A DJ event checklist needs four phases: pre-event (confirmations, music, charging), load-in (access, power, sound check), the set (timeline cues, monitoring) and pack-down. It also needs a ranked backup kit and a music failover plan. AI builds it fastest from your own gear list, venue notes and client timeline, not from a generic prompt.
A generic gig list tells you to bring cables. What saves a night is the specific answer to "what fails first at this venue, and what do I do in the next two minutes?" That is why each list below carries a reason and a way to check the item, and why the second half shows how to have AI tailor the lists to every booking. Keep client phone numbers and addresses out of any chat while you do.
Pre-event: from a week out to the night before
| Item | Why it is on the list | How to verify it |
|---|---|---|
| Date, venue, access time, start and finish confirmed with the named contact | Wrong times cause late arrivals and overtime arguments | A written reply from the client or venue, saved with the booking |
| One-page timeline agreed | Every cue later depends on it | The client has replied "approved" to the final version |
| Must-play and do-not-play lists locked | Late additions on the night are the usual cause of awkward requests | Both saved as crates or playlists in your software |
| Key tracks tested | A file that will not load is found at home, not at 9 pm | Play the opening 30 seconds of each key track on the actual rig |
| Library backed up in two places | One drive failure should cost minutes, not the night | Open the backup on a second device and play a track from it |
| No software or firmware updates in the final week | An update can break a setup that worked yesterday | Version numbers noted; automatic updates switched off |
| Batteries charged, spares bagged | Radio mics and remotes fail quietly | Fresh batteries fitted, spare set counted into the bag |
| Full-rig test two days before | Finds the dead cable while a shop is still open | Every item powered and tested, replacements logged |
| Venue facts gathered | Stairs, lift, curfew, sound limiter and socket positions change the plan | Written answers from the venue, not assumptions |
| Route and timing planned | Traffic on the day decides your set-up time | Journey time checked for that day and hour, plus a buffer |
| Balance paid or payment plan confirmed | Chasing money at midnight is avoidable | Invoice marked paid, or the plan for collecting on the night noted |
| Contract, insurance certificate and contacts to hand | Venues sometimes ask on arrival | PDFs on your phone and a printed copy in the case |
| Van loaded in reverse order of use | What you need first should come out first | A tick against each case on the loading sheet |
Two items carry more weight than they look. Writing down the venue facts, including the answers you could not get, is what turns "arrive early" into a plan: an unanswered question about a lift is a reason to budget a second trip. And the library backup only counts if you have opened it on another device, because a backup you have never restored is a hope.
Most of the venue facts above can be collected in one email, sent a week or two out. Ask these ten questions and save the replies with the booking; every unanswered one becomes "UNKNOWN" in the AI prompt later, which tells you where to build slack.
- What time can I get into the room, and by when must I be out?
- Which entrance do I load through, and what is the route to the room (stairs, lift, distance)?
- Where can the van park while I load, and during the event?
- Where are the sockets, how many are there, and what else runs from them?
- Is there a sound limiter, and at what level?
- Is there a house PA or microphone, and must I use it?
- When is the music curfew?
- Who is my contact on the day, and what is their mobile number?
- When are the speeches and the meal expected, as far as anyone knows?
- Are there rules on stands, cables, haze or strobe lighting?
Load-in: the first hour at the venue
Work in a fixed order so nothing is forgotten when someone interrupts you with a question. The order below puts safety and power before sound.
- Find the named contact first. Confirm the finish time, the curfew, the sound limit and who gives the nod for each cue. Check: you have their mobile number saved.
- Walk the room before unloading. Find the sockets, the dance floor, the doors guests will use and the fire exits. Decide where cables will run so no one crosses them.
- Unload in two stages. Speakers and stands first, the desk and laptop last. Check: nothing valuable sits unattended in the van or the corridor.
- Power before sound. Plug into the right circuit, avoid chaining extension leads, and keep leads away from drinks. Check: each device powers up on its own, then leave the speakers switched off until the rest is connected and switch them on last, so nothing thumps through the room.
- Speakers, then desk, then lights. Place speakers so the sound reaches the back of the room without blasting the nearest table. Check: a wobble test on every stand.
- Tape and tidy cables. Gaffer tape across walkways, cable covers where people will step. Check: walk the route in your good shoes.
- Sound check at room level, not at the desk. Play a familiar track, walk to the far corners and listen, then repeat with the microphone. Check: speech is clear at the back at the volume you will use.
- Quiet window. Stop touching things 30 minutes before guests arrive and put the opening playlist on at low volume. Check: your backup kit is within reach of the desk.
