At a time when raising your arms and prioritising the spectacle has become fashionable, the figure of the DJ doing the warm-up is more essential than ever.
In our field, doing a warm-up means heating up the floor and preparing the ground so that the guest artist or the headliner of the festival can deliver their performance at the night’s peak. A poorly executed warm-up can completely undo the timing and the overall experience of the event.
At EUMES we don’t believe there is a secret formula or fixed rules that always work, but there are key tips that help a lot when you have to take on this role.
Research
Before you play, get well informed about:
- The main artist you are warming up for
- The venue or festival
- The regular crowd that attends this type of event
Adjusting the session to this context is essential for the Warm Up to work.
Psychoanalyse the floor
The floor is your objective. If the promoter has done their job well, there will be movement, but energy doesn’t appear on its own. You have to constantly read what’s happening, how people respond and what activation level the audience is at.
Don’t despair
Beginnings are never easy, and this also happens in a Warm Up. People need time to get into the mood. Your task is to build progressively, and that requires patience. Don’t rush processes that aren’t ready yet.
Be organised
Just like in music production, order is key for a DJ. Keep your music well organised into playlists, so you always know where to find the tracks you need for each moment of the set.
Avoid the hits
A key point: don’t play the current hits, and especially not the headliner’s tracks. There are many ways to make people dance without burning your options. The warm-up is also a space to showcase your taste and skill as a DJ.
Play with builds and drops
Make people dance, but don’t take them to 100% commitment, nor let them drop. The warm-up is a constant balance between activating and containing, leaving room for the climax to arrive when it should.
Mind the ending
Don’t close with the track of the moment. The audience should be eager for the artist change, not feel that the night has already reached its peak.
These are EUMES’s tips to help you do a good Warm Up. And remember: if you’re doing a Warm Up, do it as best as possible. As Laurent Garnier says, being a DJ is not just about turning up and going wild, but about understanding the context, the moment and the dancefloor.
If you want to learn how to do Warm Ups with judgement, read the floor, build coherent sets and understand the real role of the DJ within a club or festival, in the EUMES DJ Course we work on these skills in a practical way, with technical, musical training focused on professional reality.
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