Six DJs with tons of experience on the festival circuit offer their top tips and advice on navigating the highs and lows of these unique performances.
Torrential rain. Dust storms. A falling monitor. A hungover crowd. These are just a few of the situations DJs may have to deal with while playing at a festival.
But there are also plenty of reasons that these bookings can be extra special. Perhaps a sunrise slot at a festival by the sea. A set at dusk, deep in a forest. Or you could be on top of a mountain mixing records on a clear afternoon. These idyllic backdrops and unique surroundings of a festival site can be more interesting for both the DJ and the crowd—but they come with many challenges too, some of which are beyond the DJ’s control.
We asked six DJs who have played plenty of festivals worldwide about their experiences on the circuit, and how they navigated these challenges. Arielle Free, EMA, IMOGEN, Jerome Hill, LOVEFOXY and Tash LC shared their insights for us, which we’ve compiled into a handy guide below.
When prepping for a festival set, in addition to the usual backup USB or two, bring some of the outdoor essentials: suncream, waterproof gear, protein-rich snacks. (Some DJs swear by the energy gels used by long-distance runners for a quick way to refuel.)
If you’re booked to play a daytime set, bring sunglasses in case there’s a glare on the CDJs, which DJ and BBC Radio 1 broadcaster Arielle Free has experienced. She advised putting “a hand over the FX button, or whatever parts of the mixer you use, to see if it’s lit up and flashing,” making sure that the glare doesn’t cause you to miss anything.
For vinyl-based DJs like Jerome Hill, who’s known for his vinyl mixing wizardry and his label DON’T, he said he’ll “always be prepared to play mainly digital” at festivals, but that’s chiefly to avoid the “inconvenience of dragging wheely record bags over bumpy grass or worse, having to carry them over a complete mudbath.” He packs a small rucksack of vinyl, including his custom scratch records, which allow him to be “hands on and throw things around a bit,” but otherwise his aim is to play a relatively stress-free set. “I’ve been doing quite a few vinyl-only sets again and you just can’t beat that feeling of connection to the music,” he said. “But I’d always have the USB for backup as you don’t wanna be that one person sounding like shite if things aren’t as they should be.”
When David Guetta is booked for a festival, it’s typically for a 90-minute set, he told Wired. Because of the relatively short set length, he’ll play energetic sounds that cater for the larger crowd. Your audience might be much smaller than Guetta’s, but this is still something to consider when preparing your music. “When you play a festival, people want you to play exactly your sound because this is why they’re buying tickets,” he said.
“And usually, because the crowd is so much bigger, you have to play with more energy because, of course, you need more energy to move 100,000 people than to move 200 people. So really, underground music is [for] the clubs. Sometimes [the underground music] goes to a festival, but in my opinion, when you play to 20,000 people, it’s not underground anymore, even if you call it underground.”
It’s usually a given that festival crowds and festival fields (the dancefloor) are bigger than a club-sized audience and space. That’s why the Spanish artist Indira Paganotto follows a similar approach to David Guetta, playing music that’s more punchy and aligned with a festival capacity. In this SEEDJ masterclass, she explained that clubs tend to be “more personal” bookings for her, so she’ll have a “wider range of music” for these sets. For festivals like Awakenings, however, she’ll play a lot of tracks between 145-150 BPM (even going up to 250 BPM), but still experiment with slower, minimal “very chill, very cool” tunes along the way—but less so than a club booking.
In terms of preparing tracklists, the DJ, producer, and Wigs label and event series founder IMOGEN said that while she’ll “never plan a set completely,” she’ll always take into account the type of festival she’s playing, the country it’s taking place in, and the set length, and time. But overall she’ll stick to her usual sound and won’t play slower BPMs unless she’s opening or if there are hardly any people on the dancefloor (or in the field). “If there are less people then I’m not going to play the kind of peaktime set that I was imagining, so it really does depend on my time slot.” (We’ll talk about this more below.)
The booth at festivals is often up on a cavernous stage, creating a divide between the DJ and the dancefloor. Take this video of Arielle Free DJing at Creamfields North in 2022. There’s a fair distance between Arielle and her audience—we asked her how she handles this sort of thing.
