On this page we have created a collection of the top 50 questions that we most commonly are asked by potential clients. Chances are that any questions you may have during the booking process are here. If one of your questions is not answered here, feel free to contact us and ask! In our opinion, no question is a stupid question!
Included with the cost of your event are all necessary items to perform basic DJ services. These include, but are not limited to: two staff members, two speakers, one mixer, one equalizer, one turntable controller, three laptops, three wireless microphones, one microphone stand, and all required accessories such as tape and zip ties. Setup, takedown, and travel are also included in all of our pricing. There are no “hidden fees” and the only things we require are a table, two chairs, and electricity. We can provide a table and chairs for an additional cost if you need us to though. Emceeing is included in all costs as well.
We offer FULL liability and umbrella insurance coverage for every event – over $5M in coverage. Not only are our own employees and equipment protected, but your guests and the venue are too! Most DJs do not have insurance coverage, so be sure to make the right decision when hiring and ask to see proof of insurance.
Because we employ more than five full-time employees, the state of Virginia also requires us to have workers compensation and commercial vehicle liability. Please note that if your venue requires a certificate of insurance, we will have our insurance agent provide a special additional insured certificate for the venue. This is not a problem and is free, we just need to know prior to the event.
Another reason we have two DJs at every event is so that we do not need to take breaks and stop our services. Even though we have two DJs on-site, they are not permitted to take any breaks other than using the restroom or eating (one 15 minute dinner break is allowed). We prohibit our employees from leaving our equipment alone at any point during the wedding, so even dinner breaks will be taken separately to avoid any disruptions in music or DJ services.
Yes, we always keep duplicates in our vehicle for every piece of equipment that we need to perform, including additional speakers (most DJs only own one set of speakers and cannot provide this same level of redundancy).
The only things we require are a table, two chairs, and electricity. We can provide a table and chairs for an additional cost if you need us to though, and a generator is also available for an extra cost.
Yes, and we actually encourage you to. We always like knowing what songs our clients specifically do not want to hear so that we do not make a mistake and accidentally play one of those songs.
We arrive between two hours and four hours in advance depending on what kind of setup is involved. Most weddings only require two hours for setup though.
We require a 50% down payment to fully book and secure your date. The remaining 50% is to be paid upon completion of our services at the very end of the wedding.
After an initial consultation, we can pencil you in for a complimentary and risk-free hold on our calendar for ten days. Upon informing us that you would like to proceed, we offer a seven-day window where we will hold your date. We must receive your 50% down payment and a signed copy of the contract within this seven-day timeframe, otherwise your date is made available to other potential clients. If you are unable to provide the two items within seven days, then we will happily still accept your booking assuming the date has not been taken by another client. If another client inquiries about the same date, we will obviously inform you.
100% of our music library is considered clean according to FCC standards, so basically that means that our entire library could be legally played on AM/FM radio. That being said, many people may feel that these standards are too relaxed. If requested, we can tone it back either a little or a lot, depending on your specific preferences.
Whether or not we take requests from guests is up to you! We commonly take requests and are happy to do so, but some clients would prefer that we do not.
While we don’t require a meal, we strongly prefer it if possible. If you are not able to provide one, this is okay, we just ask that you alert us a few days in advance so that our employees can bring their own meal.
You will be assigned two of our wedding DJs a month before your wedding. Generally speaking we do not pre-assign DJs during the booking process or guarantee any specific DJ due to the fact that employees can fluctuate and plans may change closer towards your wedding. Some of our competitors who guarantee a DJ or let you pick your DJ end up in a tight spot when that DJ leaves the company or requests vacation. We train our DJs exactly the same so that they all have an identical style and offer an identical service across the board.
Certainly! We have no problem meeting you ahead of time! Please note that if you would like to meet with us in person prior to signing a contract, we require that this meeting take place at our office in Fairfax, VA. As much as we would love to travel all throughout the D.C. area for sales consultations, the ratio of the number of inquiries we receive to the number of events we book is low enough that it would not justify our time and gas expenses. Once you have fully booked with us (meaning that we have received a signed contract as well as a 50% down payment) we are happy to meet you in a reasonable location of your choosing (i.e. venue, your home, coffee shop near the venue, etc).
Our company will have anywhere from one to three weddings per day, but these are all separate staff members performing. We have never had the same two staff members perform at two different weddings in a single day as this would be too exhausting.
In the entire time that we have been in business, this has never happened because of the fact that we are a company, have multiple employees, and always someone who is on-call. Yes, we’ve had situations where vehicles broke down or there were medical emergencies at the last minute, but because of our very thorough check-in procedure where our employees check in at multiple steps (i.e. during load out from our warehouse, 30 minutes from the venue, arrival at the venue, setup at the venue, etc), when there have been incidents that pop up, we have always been able to send another team to the event without issue.
We only allow this at events that are open to the public as we feel that it would be a privacy violation for us to have an uninvited guest come to a private event that we were not hosting. Unfortunately, most of the events that we perform at are private events. Please feel free to ask us though if we have any public events coming up!
By default, our male employees will wear black suit pants with a black button up dress shirt and black dress shoes. Our female employees, by default, will wear either black slacks and a black blouse, or a black dress of modest length. If you would like our employees to wear something else, simply let us know and we will be happy to accommodate and include anything from khakis to a tuxedo.
Typically, we will wear the same attire for setup/breakdown as well as the event itself; however, during some outdoor events if it is excessively hot we will wear formal shorts and a t-shirt (without words and plain colored) during just the setup/breakdown portion. If your venue requires that we be in full dress even during setup, we have no problem following this rule.
