When there are so many great bands and live musicians to choose from, it can often be a daunting prospect even knowing where to start. In part 2 of our guide to finding the perfect musical entertainment for your big day, we take a closer look at what you should do to help narrow your search down.
Firstly, if you like the sound of one of our acts on showbott.com, then get in touch right away to check on their availability. There’s no point getting your heart set on someone who isn’t free to play at your event – so send as many enquiries as you like and help eliminate those that aren’t available. If you haven’t set a date or sorted a venue yet, don’t worry…give us a rough idea of what you’re thinking and we can check the artist’s diary to see how busy they are in any given month.
Remember, dancing is the priority at any Wedding – so providing you listen to a band’s demos and think you could dance to them, you should be on to a winner – irrelevant of whether the band includes acoustic guitars, a brass sections, male or female singer or a kazoo. The difficulty comes when choosing a band that purely satisfies your taste, and a band that satisfies the Grandparents and other members of the guest list. That’s a tough one to crack, but you can’t go far wrong by booking a band who perform a good even spread of older tunes mixed with current pop/rock hits.
In terms of the set list, don’t be afraid to be picky once you’ve booked your band – so make sure you specify which tunes you do and don’t like from their repertoire. It’s your big day and you need to be happy with the song choices. Most bands can play a set list far bigger than you’ll ever need at your Wedding reception, so there is the potential to ‘trim the fat’ and lose any songs or styles you don’t like. A band could offer everything from the likes of Britney Spears to Rage Against The Machine in their set list (and many do) – so cut out the stuff you don’t want and make sure you specify which songs are essential to hear during the evening.
Most bands are also happy to learn new tunes providing they are given enough notice – so if you love a new Ed Sheeran track or have to have something by James Bay, then request that the band learn it for your wedding! Normally 2 to 4 weeks is a sufficient amount of time to let the band know what you’d like them to learn.
All the bands with Showbott Entertainment offer a free laptop DJ service (and some include full DJ service as standard). As with the songs that the band play, you can be as picky as you like about the laptop DJ set – so if it’s 90’s classics you want for example, that’s what you’ll get! This takes the hassle out of you creating your own playlists or taking your own equipment. Sometimes, couples request song choices from their guests before the big day – 100 guests suggesting a song each is a decent playlist to choose from!
Finally, make sure you listen to the demos and watch the videos of the band on the best quality device you can. Listening through the tiny speaker of your mobile phone is not usually the best way to get a true sense of the artist you’re interested in and things can sound vastly different when played on a better quality device. Try listening on a laptop, using an auxiliary cable from your phone to a stereo system or watch our videos on your Smart TV. This will give you a much better indication that you’ve made the right choice when looking to hire live entertainment for your wedding.
If you have any more queries, why not check out our Frequently Asked Questions page or drop us an email to info@showbott.com.
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