Gravitas

January was a great month.  Looking at the calendar for 2007 January was quite slow and uneventful.  2008 was a completely different story.  We had one wedding which I have written about previously and we also had 4 Post-Holiday Parties, and 2 Sweet 16 Parties.  In addition to the events we perfomred at we also did quite a bit of equipment testing and held an open house for individuals looking to join the Fingerlakes Entertainment team this year.  January 2008 has been fun, profitable, busy and rewarding!

The first event of the month was the Post Holiday Party for the Esperanza Mansion on January 4.  The event was held at the Penn Yan Moose Lodge and was a really fun night.  Dinner of beef or chicken was served and I had the chicken and Jason the steak.  Good food!  We played fun classic rock and country for the cocktail hour at the bar and then put on some alternative grooves for dinner.  Dancing was a riot and the group had a great time.... and I'll leave it at that! lol

The second event was the Post Holiday Party for Aramark on January 5th on the campus of the U of R.  I've broken that down in a previous post as well.

On the 14th I entertained the Aurora Inn Staff for their Post-Holiday Party.  What a fun group!  Lauren, the Marketing and Sales director is one of my favorite people in the business and I had so much fun with them.  She made me get out there and dance with the group and that was a lot of fun.  They had the party at the Fargo which is a nice tavern located across the road from the Inn and is owned by the same group, which I believe is associated with Wells College.  It was funny because I played alternative and covers for the earlier part of the night and then classic party songs and requests for most of the remainder of the night.  I was scheduled to play until 11PM and at 11PM Lauren said I could stay longer and play if I wanted.  Heck yeah!  The last hour was nothing but new and old skool hip hop and was so much fun.  Great night!

On January 19th We performed at Lori's Secret Garden in Palmyra for Information Packaging's Post Holiday Party.  This party was originall scheduled for December 29 but due to an issue with a different venue they rescheduled.  Good for us!  Interesting setup for a small room.  We set our lights and speakers up in the corner on the dance floor and put or table and setup and another speaker on the stage on the other side of the room.  We ran everything wireless and it sounded great and worked the same.  Not a big dancing crowd but we received many compliments from them and they said it was the best time they'd had and we're looking forward to entertaining them again next year.  We played a game with them after dinner and received a ton of great feedback about it.  Thank you to Jason for coming up with a great game that went over huge!

Jason had two Sweet 16 Parties which I'll try to persuade him to talk about soon.

In between and after events we have been camped out up at Esperanza Mansion.  The Mansion is closed for the month of January (kind of) and we were able to set our systems up and test them and take some pictures and video which should be up on the website soon.  We got to hang out with Captain Bart (my name for him) who is the Boat Captain for the Esperanza Rose which is a dinner and cruise boat owned by Esperanza Mansion.  We made a nice connection with him and enjoyed learning about the Mansions history and hauntings and all about the Esperanza Rose.  I don't believe in that stuff but there were times late at night where I felt like we weren't alone!  Shivers up the spine and all!  I wanted to thank Kathy and Heidi for letting us use the room and we look forward working with them quite often this summer.

On the 24th I provided equipment rental for Rural Opportunities Inc for their wine tasting dinner at Esperanza Mansion.  Very simple, and we set up a microphone and PA system.

 Our February is pretty light and I'm still contemplating flying to Las Vegas for the Mobile Beat Convention.  Mobile Beat is a Industry leading DJ Magazine and they promote conferences for DJ's throughout the year.  They have another convention in July in Chicago that would be more feasible to attend as I will be finished with school.  If I can go I'd like to take in the seminars on marketing and to find out what other entertainers around the country and world are doing to provide their customers with the best and newest ideas in entertainment.

I will be adding some pictures to this entry shortly and I'm sorry its the first week of February before it was posted.

Posted by boolanger at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a thought about our wedding this last weekend.  James and Bethany were a great deal of fun.  Bethany was all about Disney and the "princess" type wedding.  Candles, a monogrammed runner over the venues beutiful white runner, all sorts of interesting things like that.

 From my understanding she and her mother put the decorations together with the help of Carmen at  Belhurst.  They did a phenomanal job!  The appearance of the room rivaled that of a few of the events where we've worked with dedicated wedding planners. 

 One of the other fun things I got to do, and this is a secret to them so far.... I recorded the ceremony and reception audio which I will be putting together in a nice presentation and giving them as a gift for their keeping and enjoyment.  The pastor and his wife performed a duet which I've produced and will be giving them as a single as well.

 The technology at our disposal these days is unbelievable and makes life so much easier.  If you haven't done so already I encourage you to watch the video link in the previous entry.  The wireless capabilities we have now are awesome and the digital cababilities for grand entrances intros, video montages, etc... are, well I can't even begin to describe where my mind goes with this tech.

 Rather than bore you with my ramblings about the options we can provide email me. lol

Posted by boolanger at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last weekend was absolutely nuts!  I had 3 events in 4 days and I'm finally rested and ready to go this weekend.  On Friday DJ Brew and I enertained for a post holiday party for Aramark Employees at the University of Rochester.

My brother in law is the Food Services Director there and we used his contact to land the gig.  He is an amazing chef and the food at the event was some of the best fare we were priveledged to in a while and we are at quite a few very nice venues on a weekly basis.  Chicken Parm, and Grilled Steak and Garlic Smashed Potatoes were fantastic.

The event was a lot of fun and we met some really great people.  The highlight of the evening was watching some of the guests teaching their manager Rita how to do the Soulja Boy dance.  I'm still laughing at that one.

Saturday had me at Belhust Castle for a wedding ceremony and reception and Jason in Dundee for a young man's 16th birthday party.  The wedding was for Bethany and James and they were a fun couple to work with.  The crowd was country and rock and roll but we had them out their dancing to all sorts of fun stuff.  The ceremony was beautiful and they had well over 150 candles througout the Meritage room during the event.  We ran our main dancefloor speakers and ligts wirelessly which was a leap of faith and they worked flawlessly and saved me over an hour of running cables and having to hide them.

 Monday had me at the Fargo Tavern in Aurora NY entertaining the staff of the Aurora Inn for their post holiday party.  Lauren, and Heather are two of my favorite people in the wedding business and I always enjoy working with them for weddings at the Aurora Inn.  The event was a blast!  I was to play from 7-11pm and when we went to wrap up we still had a packed dance floor.  I ended up playing until Midnight and finally had to kick them out. lol  Old meets new Skewl hip hop dominated the last hour with the last song of the night being Biz Markee-You Got What I Need.  Awesome time! 

 This week has Jason and I at Lauries Secret Garden in Palmyra NY for another post holiday party for Information Packaging Inc. out of Macedon.  This will be our first time with this group and we look forward to entertaining them and having a grea time.

 After this weekend things calm down for a few weeks, or so it looks.  I will be trainging some new assistants and dj's for this year and we have a Valentines Weekend event at Bristol Harbour whcih is being advertised on the radio and print currently. 

Posted by boolanger at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)