Calgary Trail South Edmonton Canadian Tire at the Sawmill Banquet Facility.

This event was exactly what a corporate function should be.  Good people, good food and lots of fun.  Last year I also was the DJ for Canadian Tire and even though it was a really good party it ended a little early due in part to it being held on a Sunday.  This year management agreed to close the store early on Saturday which in turn led to a more successful party.  As some of the employees had spouses and partners that normally would have to work on a Monday morning, therefore causing them to leave the party earlier on a Sunday that if the party was held on a Saturday.  Needless to say this year’s holiday party was way more successful than last year.

I would like to thank the staff at the Sawmill Banquet Facility for being very accommodating to my style of DJ.  As an Edmonton DJ many venues can be a challenge to work at.  Maria Baert was very helpful with a number of things that evening to make my job easier and is well better.  The Sawmill Banquet Facility is a very nice venue on the east end of Edmonton just off 34th Ave and 76 St. 

The room was split in half to accommodate two smaller events.  For me this was the exact same room we were in last year.  The only thing I like to do one in this room is placed my DJ equipment in the middle of the dance floor along the false wall that separates the two rooms.  This creates a better look and feel for the dance floor and allows me to interact with the crowd in a far easier fashion.  In order for me to do this the buffet line had to be moved slightly away from the wall it was great to see the staff willing to make this adjustment happen.

Leaving start at about seven o’clock and everyone was in good spirits right from the get-go.  I recognize the a lot of the same people from the year prior which makes it more enjoyable for me as a DJ to work with people over and over again.  We played a fun Christmas game in order to pick the order of the tables for the buffet line and that went over very well.  Dinner was very well done, buffet style, with lots of items to choose from.  What I really liked about the buffet line was that each item had a name tag so you knew exactly what the item was.  There are a lot more fussy people today than ever before in this allows them to know exactly what they would be eating.

We started the dance right around nine o’clock and coordinated our dance start time with the room next to us.  This is a great idea to prevent music, which is normally played at a higher volume for a dance, from being heard overtop of someone else trying to speak and do speeches after dinner.  The venue was right on top of this issue making sure both events were the best they could be.  We had a full dance floor right from the get go and what really made this party great were about six people that really liked the dance and got the ball rolling which in turn made everyone else want to dance.

You can tell that everyone really get along quite well with everyone else as a good part of the night everyone was dancing in a circle as one or two people showed off their moves in the middle of the circle.  This normally happens when you have a group of people that like each other and like to have fun.

The highlight of the night was when one of the gentlemen dancing decided to take off his sweater in a mock striptease.  Everyone was cheering and laughing as this all happened and it truly elevated the party to another level as I do not think this is normally something this person does on a regular basis.

It is nice like this to continue to make me want to keep being an Edmonton DJ.  Thanks again to the staff and management at Canadian Tire for having me back this year and I hope to see y’all again next year.

Please see below for some video highlights from tonight’s event.

It was great to be back with a great group of people for their annual holiday event.  Last year Nash and Rob asked me to DJ their joint Christmas party at the Platinum Club/Gold Dust Casino and it was a rockin’ good time.  We were not able to go back to the Platinum Club because it is being renovated and made smaller and no longer can hold more than 100 people.

So this year they moved the function to the St. Albert Royal Canadian Legion.  It had been years since the last time I was here and to be honest I could not even remember where it was located.  It is a very nice room with a easy load in for equipment with no stairs and only about 40 feet from the front door was the room I was playing in.

Boston Pizza shut down their locations early on a Monday so that everyone could attend the event.  Everyone started showing up at around 7 pm and we were in for a good time. 

Nash and Rob were there to greet their staff as the came in and everyone was very well dressed and in great spirits.  The fun things about doing a function like this is the staff.  As they work in the hospitality industry and deal with people all the time most of them have very out going personalities which makes for am ore interesting evening.  I have been an Edmonton DJ for so long that sometimes one forgets how much fun it can be to be a disc jockey.  Allot of people remembered me from last year and were very friendly which makes for a better evening for me.

Dinner was served around 8 PM and it was a very simple yet very good buffet.  Even tough there were not tons of items the ones that were there were very well made and there were a number of people that went back for seconds.  The only thing I would have liked to have seen would have been a better section of deserts. 

Dinner was followed with door prizes and Tyler took over the MCing duties and he is hilarious.  He has a great personality and can really think on his feet.  I think he could make a great DJ someday if he wanted to. 

