I've had this happen twice in my life. Once when one of the bar staff automatically brought me a beer as I showed up to start the night in the disco on board The Sundream during my cruise ship days. I always started the nights of with one song and went a grabbed a beer but the staff in there loved me and soon there was no need for me to leave the booth once they noticed I had arrived. I had just started for the night and just playing some light warm up stuff as the room transitioned from a piano bar into the night club, when my back was towards the equipment as I searched for the next track to play and what CD it was on. Gotta love technology, Shift F in Serato DJ to get into the search field and just type away. I remember the song playing, "Patsy Cline - Crazy". Anyway, just as I have the CD in my hand and I'm turning around i see one of the bar staff releasing his hand from my nice cold beer as he placed it gently beside the mixer and duel deck CD controller which were mounted flush with the booth top. All would have been great but he placed it on one of the screws holding the equipment in place and it was all sort of like a slow motion movement as I turned to face one of my worst fears. Nooooooooooo! It took a matter of seconds for the decks to be affected my my lovely drink and I'll never forget the loop at first..."crazy, crazy for bei...crazy, crazy for bei...crazy", crazy it was. The booth was out of commission for the rest of the week while i used back up equipment set up on the piano until we could get all new gear when we docked back in Southampton. Not really that big of deal with only maybe 30 people in the room at the time, glad it wasn't later in the night.
A similar thing happening to superstar DJ/Producer Dillon Francis.
CAUTION! Explicit language.
The 2nd time and hopefully the last was probably saved a little by the first time happening. It was three years later in 2005 and I was happy to be back on land and once again residence in the top club in my small town on the best night that happened in Peterbough, The Junction Entertainment Complex. The booth there now has a Plexiglas window about 7 inches tall all the way around the edge of it where everybody used to place their drinks while shaking everything they had in front of me. I always use to govern it as much as I could but even having a drink off to the side is trouble, well it was on this night. I would take live requests and to get to me you would have to step up three steps at this booth which was great because it brought me up above the crowd so I could see the whole room. It was around midnight on a Saturday night and the place was bumpin' with no signs of slowing down and I hadn't even got into the good stuff yet when there's a girl waiting to ask me for a request. Nothing wrong with that, all good, except for the fact that there is a drink on the top of the ledge that goes around the booth. People would rest their arms on it while making a request or just trying their best to get me to play their favourite song which had already been played or it was a massive track at the time and would be played later on in the night anyway. This was a mainstream club. So, the girl waiting to talk to me can see the drink sitting there and it's no problem, but then another girl runs up all excited, bumps into the first girl whose hand goes flying into the pint and in turn sending it straight into the channels of the main establishments mixing board. Oh yes, not even just a $1000 DJ mixer but a beautiful 16 channel I think it was "Soundcraft" studio quality mixing board that routed sound not only through the clubs main room but also into the adjacent room where people just hang out, downstairs into the pool hall and also into the pub next to that, this was a big deal! Because of the ship ordeal, I instantly powered everything down simultaneously putting a packed club of 900 people on a Saturday night and just as we're about to ramp things up into complete silence with nothing to do but cry. lol! Luckily most people stuck around while one of the smart thinking staff "Mark" brought a shop vac to the booth as we both proceeded to take the strips out of the mixer one by one, suck them dry and replace them. With fingers crossed we turned it all back on and within 45 minutes from the request, we were back. Now that was a scary one.
Don't think it can't happen to you! It doesn't necessarily happen because of your own doing as I've proved in my two stories here. I still get terrible flashbacks and have to tell the stories to someone almost every weekend when people come up wanting to cheers me or something with their drink held proudly out as I have to redirect them from doing what they are about to do over top of my laptop.
The only way to be safe is to keep your drink low and away from where it can be accidentally knocked over by somebody that won't even know they've done it after it happens. The other way is to not have a drink at all.
I feel for you Dillon Francis!
Marc Ainsworth provides professional DJ & Karaoke services in Toronto and surrounding areas for music loving people who want awesome parties, incorporating their eclectic requests and without having a cheesy emcee. Wedding DJs Toronto can make your next event a spectacular success!