Liberty Station Birthday Party – Jim Fitzpatrick

Posted by admin on April 27th, 2010

Liberty Station Birthday Party – Rita and Rosalie

Client: Jim Fitzpatrick
Venue: Liberty Station – Luce Court
Venue Address: 2640 Historic Decatur Road
Number of guests: 100
Services Provided: DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Dance Floor Lighting, Video Montage

A few months ago I was contacted by Jim Fitzpatrick to perform at his wife, Rita,(and her twin sister, Rosalie)’s 50th birthday party. Jim and Rita first saw me perform in Liberty Station at the Spirits At Liberty Station fundraiser in October 2009. According to Rita, after they saw me there, they both said to each other, “we have to hire this guy when we have a party!” Of course, all of this was unknown to me until just recently…

Jim and I met at his office downtown and worked out the details. They wanted dance floor lighting (“light it up like a CLUB!” was their request), and also opted for the video montage package. I coached Jim a bit about the type of pictures he should include in the montage, and gave advise about creating it. Jim hit a few snags along the way while creating his montage, and we were on the phone frequently towards the days before the event making sure he had all the details correct. At one point, I even invited Jim over to our house for a consultation and to preview the montage on the actual projector we were using for his event. Needless to say, by the day of the event, Jim was completely confident that the montage was going to go over perfectly.

Jim and Rita selected Liberty Station for their venue, convenient for me since I had obviously worked at the venue before! They set up a tent in Luce Court, directly behind the NTC Promenade main entrance. The entire event was coordinated by Christine Ong, from Encore Events.

Tress Balch, from Happy’s Sushi, catered the party with a total of three stations. One was a sushi bar…

Sushi Bar

and two were hot food stations consisting of delicious items such as appetizers, shishkabobs and fried shrimp.

sandiegodj hot bar Liberty Station Birthday Party Jim Fitzpatrick

One of the hot bars

sandiegodj second hot bar Liberty Station Birthday Party Jim Fitzpatrick

Appetizers and Hot Food

Bar service was provided by Jamie from Event Beverage Solutions. I’ll definitely recommend her in the future because she was extremely personable and friendly. She came over and offered me refills when she saw that I couldn’t leave my booth! Afterwards, when we were cleaning up she also complimented me on the mix, which was nice.

Liquor Bar

For this event, I chose to debut my new Cerwin Vega speaker set, which fit the decor well and provided more than ample sound. As you can see, it looks good. The tops are stylish and thin, yet contain two 8″ woofers each tuned to a different frequency range.

SanDiegoDJ CerwinVega Speakers Liberty Station Birthday Party Jim Fitzpatrick

Cerwin Vega Speaker Setup

For cocktails and dinner, Jim left the music selection to me, so I started with some smooth jazz, moved into some ‘rat pack’ 20s-40s, and then transitioned into some easy listening and contemporary music such as Jason Mraz and Beach Boys. Since it was a birthday party, song selections were themed around celebration and wonderful lives.

Before dancing began, we started the video montage. The projector lit up the screen flawlessly, and Jim even remarked to me during the display, saying, “that’s an amazing projector you have.” I always try to explain to clients beforehand that our projector is not the ‘norm’ but it really has to be seen to fully understand what that means. We use an extremely high ‘lumens’ projector so that the whites remain white even over long distances and in low lighting (most projectors are made to be used in very dark settings, and cannot display whites correctly when there is lighting in the room). I took the occasion to get some video of the guests enjoying the video. I think that this video capture will help show you more about how the montage went over than the actual montage itself!

Here’s a shot of everyone enjoying the video montage.

sandiegodj video montage Liberty Station Birthday Party Jim Fitzpatrick

Guests Enjoying the Video Montage

And here’s a short video showing guests enjoying the montage.

