Tips for surprise performances, announcements and guests at your event

Welcome to Party Notes. Insights into planning weddings and events. I'm your host, Scott Hornack, co-founder of Craig Scott Entertainment. With over 40 years of experience, I'm going to take you behind the scenes in the business of weddings and parties. We'll talk with venue owners, general managers, event planners, photographers, chefs, flowers, and even some of our own clients to give you everybody's perspective on planning events. So sit back, relax, and take comfort in knowing that you're not alone and one step closer to turning your vision into a reality. Welcome back to Party Notes. So I'm here again today with my co-host, friend and saxophonist with the Craig Scott Band, Mr. Matt Townsend. Hello listeners. Before we even get started today, how about that interview with Christine? Yeah, she's got a ton of energy. She's super passionate. And for me, the message that just kept raw thing to the top of the conversation was how important it is to build relationships with the people you're working with and to make it a long-term play. Yeah, absolutely. And you want that event planner to know everybody that's going to be there. So let's say you're a bride and groom and you hire an event planner to really steer you in the direction of entertainment, photography, venue, you're looking for a full service event planner. You want that person to know everybody and be able to kind of narrow down your choices so you're not going to hear somebody or see a venue that's not even what you're looking for in a venue. This person will know exactly what they're doing and also is going to save you time and energy and peace of mind too. Yeah, she put it a project manager. Yeah, really what that role is. Absolutely. So you can't do any build out of anything without having a good project manager. Yeah. And just hearing her stories and how she started and starting in TV. And so I also want to give another shout out to Christine. If you want to contact her, her website is CBC events. That's creations by Christine CBC events dot com. You can go on there, email her. It'll also have all of her information for her social media, Facebook, Instagram. She's a wealth of information. Anybody looking to get into event planning to? She'd be a great resource for you as well. Today, we're going to talk about surprise performances or surprise announcements, surprise guests, things that they're just trying to add something to the wedding without you knowing it as the bride and groom. What I really am not fond of with this is that it's your wedding. You're spending a lot of time, a lot of money and probably the most important day in your life. And a day you've thought about every single minute for potentially years. So here's the day of your dreams. Everything's going great. And suddenly some cousin is singing, fly me to the moon with the band or with a track with the DJ, but he can't sing. Why hasn't always fly me to the moon, too? It's one of those songs that they always call or try to grab the microphone away from the singers to do. I can sing. Yeah, they just need this song. Okay, here we go. You know, in the old days, when we were first getting started, we would fall for that and let people just sing in because you're thinking it's going to be fun. And there's no way anybody would want to sing that can't sing. And then you find out that some people really do think they can sing or think that they can add a lot to the song. It's really not. And you're really ruining a moment for people. So generally what we do here at Craig Scott in the planning process, we ask, is there anybody that you know in your family that would sing with the band that can sing? Are they a musician? Did they play guitar? Did they play keyboards? Did they play drums? Just so we have a heads up ahead of time. And don't get me wrong. I think when there's somebody in the family or a good friend that is a musician or is a singer, it helps personalize your wedding and make sure your wedding stand out. It's putting your fingerprint on that day and it's a wow moment when they really are musicians or say they were touring with some Broadway show. And now they're at your wedding. Take advantage of that. You have such a special treat. And especially if the musician is a guitarist or a sax player or even a trumpet player, we need to make provisions ahead of time with that person. So they bring their guitar because very often a guitarist does not want somebody else playing their guitar. And Matt, I'm sure you don't want anybody playing your sax. No, I certainly don't. Especially with how fragile the instruments are. And let's also just address the fact that it's a huge liability if it's not thought about ahead of time. That's a big one. Oh, absolutely. And I think you lose or people that don't understand instruments the cost of the instruments that we're playing. These are not student model instruments. And this is our livelihood. Now, somebody gets up. They sing, fly me to the moon. They can sing. Great. It's very difficult from the band's point of view or the DJ's point of view now to get that person off. And Matt, as we've said, why is it that they always want to just hold on to that mic and just either not end the song or go into another song that you just can't end it? The challenge then is the dance floor has been cleared. And now you lost that whole momentum. And now the talk among everybody is, wow, that was awful. That's embarrassing. So it's embarrassing. Maybe that person that's saying that couldn't sing doesn't think that they embarrassed themselves where all of your guests know that they did embarrass themselves. But the worst part is it tarnishes your wedding. And a lot of times we might think that it's, hey, this should be done during a dance set because it's an uptempo song or a dance will type song. But sometimes people want to perform for the bride and groom. And if we have a little bit of a heads up from a band's perspective or entertainment's perspective, we can plan the right time in the timeline to actually have them do that. One of the things that I know worked for my wedding in particular was we had special performances done during the dinner set when people would not specifically be looking to dance the whole time, but they could actually eat dinner and sit and listen to a performance that was and that