Becoming a successful DJ with your own mobile disco depends on one very important thing to begin with.....a love of music.
All kinds of music too, as your work will be as diverse as a wedding reception one week to an 18th birthday party the next. There is no substitute for enthusiasm in any career, so just providing a mobile disco service purely for money is ultimately doomed as you won’t enjoy it and that transmits to your audience.
So....you’ve probably helped out a mate with his mobile disco and now want to give it a shot yourself. You’ll need a decent kit then and with the massive array of mobile disco equipment available, you are very spoilt for choice. My advice is to go down the MP3/CD route from the start – vinyl does look very funky but the music available is extremely limited (and expensive). Avoid using a laptop for MP3s by purchasing a specialist twin-deck MP3 player, purpose-built for DJing on the road. Try to buy the best mixer you can afford as this makes all the difference to your overall sound quality, as does a decent amplifier. A good benchmark for mobile disco set-ups is to have at least 300w of speaker power per channel. Select your speakers carefully... plastic ABS speakers are lightweight and easy to carry but don’t produce great bass. Wooden cabinets are heavier and generally larger, but their overall sound quality is usually better.
Moving on to mobile disco lighting effects, there are literally thousands to choose from. The new fashion is for LED lighting, which has incredibly low power consumption and you can effectively run your entire mobile disco rig from one 13amp plug using these! Always test them out in a shop – buying ‘blind’ on the internet can leave you disappointed with the overall effect. Finally, invest in some good solid metal stands for your speakers and a ‘goalpost’ stand for your mobile disco rig and lighting.
And the rough cost of a half-decent mobile disco rig? Around £1500 would give you a very respectable sound and light show. When you can earn as much as £500 per night, that seems such a wise investment for your mobile disco!
By Ian Scott - Mobile Disco Essex