust on the fly by either shortening a section or looping another so that the song gets realized and lines up with the transition. The more musicians that you have, the harder that sort of thing is to communicate with literally whispering “chorus again” etc. Also, if you flood the processional with a whole bunch of songs, this creates opportunities for awkward transitions. If you want these 3 groups to come down to one song and the next 3 groups to come to a different song and then the next 3 to something else, our musician will have to not only keep their eyes on the music but also be paying attention to how many people have walked not to mention to look at the instrument itself on a song that they’ve probably never played before in a high pressure situation. Not that we can’t do it, but again, could create some trapdoors to fall through.
Again, included in a ceremony booking, our musician will learn up to 4 songs at no extra cost for your wedding.
Cocktails: Probably our most popular service here is our Acoustic Solo Guitar/Vocal. Singer with guitar doing some tunes and some of folks put their own spin on some tunes that you might be surprised to hear in this format. Check out Matt or Martin or Marlie or Matt again. Or upsize to the duo, check out Jere and Brendan in Banff Alberta. There’s even the trio that adds some percussion.
Dinner: we have typically found that during dinner, most guests prefer to chat during dinner and music can be a bit distracting. We usually suggest our audio management service which plants our tech at their mixing station and will supply and mix a mic for speeches and fade music up and down as needed as guests come up to speak. Also music cues that are needed (entrance songs/award walk-ups, cake cutting song, etc.) we can have on our devices ready to play.
If you do want live music for dinner, a nice option is some instrumental or vocal jazz. Jazz can mean a lot of things to a lot of people but know that we’re more in the Ella/Frank and Oscar Peterson style with maybe a few fun jazzy takes on some pop tunes a la Postmodern Jukebox.
Step 4 (the last step):
What will we play? A month from the big event, you’ll submit a survey with all of the details that we need and most importantly, any song requests. Ideally, a Spotify or Apple Music playlist that you’ve created as if you were DJing your own party. Remember, it’s not just YOU at this party. Think about the different demos of your guests or colleagues. There’s also a space in the survey for any MUST HAVE requests. We combine your tastes with our experience to make the best party imaginable with a totally custom and unique plan for your event. We certainly don’t expect our clients to know how to keep the dancefloor going, but we also realize that our clients are passionate about music….that’s why they want a band! We give the best of both worlds. We also will pivot on the night of depending on what is working with your crowd. What we plan on is sometimes different than what the crowd wants on the night.
Also, with every booking, the band will learn up to one song at no extra cost. For most weddings, this is usually used on the First Dance. We’ve also compiled a list of First Dances and Parent Dances that are we don’t charge for HERE in case you want to use your free learn for another song. This list by the way is not the dance band song list, but again, a list of ballad type of material for first dance and parent dances. If you want us to learn more there may be costs involved if we don’t know it and depending on how complex it is.
