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” 

Being an Edmonton DJ is more than just playing music.  The University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine Grad was a win event for both client and myself.  I worked closely with the grad committee and was able to save them hundreds of dollars by providing the entire infrastructure for this event.  Doing an event of over 800 people is no small feat and this function had a few challenges.  Most Edmonton Events of the type generally cost the client more as they end up using multiple companies to provide all of the services needed.

Puttin’ on the Hitz is more than just an Edmonton DJ Company, we can also handle the production side of any event.  By providing the DJ Services and adding in the screens and projectors and a live camera to shoot the speeches allowed for the customer to do two big things.  First, they only had to deal with one company for all their production needs allowing them to make better use of their time.  There is less meetings and less confusion with no problems on the day of the function.  Secondly, the customer saved money.  Since we are already there for the DJing it made is far easier to provide the screens and projectors for this event.  As there is only one company traveling to the Shaw Conference Centre the cost to do the show was decreased.

We also tied in my computer to the video screens and we were able to show some pictures from the day in the background during dinner and we played music videos during the dance.  This added an extra touch to the party to give the guests something to look at as they enjoyed their dinner and for those that did not dance something to look at on the screens.

 A special thanks goes out to the staff at the Shaw Conference Centre as they made sure both myself and the videographer (David Matthew Bonner) had dinner even though we had to eat off the back of my speaker stack as the organizers forgot to include us in the seating arrangement.

 I cannot remember the last time this room ever looked so good.  Sheldon from Infinite Event Services did a great job of decorating the room and the seating areas next to the dance floor were a great touch that really made the room.

The speeches were very well done and everyone spoke like a pro.  I was very impressed with the speakers and add in the fact that they were very entertaining and not to long-winded made for a great formal end of the evening.

After the speeches we went into the dance and it started off like a wedding and it took it a little while to get off the ground but by about 12:00 AM it got going and we had a great time right until 2 am.  What surprised me the most was that they liked the older music more than the newer, with the big song of the night was Kylie Monogue – Loco-motion.

Please watch the video below for highlights of this function as an Edmonton School DJ.

It was a hot day and I am glad we had air conditioning tonight at the Terra Losa Seniors Centre in Edmonton, Alberta.  This is a great community hall that holds about 200 maximum and that is what we had for this wedding.  It is always great to play here the load in is pretty good with a ramp out the front door and a deck on 2 sides of the building with a great view of the lake.

The M/C’s did a great job of leading the night.  One of the two M/C’s used to be a DJ and he had great microphones skills.

Dinner was very good; expect the caterer ran out of porgies for almost 15 minutes right at the end of the line.  And to make things worse they ran out of sour crème and ended up using did for those 10 of us left at the end of the line.  I am not it the caterer is a little new or everyone brought there appetite.

Speeches were very well done with the highlight being a PowerPoint slide show that the Maid-of-honor spoke throughout and it was hilarious the way she did it.  The bride and groom ended off speeches and they remember to thank me which is often over looked as I really have not done too much until this part of the night.

The dance started off with a traditional first dance and mother/son and father/daughter dance.  We ended the formal dances with the wedding party and then we were off to the races.  Even though it was one of the hottest days of the summer this year everyone dance the night away.  Being an Edmonton DJ is a great thing to be when everyone is willing to get out on to the dance floor you can create a great party and that is exactly how things played out that night. 

The only thing is that they shut me down about 12:30 as the hall wants everyone out by 1:00 AM.  I was a little upset as no one wants to go home when they are having a good time and we for sure could have gone for another hour.

I would like to thank Deborah and Eric for going the extra distance.  On Monday I got a great phone call thanking me for helping create what they called a great evening where everyone that came had a great time. This really met a lot to me, THANX.