Now, when Jim and I had met, he had informed me that his wife was 50, but a “young 50″. So, I was thinking 70’s and 80’s would be the night’s big hits. However, before the dancing began, Rosalie came over and asked me if I could start with “Boom Boom Pow” since it was her son Wyatt’s favorite song. When it came time for dancing we started with Black Eyed Peas, then Jim came over and told me to ‘rock this place like a high school gym’.

The set definitely ebbed and flowed. I went through many genres: Uptempo club, 80’s Pop, 70’s Disco, 80’s Funk, Latin (Salsa, Merengue), 90’s Hip-Hop, Current Top40. Guests danced all night long, and the hosts felt that the night was going so well that they didn’t want to interrupt it for the cake event, so they just silently cut cake and gave it out subtly!

And that gesture in itself was the ultimate verification that the night was enjoyed by everyone!

A picture of Jim and his wife, Rita.

Jim and Rita Fitzpatrick

A picture of me with the birthday girls, Rita and Rosalie.

Rita Fitzpatrick and her sister Rosalie

A picture of the host and client, Jim Fitzpatrick, after a job well done!

Jim Fitzpatrick and DJ Dennis J, post-event

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Holiday Inn On The Bay – Pacific Ballroom – USS John Paul Jones Holiday Party

Posted by admin on December 14th, 2009

Holiday Inn On The Bay – Pacific Ballroom – USS John Paul Jones Holiday Party

Client: USS John Paul Jones
Venue: Holiday Inn San Diego on the Bay
Venue Address: 1355 North Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101
Number of guests: 250
Services Provided: Military Event DJ and Master of Ceremonies, enhanced dance floor lighting.

The USS John Paul Jones, a Naval Destroyer, had their holiday party at the Holiday Inn On The Bay in the Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego.

San Diego DJ Holiday Inn USS John Paul Jones

We set up around 2 hours ahead of time, giving us ample time to do sound checks. When cocktail hour began, we chose to go with some ‘holiday jazz’. This consists of a special collection of songs we have that are jazz renditions of holiday favorites such as ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Silent Night’. Being that they are jazz renditions, they rarely have words which allows free flowing dialog, something desired at cocktail hour usually.

After cocktails ended, the CO (Commanding Officer) took a moment to say a few words, including thanking everyone for coming. A few others were invited to come up and speak to the attendees, and then dinner began. At this time, we switched to adult contemporary favorites, which seemed well received by the fact that we could see guests in the buffet line tapping their feet and shaking their bodies to the familiar songs they were hearing.

After dinner, there was a bit more speech, then an initial raffle. When it comes to raffle giveaways, we can honestly say that the USS John Paul Jones team did not skimp at all! They gave away several $20 gift cards, a $50 card, a few $100 cards, and then even a $500 card!

There was a presentation montage shown, then more raffle prizes. This time, they gave away two 12 megapixel Fujitsu digicams, two 4GB iPod Shuffles, and some software.

Open dancing began, and the crowd was really enjoying the music. We did have one issue– it seems the power outlets couldn’t handle the amperage our system required. After two quick outages, we quickly ran a second power cord to a different outlet and moved half our system to the second outlet. No more issues occurred after that.

More raffles occurred, and even bigger prizes were given away, including two Toshiba laptops, two XBOX360s, three PS3s, three PSPs, two 52″ LCD TVs, and then two grand prizes of vacations in Oahu and Vegas.

Dancing commenced again, and the floor stayed packed until the last minute of the party. The guests really enjoyed the music selection and our ability to take requests and still beatmatch and mix them into the system.

Oh one last tidbit- The highlight of the dance time was when we dropped in “I’m On a Boat”. Being that they were Navy, they sure enjoyed that song, and many sang along with it happily.

Happy Holidays to the crew members of the USS John Paul Jones, and thanks for inviting us to be a part of your celebration!