“I always start with either quite an energetic intro or a big banger, and then I can kind of see what kind of vibe [the crowd] are in—if the sun has slowed them down, or if they’re not quite out of their hangovers yet, or if they’re right up for it and ready to go,” she said. “I really feel the music when I’m DJing, I have the booth monitor wacked up (with my ear plugs, of course) and it just kind of provides that instant boost of ‘Right, we’re in this together.’”
She’ll show appreciation for her crowd by waving and smiling too, which helps to build a connection. “So I think it’s just pretty simple, actually,” she said. “It’s just about managing to look up from the decks when you get a chance and showing some love, whether that’s physically or through reading them with a reaction.”
DJ and Woozy label founder EMA has played several international festivals in the last year. While she finds the intimacy of a club crowd a lot more “natural and organic” compared to a festival, she views festival bookings—at least, those on big stages—as an opportunity to play the music you love (or want to be known for playing) rather than shaping your whole set around reading the crowd.
That’s how she approached her sets at Glastonbury’s Arcadia Bug and Block9’s IICON this year. “On huge systems, I find it better to really let tracks breathe and play out. Having more patience helps,” she said. “The best advice I got for playing stages like this was from Pearson Sound, who said, ‘Think of it as a showcase, like what would you want someone who hasn’t heard you before to hear. Let ‘em know what you’re about!’”
Berlin-based DJ and producer LOVEFOXY, who, in the midst of a festival-heavy schedule, is about to release her second single, “On Da Table,” from her Lord Juice EP, follows a slightly different approach, one that focuses on reading the crowd. “Connecting to crowds is super important for me,” she said. “As a DJ, I feel like I have a job to do in reading energies and navigating that within my musical range. At festivals that can be different each time and will change the way you navigate your set and reach the crowd. It’s super exciting though, because you never know what you’re going to get.”
Tash LC is a DJ, NTS Radio resident, and founder of the label Club Yeke. She finds the distance between the stage and the crowd at festivals to be an ongoing challenge. “It just makes this kind of disconnect, and you feel very separate,” she said. This separation also tends to evoke a feeling of “performing as a DJ,” where the audience is too focused on catching a “performance” rather than actually dancing and enjoying the music. Tash explained how this may be the result of social media-driven trends like live-streaming and crowds capturing videos at festivals.
If you’ve never played at a festival, be aware that the idea of the crowd expecting a “performance” can be a challenge, and may not suit your personal preferences as a DJ. In Tash’s case, she would rather be “on the ground on the same level as people, not elevated.”
How about reading crowds at festivals? “It depends,” said Tash. “Often, you’re on a bigger stage or a bigger space, so it can be a lot harder. I think with festivals, people tend to have been up for ages or (and it depends on when and where you’re playing and what day of the festival it is). People can be quite exhausted, so then their energy might be a bit low, or they might be really, really up for it. You never really know.”
Malfunctioning equipment, booth monitors tumbling to the ground, dodgy mixers, and an AWOL stage manager. These are some of the scenarios EMA has experienced along her festival journey. But the worst was last summer, when she endured a massive sound delay between the booth and the main system. She spent 30 minutes “thinking I was crazy” but then: “I just had to ditch the headphones, max up the booth monitors and mix off them,” she said.
For DJs starting out on their festival path, EMA advised keeping expectations towards sound tech and production low. But on a positive note, “The chaos of things going wrong is what teaches you to be reactive and resourceful,” she said. She recounted a recent afternoon set at Refractor in Spain, in an “insanely hot” climate. “I was a little anxious because the sun made the screen on the CDJs super tough to see,” she said. “Luckily, this festival was one where you could count on the sound technician and he was able to increase the brightness to 100% on the screen and boom, problem solved!”
Arielle Free said she’s had a fair few technical challenges due to the regular rotation of mixers and equipment. But ultimately, it’s about trusting your instincts when things go askew. “I once had a gig where the booth monitors were so quiet, and I asked the stage manager and the sound tech to turn it up,” she said. “They told me they couldn’t. I knew they could, and it was kind of a bit of a back and forth, but finally they trusted that I knew what I was talking about.
