A moving head working fine at home is one thing. Having it survive weddings and gigs every weekend is another.
I work at betopper, and something I think gets overlooked with budget movers is how they're actually treated between shows.
Getting thrown into soft bags, poor ventilation, questionable power at older venues. There's a lot that can go wrong before you even get into the quality of the fixture itself.
I'd also pay attention to warranty support. If something dies right before a Saturday gig, knowing what happens next matters a lot more than a nice review score.
I'm interested in hearing from people who've been running budget movers regularly, not just testing them at home.
What's actually failed on yours? Motors, fans, optics? Or have they been holding up better than expected?

Hi! I developed Amadeus DMX that help’s mobile DJ’s setting up and managing a professional light show. It runs fully automated but looks like a dedicated light jockey is running the show.

I am looking for enthusiasts that want to try out the software on their own (home) rig and see if the solution is working out for your situation. Let me know in this thread (or better on GitHub) if it is working for you and what you would like to see added.

The idea is simple. On your DJ computer install Amadeus. Set up your fixtures, rig and start playing. Amadeus currently support integrations for DJay Pro, VirtualDJ and Mixxx (even with music from Spotify). In the future more can be added.

You can find & download the project on Github: https://github.com/mathijs-b2m/AmadeusDMX/ It is completely free & open source.

BYOK: You can bring your own OpenAI key in order to take full advantage of its capabilities. Highly recommended to do so! 

Thanks!

Mathijs

The list of features and possibilities is already quite long! It would be too much to post it all in here. Feel free to ask if you can't find something.

And yes. This software is “Vibe Coded”. I am however a professional software developer and am planning to actively maintain this project in the future.

i feel like the influx of companies in recent years that are selling cold spark products are flooding the market with a general misinformation about how cold sparks are "completely safe" for indoor use, and is "odorless and smokeless" and i'm sure we've all seen those videos of someone putting their hand over the sparks to demonstrate how "safe" it is, and some of us may have tried it ourselves.

i work for a (decently sized) mobile entertainment company that has used these machines for about ±7 years at this point and we have recently decided to discontinue the service for a number of reasons, partly because of our vendor since day 1 is becoming defunct because of the competition that has emerged over the years, and also due to the amount of rules that venues started to impose when using these machines. my guess is because the market was left unregulated, and these days anyone can buy cold spark machines off of amazon and operate them without bothering to read the poorly translated english manual that it came with... hot take?

regarding the claims about it being "smokeless" and "odorless", i don't find that to be entirely true. with our machines there was always a slight haze in the air after firing. this haze would normally dissipate over time, but in the minutes after firing, my eyes experience a slight burning sensation from the exposure to the smokey air, and i notice a slight chemical smell too.

on the extreme end of my experience with these machines, i've watched them ignite silk/fake flowers and fortunately one of the guests saw it happenning and immediately jumped into action, putting out the orange glowing embers that began to consume the fake flower petals before any visible flame started....

yes, the vendor that we've used does have a training course on safety and operation, and it is within their recommendations to always have a very large "Class D" fire extinguisher on hand (which is not your typical red home/office fire extinguisher) we have one, but did we always have it on site? no, and i absolutely doubt any of the smaller companies tried carried that big ass thing with them either.

does your company offer cold sparks as a service? what are your experiences with them?

escolher entre ld maui 28g3 ou rcf evox j8, please para os meus gigs

I got this email just a few minutes ago. I know many of us used to advertise on The Knot or Wedding Wire and left as prices rose year over year (about 35% increases year over year when I left, and I negotiated hard to get the rates that low). We jumped to Zola where there weren't as many leads but pricing felt fair. Rates went up over time but so did the number of leads and the services they were offering. As turnover rates from google ads went down as AI services take over the front page, Zola was a good option for my sole proprietor DJ business. I gave Zola $1200 so far this year for featured spots and the unlimited plan for connecting with leads.