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Sub Base Point Loma- Kathleen and Dominic Carr Weddin

Posted by admin on November 30th, 2009

Sub Base Point Loma – Oceanview Room (NSB) – Kathleen and Dominic Carr Wedding

Client: Kathleen and Dominic Carr
Venue: Admiral Kidd Club – Oceanview Room (Naval Sub Base in Point Loma)
Venue Address: 140 Sylvester Rd, San Diego, CA 92106, US (NSB)
Number of guests: 100
Services Provided: Wedding DJ and Master of Ceremonies, Wedding Ceremony, enhanced dance floor lighting
Photographer: Liz Grace from Liz Grace Photography

Kathleen and Dominic Carr had their wedding at the Ocean View Room on the Point Loma Sub Base. Musical choices include Bob Marley and all Marley Family, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Otis Redding, AC/DC, Black Eyed Peas, Steve Miller Band, The Police, and Steele Pulse. To complement these tastes, they decided on a island-music based ceremony. For their prelude music, they selected an entire set of Jack Johnson songs, which worked quite well.

Oceanview Room Ceremony - Point Loma Sub Base

The wedding guest list included around 12 kids, and they dominated the dance floor for the first half of the evening.

Point Loma Sub Base - Kids on the Dance Floor

After a while, the kids got a bit tired out, and it was time for the adults to dance. Being that this crowd was primarily Irish, we worked in some Irish music, including popular artists such as U2 and House of Pain. At one point, we were asked if we had any traditional Irish music. We suggested a compromise– We’d throw on a traditional Irish jig, if the Irish guests promised to dance an Irish step to it. They agreed, and we had a blast playing traditional Irish and watching the guests enjoying their native dances!

(Irish step video coming soon)

During open dancing, we put on Pitbull – Hotel Room Service, a popular song among dance clubs, and one of the guests remarked, “awww… come on! Put on the original!”. “Oh, you want some Nightcrawlers?” we asked. “Yes, exactly”. That was our cue. We went into a old-school 90’s house set, and the guests packed the floor. Afterwards, one of the guests (a woman by the name of Blaize, which she swears is her real name!), asked if we did house parties, and took a card while stating that she was impressed because wedding DJs didn’t normally have music like this, nor the knowledge of what to play and how to mix it properly. We hope to hear from her in the future, and would love to rock a 90’s house set at her house party!

Kids and adults on the dance floor

One thing we’d like to mention– Photography for this event was done by Liz Grace from Liz Grace Photography. With the amount of events we do, we meet lots of photographers, but to be honest, most get in, get out, and really don’t seem to care to get to know us. Liz was different. For one, she stayed throughout the whole event, making sure she didn’t miss one little photo opportunity. Also, she took the time to converse with us. We talked about our businesses, and she even offered some advice on what has worked well for her as far as marketing investments. She was extremely helpful, even volunteering to organize the wedding party for their introductions if we wanted. She definitely liked what she saw regarding us and our professional lighting, equipment, style, and performance, and mentioned that she would be happy to work together to cross-promote. We highly recommend her if you’re looking for a wedding photographer, and we look forward to the next wedding we do that we get to work together again.

So, all in all, we had a wonderful island-music-based ceremony, traditional Irish music, happy kids, and a whole bunch of family and friends of the bride and groom that appeared to enjoy themselves immensely. I’d call the evening a complete success.

Afterwards, Kathleen and Dominic expressed their thanks and gratitude, and posed for a memorable picture.

San Diego DJ Dennis J posing with the happy bride and groom

One of the reasons for the delay on this posting is the lack of pictures we have from the event. We took some video but have been so busy with other gigs that we haven’t had a chance to process it. If anyone in attendance cares to share some pictures, please comment and let us know. There were a lot of smiling guests and we would love to have more pictures to show of them! Does anyone know if they use Facebook?

Thanks to Kathleen and Dominic for inviting us to participate in their amazing evening, and thanks to all guests for making the night a unique enjoyable experience. And thanks to all that demonstrated the Irish jig. Those types of surprise occurrences are some of the main reasons we enjoy what we do and look forward to each new event!