The set: a cue sheet you can glance at
A cue sheet is the client's timeline rewritten for the person running the music. It needs five columns: the time, the cue, who gives the nod, what you do and what to do if it slips. An illustrative sheet follows for a wedding evening with guests arriving at 6:30 pm and music until midnight.
| Time | Cue | Nod from | DJ action | If it slips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6:30 pm | Guests arrive | Venue coordinator | Opening playlist at low level | Start on time regardless |
| 7:15 pm | Couple's entrance | Planner | Entrance track, short announcement | Hold the music and wait for the nod |
| 7:30 pm | Three speeches | Best man | Handheld mic, spare mic on the desk | Mic dead: switch to the wired spare |
| 8:30 pm | Dinner ends | Coordinator | Background playlist | Keep levels low until the nod |
| 9:00 pm | Cake | Planner | One track, cue the photographer | Move to the next cue if delayed over 15 minutes |
| 9:15 pm | First dance | Couple | Track tested at volume that afternoon | File fails: the same track on the spare USB |
| 9:30 pm | Open dancing | You | Warm-up set per the must-play list | Floor empty: check the energy, not the volume |
| 11:30 pm | Last-song announcement | You | Short MC line | If the venue ends early, tell the contact |
| 12:00 am | Music ends | Contract | Lights up, thank-yous | Extra time only if the named contact agrees |
The "nod from" column is one that generic gig lists usually leave out. Many awkward moments come from starting a cue before the person in charge is ready. A simple rule, no nod, no start, protects you from blame when the kitchen runs late. The MC lines you drop into the sheet can come from ChatGPT prompts for DJs covering MC scripts and toasts.
Pack-down: leaving nothing behind and nothing unpaid
- Do not start packing until the final song is done and the contact says so. Guests sometimes return for one more request.
- Power down in the reverse of the set-up order. Speakers off first, then the desk and laptop, so nothing thumps through the room as cables come out. Check: every speaker's power light is off before you unplug a single lead.
- Count out what you counted in. Check the inventory sheet against the cases before leaving the room. Check: every microphone, every adaptor and every stand foot is in a case.
- Coil cables the same way every time. It saves time and tells you at a glance when one is missing.
- Confirm the finish time and any overtime with the named contact, and settle the balance the way the contract says. A written note in your phone beats a verbal agreement.
- Photograph the room before you leave. If there is a dispute about damage, you have a record of what you found and what you left.
- Note every fault before you forget. A cable that crackled at 10 pm goes in your notes now, not after a night's sleep.
The backup kit, ranked by how likely each item is to save the night
Rank by likelihood, not by cost. Most failures are small and mundane, so the cheapest items sit at the top.
| Rank | Item | Failure it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spare cables for every connection you use (balanced XLR, unbalanced RCA, 3.5 mm to RCA, mains leads) | A very common fault: a cable that has gone intermittent |
| 2 | Spare power: extension lead, surge-protected multi-socket, laptop and controller chargers | A dead socket, a short lead, or a charger left behind |
| 3 | Second device with the full library, or USB sticks with an emergency playlist, tested in the players you will use | Laptop crash, drive failure, software freeze |
| 4 | Spare microphone, wired if you normally use radio, with fresh batteries | Dead mic or dead batteries during speeches |
| 5 | Tape, ties, spare fuses, a torch and a multitool | Loose cables, a blown fuse in a dark corner |
| 6 | A phone with an offline playlist and the cable to connect it | The last-resort source if everything else fails |
| 7 | An isolator or DI box if hum has troubled you before | Buzz from a ground loop in an unfamiliar room |
| 8 | A small powered speaker | One speaker failing, or a quiet ceremony or speech area |
Test the USB sticks in the real players, formatted the way those players need. A stick that works on your laptop but is not read by the venue's equipment is not a backup. Check what your own players support before you trust one.
Music failover: what happens when the laptop dies mid-song
The goal is never silence. A wrong track is forgivable and dead air is not. Pre-build a four-hour "no-surprises" emergency playlist, in a form you can start from a phone or a USB stick, so the answer to a crash is a single action. AI can propose the shape of it (genres, energy curve, clean edits) from your must-play list, but you choose the tracks from files you actually own.
| Failure | First 10 seconds | Within 2 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Laptop freezes | Start the emergency playlist from the phone or USB | Restart the laptop with the music still playing from the backup source |
| Controller or interface dead | Plug a laptop headphone output into the mixer or venue input | Swap the USB cable, then the port, then the device |
| Streaming drops | Switch to a downloaded crate | Treat streaming as a bonus; never rely on venue Wi-Fi, and check whether your plan allows offline use |
| One speaker dies | Run the other, check its lead and power | Swap to the spare speaker or run the system in mono until a fix |
| Power trips | Run the laptop on its battery | Ask the named contact where the supply is, and move to another circuit |
| Microphone dead | Hold up a hand to the speaker and swap to the spare | Replace the batteries and note which pair was in use |
The line that makes this plan work is "within 2 minutes". Write each failure down as an action with a time limit, because under pressure you will follow the list rather than invent a fix. Rehearse the first two rows once at home: pull the cable, start the backup, time yourself.