I am contacting my senators today. This is absolutely an illegal monopoly. They dominate the industry have just bought their only significant competitor in the US market for wedding advertising. This is bad for consumers. Plz share.

Thinking about upgrading from van (Honda Odyssey) to van plus enclosed 4'x8' trailer. I've read all the tips about security, and storing the trailer at my home isn't a problem. What I'm mainly concerned about is parking, especially at venues in urban(ish) settings. Not "how do I back up a trailer" but literally "where do I put this." I live in central NC and do a fair number of weddings in downtown Raleigh, Cary, Durham, etc.

Trailer haulers, where do you park when you don't fit in a parking garage, a parallel parking spot, or a standard parking lot spot? Do venues typically have space set aside for large vendor vehicles? Do you ever have to walk great distances to get from large-vehicle parking back to the venue?

Today's announcement of the merger between The Knot and Zola seems like a good time to compare notes about what is and isn't working for those who advertise on the two platforms. Please avoid any "the leads are fake!" conspiracy theories, and share facts.

How many leads are you receiving? How many events are you booking? What does it cost you per lead, or per booking?

What has been working (or not working) when it comes to turning leads into sales?

If you have a monthly plan, how much are you paying per month? Where are you geographically?

What other paid advertising, if any, do you run? How does its performance compare to that of The Knot and/or Zola?

I was thinking 2 x 8 or 10 tops. Then one sub and then the 2nd sub.

QSC or would you go with another brand. I do not want to upgrade again after this. I currently have a very bad PA set up 15inch tops (KAM) good for small rooms.

Getting into DJing and trying to understand what a proper starter kit actually includes. Not going for the absolute cheapest option but dont want to overbuy for where I am either. What does a complete beginner DJ starter kit realistically look like and what order should I buy things

I bought a pair of Chauvet Flexstands a couple of years ago. However, I broke one of the locking mechanisms on one of the poles. I’ve searched all over the net and haven’t found the exact same pole.

I just need to know what’s a suitable replacement. I believe any M 20 thread will work. If you can post links, I would greatly appreciate it.

By the way, I’ve tried to repair it and I’ve just made it worse. lol

Picked one up this weekend for a cross country meet I'm DJing. Didn't want a generator, because didn't want to have to swipe a friends truck. Picked up the 2000 watt one. I've run it for an hour so far, with my speakers at about 60% (2 Mackie Thump 212xt, a small mixer, laptop, and my fan (aka the MVP). It's currently at 92%.

Hey y’all, I’m in the market for a new dedicated device to play Spotify playlists (offline) during cocktail hour and dinner at weddings.

I've tried a few different phones for this purpose but have had some reliability issues with all of them, notably Spotify crashing, or the annoying “hearing protection” feature dropping the volume down while music is playing. If either of these happen while I’m away from my booth moving equipment or having my vendor meal, there can be a gap in music, which is obviously not ideal.

Ideally, I’d like a smartphone (or other similarly sized device), with a dedicated headphone jack (though I know those are increasingly rare so that’s not a dealbreaker).

I have an iPad that seems to be more reliable, but it’s bulkier and requires a dongle, so not exactly what I’m looking for.

Budget is flexible - I'm down to pay what I need to pay but I don’t want to overpay for something that’s just for this one fairly simple purpose.

If you could share any recs, that would be much appreciated - thanks in advance!

(also, for context, I’ve taken some steps on the devices I’ve used to try and eliminate the issues I’ve run into but haven’t had much luck.)

Three years in live sound and line array keeps coming up for outdoor events. I get the physics. What I want is an honest answer on where the financial break-even actually is vs a properly tuned PA because the cost jump is steep and I want use cases not marketing

Running djay Pro and trying to figure out what to upgrade to. Basic stuff works but I want something that maps properly and takes advantage of the software features without feeling like a workaround. What are people using with djay that feels genuinely native

Hello

for small weddings around 30-40 people
i use QSC CP8 weight around 23lbs and i am searching for something little bit lighter is there anything good outthere ?

i have one fav EV Everse 8 but maybe you can recommend me something other

greets

Hello, I saw someone post something similar about this on here a couple days ago. I'm looking for someone who is able to mix my spotify playlist for me like a real dj instead of just shuffling songs. I started it myself and realised I have no idea what I'm doing or how long it would take me. Will pay, not looking for free work. I would need it by this saturday for my wedding. If you are able to help out please PM me. Thanks

Fair cop on the numbers — a few of you called it out. Honest correction: the longest list a couple has ever sent me is 80 songs, not 200–300. Still a lost evening matching those by hand, which is the actual point of the post.

