Santa Barbara DJ's

jessicarabbit501 · May 2010

anyone have recommendations for one? thanks!

vjorge2002 · May 2010

I'm working with AMS Entertainment... Tad is really cool there.

I met with Nicholas at Coastal Ent. He's super nice...

I heard Gavin at SB dj's is good.

Good Luck!

JenFridrich · May 2010

We used AMS and LOVED them! A review is in my bio. HTH!

CurlyGirlyGirl · May 2010

If he drives out there, check out Tom Chandler from California Sounds. He might charge a fee to drive up there, but his rates are super reasonable and he is a wonderful guy!

Summer0fStars · May 2010

Josh at Goodbeat Productions is great! So is AMS and Gavin! Good luck!

jaswrx · May 2010

I sent you a message about DJs. It should be in your inbox.

socaltallmama · May 2010

second Tom Chandler! He was AWESOME very professional and affordable!

bostontoLA · May 2010

i used AMS too and was very happy!

amydianebrown · June 2012

We used AMS and we had a horrible experiencel.

I'll start with the positive:

Our DJ showed up on time, and was polite when we met face to face, if not terribly warm or enthusiastic, and played the expected songs during the ceremony and most of the reception.

However--we were so disappointed in many critically important areas.

Leading up to the time that we first gave AMS our deposit, we’d talked on the phone with Tad Clark, who seemed very professional and knowledgeable and eager to make us happy. However, once we’d sent in the deposit, we were informed by another employee, Saul, that our DJ would be Andrew. We looked on the AMS website to get some information, as we’d been told that each DJ was strategically selected to be the best fit for each customer’s event.

While there were a number of DJs on the site that had full bios, clearly outlining his or her experience level, capabilities and style, this is what was all that was on the site for Andrew:

Andrew's wide range of experiences and amazing service attitude make him a great fit for any party. He is flexible and creative in all areas from guest interactions to music selection.

Andrew is a recent graduate of UCSB and has worked at many service focused jobs including Fess Parker's Doubletree as a concierge. That experience helps him to easily connect with all types of people and make sure they're having a wonderful time making him a great asset to any party.

We asked Saul, who was now evidently our contact, to outline Andrew’s experience as a DJ—and why he had been picked for us specifically. Saul couldn’t answer that, other than to say that he knew that Andrew had graduated from college fairly recently. I wrote a very polite email to Tad Clark, letting him know that we were concerned that Andrew’s apparent lack of expertise as an actual DJ, according to their own website, would not make him the best fit for our big day. Tad called me, and got very angry with me, saying that he ‘wouldn’t want to be Andrew, at our wedding, since we’re going into it with such a negative attitude.’ He then threatened to return our deposit ( this was now only 12 days before our wedding) and force us to find someone else at the last minute.

We were VERY upset and concerned, but decided to try to make the best of it. We asked for a meeting during the week with Andrew, somewhere between SB and Oxnard, where we live, as it would be a school night and we have a 9 year old daughter, but Andrew told us that he refused to meet us anywhere but their SB office. We decided to just have a phone call to discuss the important details of our wedding.

Andrew was clearly told that we were initially unhappy, and he was extremely sullen and uncommunicative with us during our the one 1.5 hour conference call with him. We both tried to be upbeat and positive, but it was a struggle to interact with him. After our call, I'd emailed him to ask if he felt we should have one more meeting before the wedding to cover all the bases, and he said that wouldn't be necessary. We'd sent him and his boss an email on 5/23, with an attachment with our complete music list, and during our call on 5/29, when I referred to the list, he said, sounding irritated, that that day was the very first time he'd seen it. I pointed out that he'd received the email with it 6 days previously, and he acknowledged that he hadn't opened the attachment.

During our discussion with him, we stressed the importance and delicacy of the introduction of our 'mothers'--as both sets of our parents are deceased, we wanted to both honor the parents who had passed on, and honor the mother figures in our lives who were present. We spent a considerable amount of time during the call making sure that Andrew understood that this was a key element of the reception, and went over the phonetic spelling and pronunciation of these people, and I told him I'd write a brief piece of copy for him to read, mourning the loss of the deceased, and introducing those mothers with us in the room.

Our plan was to invite these important women in our lives and their spouses onto the dance floor after our first dance, to join us, and have a Family Dance--and we asked Andrew to choose a Frank Sinatra song for this dance.

On our wedding day, Andrew did not have the correct timeline with him, and was unsure of the order of when our first dance was, etc., minutes before we were to be introduced! When we did have our bridal party introduced, we cringed as he mispronounced several names, despite the fact that we had gone over each one with him during our call.

We were then introduced, and were to immediately segue into our first dance, but Andrew let us stand out on the dance floor for nearly 30 seconds of dead air, which was incredibly awkward and embarrassing. When it was time to introduce our mothers, his delivery was again completely wooden and unprofessional--it was clear that he had not practiced it--it sounded like he was seeing it and reading it for the very first time, cold. Thus, what was supposed to be a significant, emotional moment of tribute sounded like we'd handed the copy to someone off the street. Here again, several more names were completely mispronounced--which gave these family members the impression that we, the couple, had not bothered to clarify something so important with our DJ beforehand. We've since apologized to those whose names were mangled, but it was a shame.

The Sinatra song he chose was nearly impossible to dance to--I was a dancer for years, and even I struggled with it--and my 77 year old stepmother and Eric's 87 year old surrogate mom had an awful time. We all just hoped it would end quickly--and another important aspect of the reception was a disappointment.

The sound quality overall was scratchy and did not sound rich and professional--and Andrew's lack of enthusiasm was clear when he made announcements during the reception.

We had two wedding coordinators--and one of them ended up having to spend the majority of the reception up in the DJ area, making sure that he followed the timeline--thus dividing the efforts of another vendor that could have been better used in managing the event on the floor.

We sent a similar synopsis as above to Tad Clark last week, ending with this:

I am not sharing this with you because I enjoy complaining--in fact, we went into the event hoping that everything, at least the things we'd really spent time specifically with Andrew on, would go smoothly--I'm sharing them with you because as a business owner, I'd want to know how my customer's experience went, especially for something like a wedding day.

I'm happy to discuss this with you further--in fact, I'd appreciate your input on this.

However, no one from AMS Entertainment has contacted us or responded. Our feeling is that they took our money and do not care about the way our wedding went with their employee. I usually feel that anyone can make a mistake, and in business, it’s not the issues themselves that leave the lasting impression, it’s how they are dealt with after the fact.

Very disappointing.

Santa Barbara DJ's

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