From the vantage point up on the stage the DJ has a unique view of all that goes on on the dance floor,  he sees the collisions, he sees anyone who is inelegantly dropped on their backside, he sees the group of posers that for some reason need to be at the front,  he sees the blood, the sweat, the tears and, if he is doing his job well, he gets to see a packed dance floor having a great time. However it's not as easy as you might think.

DJ's at dance nights are aware more than most that you can't please all of the people all of the time, if one person comes up and asks for something more modern the next person up will probably ask for something by Frank Sinatra. With such a wide age range of people to keep happy and a vast selection of music to choose from  DJ's simply have to aim for 90% and be happy with it. At the end of the day dancers vote with their feet and if the dance floor is full then there can't be much wrong with the music.

One of the greatest potential problems for a DJ is the request. While on the surface the principle of someone asking for a song and the DJ playing it seems easy it often doesn't work out quite that straight forward. There tends to be two major flaws.

1. The requester has no idea of the title or the artist but they like the tune and therefore is quite happy to try and sing it to you.

2. The requester not only knows the artist and the title but has also brought a copy of it with them. These are nearly always the dance floor clearing 'album tracks' that no one has ever heard of.  This especially strikes fear into even the most experienced DJ

Even if the music is going well you still have to escape the Headphones.

I will bet that every singled DJ has done this at least once.
Just imagine how many times a DJ puts his headphones on and off on just one night. Then multiply that by the amount of nights that he DJ's in one year. Then imagine the scene that I know happens to me, and others, more times than we would like to admit.

The DJ is behind his assorted equipment he has one track playing and his headphones are rested on the table ready for when he needs them to queue up the next track. It is a situation that has already gone faultlessly plenty of times so far that night, however, this time its different. While the headphones have been rested on the table the DJ has inadvertently stepped on to the excess loop of headphone cable that is rested on the floor. This can only result in one out come. When he next picks up the headphones the cable will no longer be long enough to reach his ears which means that the headphones are ripped from his hands at about mouth height.

Ah Yes! The Headphone Sandwich. Nice.

Playing music to a packed dance floor is a nerve racking thing to do. When a confident teacher gets up in front of a class and makes a mistake it is often rectified by a quick joke or some other form of spontaneous  fill in which in many cases will help add to a good class atmosphere. The DJ on the other hand is not so fortunate, one press of a wrong button and there is total silence and a dance floor full of dancers cut off in mid flow.