was all the attention on it. And it was special. So pick the times by discussing it ahead of time. Like you said, you know, versus just, hey, I brought my guitar. I'm going to sit in with you guys. Right, right, right. And again, it's keeping that flow. And once you get a dance set going, you don't want to stop that dance set. And we've probably talked about it in just about every podcast that timing is everything and flow is so important. When you have everybody on the dance floor, you want to keep them on the dance floor. If you do something like this and stop, have somebody then come up saying that can't sing, it's not good. The dance floor is from a band's perspective. It's the cardinal rule for us in terms of whether or not things are actually going right. If the band is doing their thing and the crowd is packing a dance floor, it is so much friction for us to want to stop that. So you can do your special song at that time or sit in because you think I want to play the guitar for the don't stop believing guitar solo. Well, if you don't know ahead of time, we're not just going to hand over the guitar for you to play that guitar solo. Right, right. So yeah, and the dance floor, that's our energy share. That is our bond. That is our connection with the crowd. We want everybody there and we want to keep them there. So stopping it builds friction. Correct. And instead working with the bride and groom ahead of time, knowing that your cousin plays guitar, your cousin plays the drums, your and or your uncle sings, we can time things out. And again, timing and planning is everything. And we want that day to really go smooth and you want it to go smooth. It's such an important day in your life that we just want everything to go well. Now, another thing is we've had a groom sit in on drums. I thought that was brilliant because he came on after dinner and we did two rock songs, I think it was, but then took that right into a dance set. So his performance got everybody up in front of the band. They're taking pictures. They're cheering them on. And then I forgot the song we went into right after his two songs. Boom, it created a great vibe. He had a great time. Everybody had a great time. And I'm sure they're still talking about that. That was a ton of fun. It's really a cool experience, especially when it's the person who's getting married. I think maybe there's a little bit more leverage there too. And in terms of if the bride and groom are musicians themselves, they know that they're going to want to discuss it in ahead of time. At least we hope they will. And that's why we're talking about this. But one of the questions that I have for you, Scott, is let's say you're on the call with these clients, you know, you mentioned to them or you have an idea for something that they really like, and you have a specialty idea or a special pop up type performance. It comes to your mind. I mean, I've seen a violinist that came in just for a specific song. You've done stuff with the Jersey boys. What part of that planning process do you also say, hey, maybe I can surprise them with this. And how is that not going to disrupt the dance floor? You know what? I really loved this one we did a couple of weeks ago. So the bride was talking to me. And this is, it's probably about four months before the wedding or six months before the wedding. I asked if the band could do the devil went down to Georgia, the Charlie Daniels band song. I said, absolutely, the band can do that. In fact, it's one of my favorite songs. I love that. And it had really special meaning to the bride. It was her father's favorite song. And unfortunately, her dad had passed away. So she wanted to really kind of give some tribute to her dad. So I said, I think it would be amazing if we just have a fiddle player come in right when we do that song. Just the one song he comes in, it's going to make I'm getting goosebumps right now. We've been talking about it because I love this. Man, that violin is coming in for the one song. He's out on the dance floor playing that fiddle part to devil went down to Georgia. It just created such a great atmosphere. But again, this was planned ahead of time. That's right. And when we did it, I believe it was right before the cake cutting. And the great thing was too is that the band was playing. They were playing music before. And then I don't remember the song before. But then you heard, and remember, I don't sing that. So that was pretty good. But suddenly you're hearing the fiddle and out he is on the dance floor. People went crazy. It was so cool. It was so fun. You planned it out ahead of time, but it made it look like it was just, I don't know where the guy just comes. It was rehearsed. We made it seem like it was just, I don't know where. Yeah, you know, he went out there. He had to make sure he had his microphone was connected to the sound engineer's stuff. It had to be all set up ahead of time. And when the timing was right, which it was perfect, really the music highlight of the night was that performance. It just everything else built around it too. But that situation, and that's also a great song, because everybody was dancing to it. But that is a good case where planning ahead worked the advantage versus the random family member that comes up and says, I brought my fiddle to sit in on this song tonight because I'm a good musician. Right. Right. Just a little bit of planning ahead for the people listening in that part of the decision of choosing life entertainment that should be brought up in the conversation with the people that you're hiring. If that's a possibility, that should be a very, very important note in there. This is something special. Can you work with me? And also that's a good way to feel out the group or the company that you're trying to hire. If they're open to trying that or if there's a flat out no resistance there as well. So things to keep in mind. Yeah. I really, I do love the pop-up shows that element of surprise where usually during dinner I'll do something and like what you say with the Jersey boys or I brought bring in Broadway or Sinatra or something like that, that element of surprise there. But that's also choreographed with the bride and groom. They know all about it. And it's not just a surprise to them. It's a surprise for the guest. And that's the big difference. Also for grooms that belong to fraternities