Turning Your Event into a Dance Party in 7 Steps
The potential for dancing at your party gets a grade before your DJ plays a single song.
The venue you pick and how you arrange the room either adds or reduces friction to how comfortable your guests feel about dancing.
Most wedding planners don't know this. We do, because our crew has DJ'd thousands of weddings, private events, bars, and clubs across hundreds of venues in Omaha, Lincoln, Madison, and Milwaukee. We've watched the same seven things separate the packed floors from the polite ones.
The short version:
Put the bar next to the dance floor
Book a smaller room
Clap-test the acoustics
Find a wood floor
Kill the lights
Lose the dinner seating
And let your DJ trick everyone into a group photo.
The details on each below.
Marry the bar and dance floor
Space can be limited in wedding venues, so it’s common to place the bar in one room and the dance floor in another. But that’s a mistake. People will always congregate where food and drink are. Not necessarily the dance floor. So if you put them together, you never give your guests an excuse to leave the party.
Two Omaha rooms that nail this: Bohemian Gardens, where the dance floor sits on the same deck as the bar, and the Empire Room, where the bar and floor share one space.
ACTION: Ask us for input on the floor plan, and always put the bar & dance floor as close together as possible.
Cozy rooms make crazy parties
We call it room psychology. When you have 100 guests in a big room, it feels empty and (worst-case scenario) awkward. But take that same crowd and put them into a slightly-too-small room, and … BAM! Social interactions increase, the potential for dancing increases, and the overall energy goes up.
ACTION: Go for smaller venues or room arrangements that create tighter spaces.
For sound quality, clap test it
When touring wedding venues, stand in the middle of the room, clap your hands, and listen for an echo/reverberation. If you hear one, it means there’s plenty of reflective surfaces, like concrete, metal, and bare walls. Avoid if possible.
Ideally, you want a room with materials like wood, drapery, or paneling. This absorbs sound and makes a world of a difference in audio quality while reducing ear fatigue (which subconsciously gives people the urge to leave the room).
We don’t wanna rat out any venues publicly, so message us, and we’ll give our honest feedback. :)
ACTION: Do the clap test, and if it echoes, either switch venues or look for ways to add sound-absorbing materials.
Adore the wood floor
Along with helping the room sound better, wood floors are also friends to your feet. That’s because it has a slight bounce, whereas concrete wears on our feet. One thing we’ve learned from booking club events for salsa dancers: it’s wood floors or bust.
The Riviera Ballroom in Lake Geneva comes with a built-in wood dance floor, which is one reason we love playing it. And the Mirror Room at Le Bouillon in Omaha has a 100-year-old floor that’s seen more parties than Charlie Sheen.
ACTION: Pick a venue with wood floors or bring in a makeshift wood dance floor.
Make the lights go low
The whole goal is to reduce inhibition. Alcohol does that. So does darkness. When people feel less like they’re being watched, they’re given more license to be in the moment. The most important time to make that low-lighting transition is right when the dance floor opens up to the guests.
ACTION: Give ownership of this to your DJ, and they’ll discuss lighting transitions with the venue.
Gotta get up to get down
Removing even the slightest barriers to make way for dancing makes a difference. So think about how and where people sit or stand. When you’re sitting down with your knees under a table, it takes more effort to stand up. That effort can inhibit some from making the transition to the dance floor. We learned this from reading tips on how old NYC disco clubs used to do it.
Bar stools are slightly better. Cocktail tables are preferred, as they act as anchors that draw people in and give them a spot to place their drinks. We’ve seen plenty of broken glass hit a dance floor before (looking at you, Hotel Cottonwood 🤣).
ACTION: If possible, don’t use dinner tables during the dance party and place cocktail tables without seating in and around the dancefloor to act as an anchor to draw people in.
Trick them onto the dancefloor
Our signature move: When you’re ready for guests to flood the dancefloor, the biggest hurdle is getting them to pay a visit. So we like to “trick” them into gathering for a group photo. We have everyone smile, then do something silly, then throw their hands in the air as the music goes up and the lights go down.
For evidence, see the video below.
ACTION: Let us know you’d like to do this and we’ll coordinate with the photographer.
We can be the DJ at your event
Planning a wedding in Omaha or Lincoln or Madison or Milwaukee? This is the kind of stuff we handle for you.