Yes, all of our events require a written six-page contract to be signed by the client before we will consider your event as being fully booked. The contract confirms details such as the date, venue, services being provided, pricing, etc and also sets forth our terms and conditions.
Yes, our employees work exclusively for Pulse Entertainment as their full-time job. We require this in an exclusivity and non-compete agreement that all employees must sign prior to joining our company.
We have been DJing since 2008 and have performed at almost 2,000 events as a company. Most of our DJs have performed at over 200 events personally.
Our company averages about 250 weddings per year.
It depends on the reception site, but most likely yes if it’s in Northern Virginia! Rest assured that we perform in a different venue almost every weekend and part of being a mobile DJ means that we must be able to adapt to different environments and settings very quickly. This has never been an issue with us as we always have extra equipment for unexpected situations.
We are more on the laid back, but professional side. We would not consider ourselves the typical “cheesy” wedding DJ that goes around with a microphone on the dance floor and does the chicken dance; you will never see any of our employees doing this. Announcements, in our opinion, should be used to inform the crowd about important events as well as provide minimal energy and encouragement.
This is a very difficult question to answer because quite honestly it depends on why the crowd is not dancing in the first place. As much as we would rather not say this, some crowds simply will not dance no matter who the DJ is or what the music is. A common example might be a Friday afternoon outdoor wedding during late July when it is very hot and humid here in the D.C. area. Guests may be uncomfortable in this situation and simply not want to dance.
One of the best ways though to help motivate the crowd is to find a song that they can all connect with – simply playing a line dance isn’t necessarily going to do this, and often we have to read the crowd beyond the more obvious factors such as age. Any factor we find important is playing music that will keep the bride and groom on the dance floor. Guests are more likely to dance if the bride and groom are dancing as well. Unfortunately, there isn’t one simple answer to this question!
This is completely up to you, but typically we would meet once at the venue after booking to go over any questions you may have about setup, and then once about a month before your wedding to coordinate music/playlist/scheduling.
Certainly! We encourage you to speak with our past clients. Simply ask us for our references lists which contains names and phone numbers from past clients who have volunteered to speak on our behalf.
Our music is updated by our staff every other week based on billboard top 200 charts. In the event that a song goes viral in a very short amount of time, we will download it individually for any upcoming event we are performing at.
We want our clients to be involved as much as possible in this process. Preferably we ask that you submit a list of between 15 and 30 of your favorite songs so that we can make sure to play these songs and then focus the music of the night around these songs. Some clients though choose to provide us with an exact list of songs, or ask us to decide the music 100%. We will fully support you in whatever decision you make regarding music selection.
We require all music lists and event details two weeks prior to your wedding. This ensures that we have ample time to prepare and be well versed specifically on your event.
Our overtime rate varies based on the total duration of your contract. Please contact us for more specific information.
Our employees are strictly prohibited from consuming alcohol during any event. In addition, they are prohibited from consuming alcohol less than 6 hours prior to any event, and less than 2 hours after any event. Consuming alcohol during these timeframes is an instant fireable offense that we are not afraid to enforce. As for smoking, almost none of our employees smoke, but the ones that do are allowed no more than 5 minutes of smoking time, per every hour of being on the clock. While smoking they must completely leave the venue property/premises, and they are required to have their cell phone on them in the event that they are urgently needed to return.
We use a variety of varying equipment depending on the event size and timeframe, but our typical setup includes either JBL or QSC speakers as well as three MacBook Pros and a Pioneer mixer/turntable controller.
Yes, by default we bring three wireless Shure SM58 microphones. Shure SM58s are an industry standard.
Yes! Click here to read more.
Almost none of our lighting packages require any special type of electricity. There are a few rare instances where we may need something out of the ordinary, but we would alert you during the sales process if that was the case. Typically, we just ask for a dedicated standard 20-amp circuit which most venues already have available for DJs, and this power requirement is the same regardless of whether or not you have a lighting package.
If your event is in a tent, then we can definitely help with our tent lighting. If your event is out in the open, unfortunately we would not be able to help since none of our lighting is fully weather resistant. Click here to read more about our lighting packages.
Our dance floor lighting packages are customized for every venue. Once we arrive we will take measurements and aim all of the lighting fixtures so that they only cover the dance floor area. If you have a somewhat large venue then there will be plenty of room for guests to spread out if they wish to stay further away from the lighting. Some smaller venues though may pose a more significant challenge with this, but we rarely receive any complaints from guests about the lighting being annoying.
We generally do not recommend having a lighting package for day weddings if your venue is outdoors, or indoors with windows. Feel free to contact us just to confirm!
Yes, we belong to the Prince William County Chamber of Commerce, as well as BNI (Business Networking International).
If you cancel your wedding for a non-weather-related reason at least one month prior, we will release you from the remaining balance and give you an account credit for up to one year for your deposit amount that can be applied to another date. Please note that if there is a catastrophic incident to the couple such as death or significant injury, we will refund the entire deposit via check.
If we feel that we can’t attend your wedding due to weather (this has never happened before), we will give you an account credit for up to one year for your deposit amount that can be applied to another date. Assuming no other details other than the date change, it wouldn’t affect you. If the new date you select is a date we don’t have available then we would refund your deposit via check and release you from the remaining balance.
Our company takes pride in employing our own DJ staff who use company-owned equipment and operate under strict company policy. This ensures that all of our DJs are fully representing Pulse Entertainment.
Our founder and president, Karl Stallknecht, previously worked in the radio industry. After leaving, he wanted to work in a similar field and had always been interested in DJing. In 2008 he founded Pulse Entertainment and has been DJing ever since!
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