Exercises: Music and Entertainment

The most useful exercises here involve standing in a room and watching people. Do those ones.

Difficulty guide: ⭐ Foundational (5–10 min) · ⭐⭐ Intermediate (10–20 min) · ⭐⭐⭐ Challenging (20–40 min) · ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced (40+ min)

Part A: Conceptual Understanding ⭐

A.1. Name the four music problems and give each a job and a volume instruction.

A.2. Why is dinner the hardest of the four?

A.3. State the real cost difference between a DJ and a band, and name the five components beyond the fee.

A.4. What is each better at? Give three for each.

A.5. Why can a band be auditioned and a DJ not? What do you ask instead?

A.6. List the eleven announcements. How many contain a name?

A.7. Draw the evening arc and state the three rules it encodes.

A.8. Where does the peak go, and what overrides that?

A.9. State the four causes of an empty dance floor, in order, plus the structural fifth.

A.10. Describe the first four minutes after the first dance.

A.11. State the volume protocol and the one thing never to do.

A.12. Define: the changeover, the anchor track, the playlist trap, the peak, filtered requests.

Part B: Applied Analysis ⭐⭐

B.1. Cost the comparison. For a 140-guest wedding at a raw site: price a DJ and a 5-piece band fully — fee, meals, power (including any generator implication), space, load-in, and break coverage. Report the true difference and the fee difference separately.

B.2. Place four peaks. For each, place the peak and justify it:

• (a) Dancing 8:45–10:30, hard curfew
• (b) Dancing 9:00–1:00, no curfew, venue 400 ft from housing
• (c) Dancing 7:30–11:00, a noise condition of 60 dB(A) at the boundary after 10 p.m.
• (d) Dancing 10:00–2:00, a hotel ballroom with no external boundary

B.3. Write an arc brief. For a wedding you specify. Include the room and its ages, the four problems with volume instructions, the shape with times, the anchors, the moments, and the two questions.

B.4. Script eleven announcements. For a wedding with: a couple's entrance, family-style dinner, three toasts, a cake, a first dance, one parent dance, late-night food, and a last song. Full text, with names.

B.5. Diagnose four empty floors. For each, give the most likely cause and the fix:

• (i) The floor filled at 9:05 and emptied at 9:20, then never recovered
• (ii) Nobody moved for the first 35 minutes, then it filled suddenly
• (iii) The floor has 12 people all night, always the same 12
• (iv) It filled well and thinned steadily from 10:00 with no obvious cause

B.6. Fix a moments cluster. A couple wants: an entrance · a first dance · two parent dances · a cake cutting · a bouquet toss · a garter · and a send-off. Compute the total watching time, then restructure it. Defend every cut and every move.

B.7. Build a do-not-play list. With a couple who have said "we don't really have one." Write the five questions that produce a real list, and say what you do with an item that has a reason attached.

B.8. Vet a DJ. Write the full question set from §22.2a plus your own additions, and say what each answer would tell you. Then say which three answers would make you decline.

Part C: Real-World Application ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

C.1. Watch a dance floor. ⭐⭐⭐ At any event with dancing, record the floor count every five minutes for two hours. Plot it. Then annotate what happened at each inflection — a song, an announcement, food, a departure, the lights.

C.2. Ask a DJ the question. ⭐⭐⭐ "Talk me through a night where the floor didn't fill. What did you do?" Write 600 words on the answer, and note whether it was a diagnosis or a song title.

C.3. Time dinner music. ⭐⭐ At any restaurant or event with background music, measure the level with a dB app at a table and record whether you can talk across the table. Report the working range.

C.4. Count the drinks. ⭐⭐ At an event with dancing, count how many people on the edge of the floor are holding a glass. Then look for where they could put it. Report.

C.5. Interview a bandleader. ⭐⭐⭐ Ask about breaks, deps, the singer, what a good brief contains, and what happens when a planner asks them to turn down. Write 700 words.

C.6. Audit a showreel. ⭐⭐ Take three band showreels and list everything you cannot learn from them. Then request an unedited single-song clip from one and report the response.

Part D: Synthesis and Critical Thinking ⭐⭐⭐

D.1. Cross-chapter integration. Chapter 11's floor placement, Chapter 14's dinner block, Chapter 18's curfew and lighting cues, Chapter 20's ceremony arc, and this chapter's evening arc are one shape. Build the single document that carries energy from 4:30 p.m. to the last song, with an owner per cue.

D.2. Critique the empty-floor ranking. §22.7 puts music fourth. Construct the case that this is a planner's self-serving analysis — that it attributes the fixable causes to the planner's domain and demotes the vendor's, and that a great DJ genuinely fills a floor that a mediocre one does not, whatever the room's furniture. Then respond.

D.3. The playlist trap. §22.5 says a fixed list removes what a DJ is for. Argue the other side: that it is the couple's wedding, that their taste is the point, and that "trust me" is what every vendor says when they want autonomy. Where is the line?

D.4. The bouquet toss. §22.6a calls it a public sorting of unmarried guests. Set out the honest case for and against, and say what you would do if a couple wanted one and you thought it would be unkind to a specific guest.

D.5. Transfer. Compare an event DJ with another profession that reads and responds to a room in real time: a stand-up comedian, a bartender, a teacher, a conductor, a football coach. What does the comparator have that events could adopt?

D.6. The friend who DJs. §22.9 says a friend cannot be managed. Argue that this is a professional protecting a market. Then respond — and design the arrangement that would actually work.

Part M: Mixed Practice (Interleaved) ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

M.1. (Ch.11 + Ch.22) A dance floor is in the far corner, 43 feet from the nearest table. Trace the consequence to 9:40 and say what the DJ can and cannot do about it.

M.2. (Ch.14) Family style moved the first dance from 9:35 to 8:45. Express that in dance-floor minutes and in energy terms.

M.3. (Ch.18) A band draws 3,500 W at a venue with 3,840 W usable. Compute and advise.

M.4. (Ch.21) A family dance from one tradition is on the run sheet at "10 minutes." What do you do, and who do you ask?

M.5. (Ch.23) A photographer wants the couple for four minutes at 8:52. Write the response and say when it should happen instead.

M.6. (Looks like one thing, is another) A couple say the music at a friend's wedding "was awful." Name four things that might actually have been wrong.

Part E: Research and Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐

E.1. Research what is actually known about crowd behaviour on dance floors — social contagion, thresholds, and the conditions under which people begin. Write 800 words with sources. Report honestly how much of §22.7 is supported and how much is trade practice.

E.2. Investigate music licensing for events in your jurisdiction: what a venue's licence covers, what a DJ's covers, what a couple playing their own playlist needs, and who is liable. Write 700 words. This is a real legal question that almost no planner can answer.

E.3. Interview three couples about their wedding music a year or more later. Ask what they remember, whether the floor filled, and what they would change. Report against §22.7's four causes.

Solutions

Selected solutions: appendices/answers-to-selected.md. The announcement script template and the arc brief: appendices/appendix-a-templates-and-worksheets.md.