“Often, as a female DJ, I’ve had a lot of situations behind the decks with technical staff or stage managers who haven’t quite believed I know what I’m talking about, and that’s been really hard to overcome as a challenge, but as the years have gone on, I just see it as ‘Well, if I can show that I know what I’m talking about, then they’ll trust in the next female DJ that comes along,” she said.
Arielle views most challenges as welcome challenges. “They’re only going to make you stronger and help you learn and move on to the next gig with even more confidence,” she said. “But I think the biggest lesson for me, when any technical difficulties have happened, is being self-assured that you know what you’re talking about and you know what you’re doing. And if you don’t know and you’re daunted by that, just do your homework.”
Festival sets are usually much shorter than club sets, sometimes lasting only an hour. For IMOGEN, if she’s got an hour or so, she’ll typically weave peak-time sounds or “maybe even more accessible music” into her sets. “I think with festivals, you have to understand that there are definitely going to be a lot of people who aren’t there specifically to see you, and this might be their first time hearing you,” she said. “So I will always just try and play loads of bangers and squeeze it all in, probably the same amount of bangers that I’ll play in a four-hour set but restricted down to one hour.”
Despite the shorter set lengths at festivals, Tash LC will still try to create “a bit more of a journey,” but it depends on the festival, and it also depends on the set time. “If it’s a festival that goes on for multiple days, then I’ll keep the energy quite high, because people’s energy is generally still quite high in the day, but maybe just not quite as intense as at nighttime,” she said.
“But it’s a bit nicer to be able to play stuff like reggae and dub and more kind of zouk-y, roots-y sounds before I go into more clubby stuff, because it kind of makes more sense for the daytime energy, but it really depends on the party.”
On the topic of set time, Tash said that if she’s booked to play a daytime party, she’ll tend to “go harder” because the crowd are there for that day alone, and will want to get as much out of the occasion as possible. “Whereas if I’ve got a daytime set at a festival that lasts multiple days, I might take it a bit slower.”
IMOGEN finds that daytime sets are always more “euphoric” because “the vibe is a lot easier and happier than a club set,” she said. “When it’s a festival, it can be a bit more exciting, because usually either my friends have come with me, or I’ve had a full night’s sleep.”
Another bonus of playing during the day is that the crowd’s faces and reactions are more visible than at a typical club, although IMOGEN admitted that this can make playing to a large crowd nerve-racking. “But when I get into it, I really enjoy it, especially at Neopop, that was my favourite festival set,” she said, describing her 9.30 AM closing slot at the Portuguese festival. “I think if you can see people’s faces, you can get a different kind of energy. And if I see them smiling it can really change what music I play.”
If EMA is playing in the daytime or and it’s not too busy on the dancefloor, she’ll “lean into tracks with a lot of space, usually, and then slowly try to get people moving,” she said. “I don’t think about BPMs, just energy when it comes to music.”
No matter the industry, it’s normal to meet a grumpy or difficult colleague in the workplace. In club music, this could be the sound engineer tasked with running the technical sides of a festival stage. Some of these engineers come from live music backgrounds, which might explain some of the turbulence when they’re working with DJs. It’s almost a rite of passage for a DJ to meet at least one sound engineer with a prickly attitude. But it’s worth remembering that festival sound engineers have a demanding and difficult job, with plenty of stress stemming from the outdoor setting.
While LOVEFOXY didn’t want to “put anyone in a box”, she admitted that “attitudes can run high” because as a DJ you’re working with a myriad of people in the festival space, and there is very little time to “fix, introduce, or do something” if things don’t go to plan. “I do want to say that showing you how your requested mixer works is still a thing and is quite rude,” she said. “I am very familiar with my requested DJ gear—I believe that has something to do with how female-identifying DJs are still seen in the scene…”
Tash LC has had mostly positive experiences with sound engineers. When she was starting out, however, she was often assumed to be the DJ’s girlfriend, or not the DJ at all. “But not so much now, since there are way more women DJing,” she said. While it’s inevitable to meet “some grumps”, she feels she’s good at cracking them. She understands the extensive hours they work and the chaotic environments that come with the job.