and brides that belong to sororities. Very often there is different songs and different things that they have. Let the band or DJ know ahead of time if you're gonna do anything like that. Because again, you don't want just somebody from your sorority coming up and just start singing this song or this song or a frat guy. I mean, this could be a real awkward situation depending upon what the song is. And again, you're out of wedding. People have had a couple of cocktails. They're a little more free spirited then. That's one way of putting it. You don't know where this is gonna go. Here we go with piano man again. Everybody sing along to piano man. Love piano man. I love the song. But it's just funny. Just start kicking up at that at the end of the night or in the middle of everything. It's just like hang on a second here. We also want to play a sad of music. Yeah. But if you let us know ahead of time, it's great. V for Villanova, the Notre Dame March or the Michigan song is also pretty cool. But you know ahead of time, we can time that in. And if we time it in as opposed to just randomly, somebody just starts doing it, you're gonna see the difference in your party because it'll help take that party to the next level. And you're gonna hear it where it's gonna really maximize the benefit of doing that song and getting everybody a part of it. If we know ahead of time, they can meet with the band during the cocktail hour to run the song a little bit if they wanted to. Right. That's key too. Yeah. Get a little sound check potentially on the instrument that you brought. So that's a good time to do that. When would you come up? You want to sing a song specifically with us that's been planned ahead of time, that no ahead of time by discussing it. Come up in that cocktail hour when everybody else is out of their party and we're sound checking. That's the time to do it. Yeah. And also keep in mind if it's a singer or if it's a sax player or yes, even the guitars, we organize that ahead of time and we'd like to speak to them or your DJ should speak to them as well to make sure it's the right key. If you have somebody that sings, it's gonna sing to tracks as the DJ to send the track that they have or your friend that's a singer, send the track to the DJ. Yeah. So it's already prepared. And then here's a key point too. If you're anticipating them just singing one song, have a second song as a backup because if people are going crazy and loving it was amazing and they want to hear one more song, then it gets awkward. And then there's that little pause like what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Have the backup song because then you could do it then. But again, it really hurts. Make sure the band knows it. Yeah. Exactly. Not. Hey, do you guys know this? Do you know this? What key do you do it in? Yeah. For those of you that aren't musically inclined, the key is a big factor for a singer. If the band starts playing a song that you want to sing, that's in a different key. It could either be too high or too low for you and make you sound horrible, even if you're an experiencing a 12 options. Yeah. That's how many keys there are. So that's exactly it. Couple of closing thoughts here for people that are thinking about any sort of pop-ups or sitting in with bands at weddings. Yeah. Planning, planning, planning and proper communication with your vendor. Make sure you express these things with them. If they don't ask you ask them, is it okay if I have somebody sitting with the band or under no circumstances let anybody sit in with the band tonight? Please, no speeches other than what we have and go through that with your band leader or with your DJ. And planning the right way, this can be really special. You don't want it to be this thing that's just kind of hanging out there. We can make it really great. Just have to plan ahead. That's all. Exactly. And then it relieves the stress the day of, in our case, if somebody comes up to us throughout the night and says, the father of the bride always sings this song and people love it. You should call them up to sing. We're going to go up and check. And that's the thing. We never make an announcement unless we know for a fact that this is true. So make sure that your DJ, your band, whoever you're using really confirms that with you. Yeah. And if possible, if you have the option, make it upbeat and fun. Yeah. Try not to make anything too crazy complicated. Yeah. Don't make it a sad song. Everybody wants to have a good time. You don't want to bring the whole party down. You got it. Okay. Let's move on to one of our party review segments here. One of my favorite parts of the show. God, is there something recent that we can read to our listeners about one of our groups? Yeah. Sure, Matt. We have one that came in for city heat. And this one reads, one of the best decisions we made when planning our wedding was having city heat as our wedding band. They were absolutely incredible and brought amazing energy to the event. All of the members were so professional and wonderful to work with. They really know how to put on a fantastic show and keep all the guests partying on the dance floor. We had so many guests come up to us during and after the wedding, asking us where we found our wedding band. I'm so incredibly grateful to them for being a part of one of the best days of our lives. We all had so much fun dancing and singing all night long. I highly recommend Craig's got entertainment and city heat for your wedding best band ever. It's awesome. And I got to be honest, they have some of the most soulful vocals. There were some of my favorites. Yeah. And you know what's really great about that. They sing with so much soul, but yet they're so young. It's a young band, but their energy and their soulfulness just projects. And I think that's what makes them so popular. And thank you everybody for listening. And for your attention, see you later. Thank you for listening to party notes today. For more information about us, please visit craigscott.com. If you enjoyed today's topics and found it informative, please help us grow by leaving a review on Apple podcasts and share the show with someone planning a wedding or party. For questions or topics you would like us to discuss, send us an email to [email protected]. Thanks again for listening. I'm Scott Hornack and I hope to see you on the dance floor.