Curious how other working mobile/wedding DJs handle this, because it was driving me insane.

Every week, I get clients sending a 200–300 song Spotify playlist a few days before a wedding. I'd spend hours manually digging through my external SSD, making crates, and figuring out what tracks I actually owned versus what I needed to hunt down on record pools. Tuesday nights turned into pure admin dread.

Since I have a background in development, I finally got fed up and coded a desktop utility for myself to automate it. It takes a plain text/CSV playlist (I usually convert the Spotify URL via TuneMyMusic), scans my external SSD, and automatically builds a Serato .crate or VirtualDJ .m3u right where it needs to go.

Even better, it spits out an HTML report of the tracks I’m missing so I can just batch-download them from my pool instead of searching one by one.

I’ve been using it for my own gigs the last few weeks, and it's shaved hours off my prep time. If any other mobile/wedding DJs deal with this same bottleneck and want to check out how it works, let me know in the comments, and I can drop the info (don't want to spam links here).

How are you guys currently tackling client playlist imports without losing your minds?

Are any of you finding that those booking you are using "YouTube only" songs that aren't commercially available? Even with a YouTube subscription, I find myself putting extra effort into those tracks, so they don't sound like complete garbage when replayed on my setup.

Licensing issues aside, the time and effort required to do this often seems to go unappreciated.

Since Youtube Premium has the ability to download some stuff, is the audio quality on them good enough to use for sets?

Playing out on a DDJ-SX3 and it handles everything I throw at it. Keep seeing people treat controllers like theyre a step below real gear but for my gigs the SX3 is more than enough. When does standalone actually make sense and when is it just gear obsession

Hello! I am getting sick and tired of how long it takes me to set up, get wired up, wire down, and tear down. I KNOW there has to be a better way. Photo for reference (tiny space, could not space out speakers). I am mostly struggling with cable management under the booth, and the sheer amount of time it is taking me each gig to unfurl all of my cables, plug everything in, etc.

Here is my current setup:
I have a power wheel under my booth with two branches (left and right). On each branch, I have long power cables running to A) the wash light, B) the top speaker, and C) the sub. I also have the 1/4 cable running from the sub to the mixer on the shelf of my booth. So, I essentially have 4 cables running on each side held down by black gaffer tape.

On the booth shelf are my mixer and controller, both plugged into a power strip behind the booth. The microphone is going to the same power strip.

My power cables are all pretty long (ranging between 10 and 20 feet to accommodate for different setups, but they all just sit under my booth (out of sight, but still a mess for me)

I don't know how to make this more efficient. The booth folds up into a bag, so I don't see how I can do anything permanent.

In my head, it would be amazing to just run one power cable and one 1/4 cable on the left and right, but I can't figure out how I would when the wash light, speaker and sub all need power.

Just wondering if it just is what it is, or if I am missing something useful and obvious.

Thanks in advance.

I’m having a post-elopement celebration this Saturday and really don’t have the time to put together all of the music myself.

Basically I’m looking for someone to help finalize a playlist I’ve started, organize it so the songs flow well, and use Spotify’s DJ/crossfade/transition features (or whatever works best) to make it feel a little more like someone is actually DJing rather than just playing a giant playlist on shuffle.

figured I’d throw it out there in case anyone does this kind of thing or would be interested. Definitely looking to pay someone for their time, not asking for free help.

PM me if you’re interested and I can send more details! Also let me know if there’s a better sub for this.