“I always tend to give [the sound engineer] a hug at the end as well,” Tash said, “because that always breaks anyone, even if they’re a bit stiff in the hug, it’s kind of like, ‘Thank you, I appreciate you’ because I guess they’re doing all the work, and they can often be quite underthanked and underappreciated. So I just try to make sure that they know that I’m grateful.”
“I usually find them a nice bunch,” Jerome said. “I think generally if you’re nice to people then they’re nice back to you. You said that sound engineers often have an attitude towards the DJs, but I’m thinking maybe it’s the other way around… I can imagine some DJs getting annoyed by being turned down when redlining the mixer with their 128k YouTube rips. Maybe it’s a conspiracy to make their amazing tunes sound weak and embarrass them in front of their adoring fans!” he joked.
Depending on where the festival is and the setting, the weather could play a huge role in how your set goes and influence how many people show up. Arielle Free treats every festival booking as an opportunity to showcase her sound and give the crowd a good time, regardless of the weather or the size of the audience.
“So the way I see it is, even if I only have one person there in their poncho during the pouring rain, I’m gonna make that one person have the best time of their life,” she said. But still, sparse crowds can be discouraging. “I’ve had it before: halfway through a set, the crowd was really swelling, we were all in it, and then they all had to turn around and run away, because the rain just honestly poured down within seconds. But then within 10 minutes, people got their ponchos, they came back, they got in the front and they didn’t care.”
The next day, some of those same people messaged Arielle and asked her where she was playing next. “So I just see any opportunity behind the decks as an amazing opportunity to absolutely own it.”
When we spoke, Tash LC was fresh from playing in the rain at Kelburn Garden Party in Scotland. But the crowd were up for it and essentially just got on with it. “It’s just such a British thing, isn’t it, for people to just be dancing in the rain,” she said, describing how some crowds aren’t necessarily weather-dependent.
When she played at Nyege Nyege festival in Uganda, however, there were a few environmental factors that were hard to control—bugs and insects, and an unforeseen storm that affected the DJ equipment. “Some things broke and then it just caused absolute chaos, and everyone had to think on their feet,” she recalled. “Luckily, my stage was alright, but other stages were destroyed. So things like that do happen, and you kind of just have to figure out a way to be innovative and get on with it.”
Mixing on vinyl in any location comes with obstacles. Jerome has even experienced records warping as he’s played them. But overall, he finds the soundsystems, especially the monitoring at festivals, “lovely” to play on.
He shared a few tips to avoid vibration, like keeping the monitor volume lower than normal (although he admits he’s a “terrible monitor abuser” who has it on 11 all the time). “But when you’re blasting the monitor at the turntable you’re gonna be picking that up, and it’ll make that horrible bass feedback noise,” he said. “Also if you have a record that is quieter or even physically thinner that starts feeding back, if you press down hard with your hand on the ‘chassis’ of the deck that usually sorts it out as a temporary fix.”
“Also try and stick to records with one or two tracks max per side,” he added. “The shorter the side, the louder the cut and the less feedback you’ll encounter. Forget playing your 14-track ‘70s pop compilation albums on a huge soundsystem. Certain death!”
IMOGEN actually likes mixing records at festivals, but she’s been lucky enough to have worked with good sound technicians so far. “I really like the sound on big stages at festivals because you’re kind of away from the main system,” she said. “So if I’m wearing my earplugs, then I don’t actually hear the speakers from the dancefloor.” She’ll also scope out the soundsystem beforehand by checking out the dancefloor ahead of her set, and where possible, a sound-check is helpful to avoid any mishaps.
Promoters, label heads, club bookers, radio show hosts, other festival bookers—there are usually loads of music industry professionals at festivals. You just don’t know who you’ll meet backstage, in the crowd, or in the queue for a burrito, so don’t forget to network. A fun chat about music could lead to your next festival booking…