The dance then followed and all I can say is wow.  Right from the first song the dance floor was full almost the whole night long.  We even had a couple of people sing a karaoke songs.  It is often easier to DJ a function like this as you have a narrow age range and therefore a narrow list of songs they generally want to dance too.  There were lots of requests and lots of dancing and everyone had a good time, and if you didn’t it was your own fault.  I sure hope to be back next year.

Please see the attached video for so highlights of the evening.

It has been 2 years since the last time I was with my friends at Davis and Company and boy it was good to be back.  The weather outside was frightful and inside it was delightful with great food and friends coming together to celebrate everyone’s favorite time of the year.

The Hotel MacDonald is the most beautiful venue in Edmonton at the best of times; and this time of the year takes it too a whole other level.  The Christmas decorations are so well done and really add to the look of the hotel.  So much so that people were taking pictures of each other in the lobby in front of the great tree and reindeer.

As an Edmonton DJ it is always great to DJ at the MacDonald Hotel and tonight was as good as always.  Over the years I have gotten to know some of the staff and on this night a couple of people were there that I have gotten to know.  A special thanks to Chris for his unequalled service and helpfulness.  He treated me like a guests rather than the hired help and that says a lot about him and the MacDonald Hotel.  If other venues could understand this it would server them well as I have customers that call me and ask what is a good venue to hold a function at and I always mention the Mac.

Dinner was served just about 7:30PM, which was a little late, because of the poor road conditions making people run late getting to the location.  Dinner was, simply put, amazing and I could not have had another bite as I over did it.  It was great to sit a relax and enjoy a great meal and my dinner guests were great to visit with and we had a great conversation over dinner.

After dinner we had a couple of quick speeches and the highlight of the night was 2 things.  1st was the slideshow and video presentation that the interns put together.  There were a few slides shown on the screen that were doctored in Photoshop that had everyone laughing as the interns made jokes about the office staff. 

The video presentation followed the slideshow and that was a spoof in the TV show “the Office” and boy was it funny. It must have taken days to put that together and was one of the best presentations I have ever seen and all I can say was the bar has been set high and will be hard to beat.

The 2nd thing was the “Family Feud Game” where 2 teams were picked and competed against each other to answer a few fun questions about the staff and partners based on how well they new each other.  This was very well done and the MC did a great job of preparing the game in advance.  I will be sure to recommend this to other companies in the future.

The dance got started about 10:00 and it was just like old times.  Since I had been with this group before and had a good understanding as to what they liked and that was a good starting point and we were able to hit the ground running.  There were lots of requests and everyone just seemed to cut loose a little and have some fun and relax, something we all need to do once and a while.  What I love about the Hotel MacDonald is the atmosphere in this room.  With a great look and feel and add in great lighting control you can really set the tone for an inviting dance floor where people will want to be.

Please see the attached video for some highlights of the day from “Edmonton DJ” 

It might have been –46 degrees Celsius outside but the wedding was on FIRE!!!

As an Edmonton DJ I can’t remember the last time I was this concerned going into a wedding.  The weather can play a major role in a function but not tonight.

The Denham Inn in Leduc is a very nice location to hold a wedding as I have been here a few times before I was very familiar with this venue.  When I arrived to the venue, which was nice and early to allow my equipment enough time to warm up from the freezing temperature outside, I was very impressed as the how the room was decorated.  Murielle and John did a few things that I have never seen before.

The first thing I noticed was the socks as favors.  This was a great touch as there was a story with the socks and the first date the bride and groom shared.  This was brilliant as it made things more personal and socks were favors that people could actually use.  At most weddings there are always favors left behind but not today.

Second was the game played during speeches… but I will get to that in a minute.

The bride and groom wanted to set a great tone for the night and by picking “Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feelin’” as their grand entrance song that definitely worked.  With aunty “M” getting married, everyone was very excited for her on her BIG day.

This was an advanced wedding for me with not only DJing the function but built my advanced slideshow with video interview.  This type of function puts a great deal of work on my plate but the rewards are well worth the effort.  The Denham Inn has a couple of limitations when it comes to what I do and with a slideshow being a big part of the evening the very low ceilings makes it very hard for all the guests to see the image on a small screen.  Since I had been here before and was aware of this limitation I brought as second screen and projector so that the projectors and screens could be placed at opposite ends of the room allowing for easier viewing for the guests.