How AI builds the checklist from your own details
A chat assistant is good at structure and bad at knowing your room, so give it the facts and let it do the formatting. Each input feeds one part of the output:
| Input you supply | What it shapes |
|---|---|
| Gear inventory, item by item | The pre-event test list and the pack-down count |
| Venue notes, including unknowns | Load-in order, extra time and backup additions |
| The client's timeline | The cue sheet |
| Past problems | How the backup kit is ranked |
| Contract hours and overtime rule | The finish and the rule for extra time |
The first input, the gear inventory, is also what makes pack-down checks possible. A filled-in extract (illustrative) shows the level of detail that works:
| Item | Qty | Last tested | Backup | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Powered speakers | 2 | [date] | One small powered speaker | Check handles and feet each quarter |
| Speaker stands | 2 | [date] | One spare stand | Locking pins in the bag |
| Two-channel controller | 1 | [date] | Spare USB cable; laptop-only mode | Firmware version noted |
| Laptop | 1 | [date] | Second device holding the library | Battery health checked |
| Radio handheld microphone | 1 | [date] | Wired microphone and lead | Fresh batteries fitted |
| Mains leads, 15 m | 2 | [date] | One more lead and a surge-protected multi-socket | Labelled at both ends |
| Lighting bar | 1 | [date] | None | Gaffer tape for the stand's feet |
Act as an experienced mobile event DJ's assistant and build a checklist
for one booking.
Booking: wedding evening, 110 guests, hotel ballroom, access from 4:00 pm,
guests arrive 6:30 pm, music until midnight.
My rig: two powered speakers on stands, one two-channel controller, laptop,
handheld radio mic, small lighting bar, two 15 m mains leads, spare USB
sticks.
Venue notes: rear loading door, one flight of stairs, sockets behind the
stage, curfew midnight, sound limiter UNKNOWN, house PA UNKNOWN.
Client timeline: [paste the one-pager, no phone numbers].
Past problems: ground hum at a hall in March; radio mic battery died during
speeches.
Produce: (1) a pre-event list with a reason and a "how I check it" for each
item; (2) a load-in list in the order I should do it; (3) a cue sheet with
nod-from and if-it-slips columns; (4) a pack-down list with a count-in and
count-out; (5) a backup kit ranked by how likely each item is to save the
night; (6) a music failover table with actions for the first 10 seconds and
the first 2 minutes. Do not assume the venue has a PA. Mark every assumption
with [ASSUMED] so I can confirm it.The part of the output I would check hardest is the load-in list, because it is where assumptions hide. A typical first draft (illustrative) says "use the house PA for speeches", "arrive 15 minutes before guests", "stream backup music over venue Wi-Fi" and nothing about the stairs. Each of those needs a fix, and the fixes are the real work:
- House PA. The prompt said unknown. Resolve it with the venue; if it has none, plan a second microphone through your own speakers.
- Arrive 15 minutes before guests. Far too late for a rig this size. Replace it with the back-calculation below.
- Stream over Wi-Fi. Reject. A backup that needs a connection is not a backup.
- Stairs. The draft ignored them. Add a second trip and 20 minutes of set-up time.
When the draft is right, convert it into three formats: a one-page printable for the case, a phone checklist you can tick, and a client-facing timeline that leaves out the technical lines. Ask the AI for each from the same source, and keep one master so the three do not drift. For the client's side of the timeline, the wedding DJ questionnaire for must-plays and timeline shows what to collect before this step.
