Working as a mobile disk jockey (DJ) brings with it a number of challenges that a resident club DJ doesn’t have.One of the main issues is the need to carry all of that essential DJ equipment to each and every gig, wherever it is.

I’ve worked as a residential club DJ, radio DJ and these days I make my living as a mobile DJ and I love it. Each week I get to visit new locations and meet a whole new crowd of people. I’ve played in some fantastic locations including castles, stately homes, tents, gardens, onboard ships and yachts and even one night in a well known London museum. It’s the variety that I particularly like about this work, but lets get back to the challenges.

One of the main problems we must manage as mobile DJs is carrying all the equipment we need to each gig. The club DJ only has to carry his records and maybe some CDs but I have a whole van load of equipment for every gig.

These days I have an assistant who is a great help in setting up and breaking down my PA and lighting rig at each gig. But back in the old days, before I was commanding a decent fee, I had to do it all myself. The important factor to consider when selecting DJ equipment for mobile use is compactness. It must be small and ideally lightweight.

The DJ speakers that I use are the powered variety. This means that I don’t need power amplifiers and my system setup is much simpler. Less leads and less to go wrong. For the past two years I’ve been using a really excellent pair of active JBL PA speakers and these have proved to be worth their weight in gold.

Another key consideration for mobile DJs is lighting and effects. Club DJs don’t usually need to worry about club lighting systems as these are often already in place and may have their own dedicated operators. Working as a mobile DJ means doing it all ourselves. But luckily these days there are some compact DJ lights that use LEDs making them relatively lightweight, low power and cool.

But I think the most important piece of DJ gear is the music. That’s not equipment I hear you say, and you’re right. But I’m really referring to the medium which might be vinyl records, CDs, DVDs and increasingly MP3 files. This means I need to carry turntables, CD players, a DVD player and some sort of MP3 player. I tend to stick to just one CD player, a pair of Technics decks and my laptop computer. I route all of these through my excellent DJ mixer and I’m just about ready for any requests, from Mantovani to the Wombles.