Dinner was very well done and I really enjoyed the meal as it was a good home cooked meal that covered all the basics and then some.  Everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves with lots of visiting and laughing around the tables.

I cannot remember the last time I was this stressed at a function.  This was caused by a computer malfunction during the rendering of the slideshow.  Even though I am well prepared with a backup slideshow in hand, I like to add in a few pictures and video after the bride and groom to the hall into the slideshow and re-render the slideshow during dinner so that it is ready to go at the end of speeches.  Things were going perfectly until my PC got hung up and I had to exercise a hard reboot and then again render down the slideshow again.  This whole process took me until about 7:45 which would have been fine had I not made the mistake of not double checking my changes to the slideshow after the reboot.  Realizing my mistake after rendering put me in a big time crunch and I had to render the slideshow again for the 3rd time and the process takes about 40 minutes to complete.  We pushed the speeches up just a little and we were only delayed in showing the slide show by about 5 minutes.  The slideshow ended up going over in a huge way and at time the laughter was so loud that we almost needed to show it twice to catch everything the bride and groom said.  When you get a big huge from the bride you know you did a good job and that is exactly what I got from Murielle.

A big thank you goes out the their photographer.  Sonia allowed me to use a few pictures from the ceremoney and formals at the end of the slideshow which really blow everyone away as I was not at the ceremony or formals yet there were pictures in the slideshows from the day.  It is great when vendors work together for the good of the client as most people only have their own best interests at heart.  Sonia’s company is called PhotoArt by Sonia.  Thanks Again.

Lets get back to the second thing I had never seen at a wedding before.  The MC’s were simply put… AWESOME.  They were very well spoken and creative and did there homework.  The highlight of the speeches was a game that was played with the bride and groom.  First the groom was blindfolded and several different women were asked to come up and give him a kiss (they were picked in advance) and the bride was also one of the kissers.  After the women kissed the groom he had to pick which one was the bride and boy when he guessed WRONG the roof almost came off the building with laughter.  One of the volunteers nailed him with a good kiss and that really throw the groom off the trail.  The bride then had her turn and was also blindfolded and the male volunteers came on up.  She had to squeeze the butts to see which one was the grooms.  This was so funny and they got more volunteers than that had planned for as lots of men want to have their butts squeezed by the bride.  What was even funnier was after she took off the blindfold she also picked the wrong man saving the groom from years of humiliation.

After the speeches and slideshow we quickly went into the first dance once the head table was taken down via the hotel staff to accommodate the dance floor.

There were only 2 special dances and we were off to the races with everyone in to mode to have a good time.

Even though it was one of the coldest nights ever in Leduc it was one of the hottest parties I have ever done. I thought for sure that the room would be empty by 11:00 as people would not want to be stuck out in the cold or worry about trying to start their cars.  This was not the case at all as everyone stayed, danced and enjoyed themselves.  At 1:00AM I still have 50 people in the room which was a total surprise.  A BIG thanx to Murielle and John for putting up with me and really taking it upon themselves to have fun and really enjoy themselves on their special day.

Please watch the video below for some highlights put together by Edmonton DJ.

Cahahoo Alberta

This was our 3rd year DJing the Calahoo Volunteer annual dinner, dance and silent auction. 

This is one of my favorite functions each year as it is a great function with great people all having a good time.   This is truly one of the hardest place to get into and out of as the room is on the second floor and there is no elevator.  In order for me to get into the room the organizers provide me a couple volunteers to help me carry my equipment up the stairs and back down at the end of the night.

It is a casual event with people attending for as far away as Bruderheim. Everyone has come for some good food, good music and to visit with good friends.  The silent auction is one of the highlights as there are a ton of great items donated via the community and supplies for the fir department. 

Dinner started about 6 PM and is a simple home cooked meal that covers the basics.  It would be great to see a little more variety and maybe some chicken for those of us that don’t eat beef.

The silent auction ran until about 9 pm and then the items were given to the winning bidders and a lot of money was raised in support of the local fire department. 

The dance got started right after the auction and it was a good mix of people dancing to all formats, from country to rock and the newest songs.  One of the highlights from the dance is when we took a break from the dancing to play a couple of games that were both competitive and extremely entertaining.  The Walla Balla and Toilet Plunger games were a big hit that brought out the competitive side of the guests and had everyone in stitches watching from the slide lines.

From there the night just got better and better.  Eveyone danced and had a great time until 2:00 AM. 

Please watch the video below to see all the hightlights from this years event