Back-calculating the day from the time guests arrive
Start with the time the music must be ready and subtract. The numbers below are my own rules of thumb for a standard rig and should be adjusted to yours: 90 minutes to set up, 30 to sound check, a 30-minute quiet window, and a travel buffer of half the journey time with a minimum of 20 minutes.
| Step | Working | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Guests arrive | Fixed by the client | 6:30 pm |
| Quiet window starts | 6:30 pm minus 30 minutes | 6:00 pm |
| Sound check starts | 6:00 pm minus 30 minutes | 5:30 pm |
| Set-up starts, at venue access | 5:30 pm minus 90 minutes | 4:00 pm |
| Arrive at the venue | Access time minus 15 minutes to meet the contact | 3:45 pm |
| Leave home | 3:45 pm minus a 55-minute journey and a 28-minute buffer | 2:22 pm, so 2:20 pm |
| Start loading the van | 2:20 pm minus 30 minutes | 1:50 pm |
From loading to guests arriving is four hours and forty minutes. If the venue has stairs and needs a second trip, add 20 minutes to the set-up line and every earlier time moves back with it. Doing the sum on paper once makes it obvious why "arrive at 5:30" would have been a mistake: the quiet window and sound check would have been squeezed to nothing.
Three variations: wedding evening, school disco and corporate dinner
- Wedding evening. Add ceremony or speech audio, a lapel or handheld mic with a spare, a cue sheet with nods from the planner and the MC lines. The first-dance track gets tested at room volume that afternoon.
- School disco. Agree how requests are handled with the organiser, use clean edits, check the hall's acoustics and volume limits, and ask what supplier requirements the school applies to visiting suppliers before the day. Finish times are firm.
- Corporate dinner. Plan for presenters plugging in laptops, a speech mic and low background levels during dinner. Do the sound check inside the venue's own set-up window and keep an invoice with the right purchase-order details ready.
For the contract side of the same variations, the DJ contract template for deposit, overtime and cancellation covers how access times and venue needs should appear in your terms, and a neighbouring trade's approach is in building a catering run sheet from one brief with AI.
Keeping the checklist alive after each gig
A checklist that never changes becomes wallpaper. After each booking, spend five minutes writing bullet notes while it is fresh, then paste them into the AI and ask: "Turn these notes into specific changes to my master checklist, and list any backup item I should add or move up." An illustrative example: after a hall booking where a ground hum appeared mid-set, the notes say "hum at 8 pm, fixed by moving the laptop charger to another socket, no isolator in the bag". The AI suggests adding an isolator at rank 7 and a line in load-in: "plug laptop and mixer into the same circuit". You approve, update the master, change the version date and the next booking starts from a better list.
Once a quarter, run the whole kit through a dress rehearsal: pull each cable, switch to each backup source and time yourself on the failover table. Replace anything that fails, and check that each backup item still matches the rig you carry now. If you want to see how other event trades lay out a run sheet for several event types, building an event planning checklist per event type with AI shows the master-plus-variations idea in a different setting.
Questions DJs ask when building a gig checklist
How early should a DJ arrive at an event?
Work backwards instead of guessing. For a standard rig of two speakers and a controller I allow about 90 minutes to set up and 30 for a sound check, then a quiet 30 minutes before guests arrive. Add time for stairs, a second trip, lighting or ceremony audio, and add a travel buffer.
What backup does a DJ really need?
At minimum: a second device holding the music, spare cables for every connection, spare power, a spare microphone with batteries and an offline emergency playlist. Rank anything beyond that by what has gone wrong for you before, because the failures you have already met are the ones most likely to return.
Can AI build a DJ checklist without my gear list?
It can, but the result will be a generic gig list, which is what you can already find online. The value comes from giving it your inventory, the venue notes, the client's timeline and your past problems, then asking it to mark every assumption so you can correct it.
Should I print the checklist or keep it on my phone?
Both. Keep a printed one-page version in the equipment case and a copy on your phone. Paper does not run out of battery, does not need signal, and is quick to glance at mid-set, while the phone copy is the one you update after each gig.
Further reads
- DJ Booking Software: Enquiries, Contracts and Song Requests Compared — Booking tools that handle enquiries, contracts and song requests
- ChatGPT for DJs: A Month of Social Posts, Reviews and Venue Outreach — A month of posts, review requests and venue outreach
- Wedding Photographer Timeline Template: A Day Schedule Built With AI — How another supplier turns a wedding day into a schedule
- Best AI for DJ Drops: Custom Voice Tags for Event DJs — Custom voice tags and drops for event sets
- How Much to Charge as a DJ: Wedding, Party and Corporate Packages — Price the packages these checklists support
- A Wedding Planner's AI Workflow From Enquiry to Final Timeline — How a planner's workflow runs from enquiry to final timeline
- AI for DJ Mixing: Plan Sets and Transitions for Event DJs — A set-planning method for event DJs: client brief to energy curve, tempo and key sequencing, transition notes and a licensing check.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.