Most club and festival bookings in Europe are DJ sets. The artist arrives with music and plays it through the venue's system, mixing one record into the next.
What the venue supplies
The booth belongs to the venue and is listed in its tech spec: usually two or four CDJs, a mixer and booth monitors. The common European standard is Pioneer CDJ-3000s or 2000NXS2 with a DJM mixer. An artist that needs something else, a fourth deck, a specific mixer, or turntables with a spare cartridge, names it in the rider and expects it to be there.
What the artist brings
- Music on USB sticks, at least two, in case one fails.
- Headphones.
- Sometimes a laptop and an interface, which needs a table and power.
Set length
Club sets run 90 minutes to three hours. A festival slot is often 60 minutes. Longer formats are sold on their own terms: an extended set of four hours, or an all-night-long booking where the artist plays the whole night with no support and controls the arc of the room.