My Toughest Crowd Yet. My Daughter and 25 of Her Friends.

Dad is the DJ

I have spent more than 20 years DJing weddings, school events, corporate parties and just about everything in between. But this Halloween, I had a crowd at my own house that might have made me a little more nervous than usual.

My daughter Brim and about 25 of her friends.

This was her first big party at our house and her first coed party. It was also the first time I had DJed this kind of event for her. When your dad is a DJ, I imagine there is a little concern that he might embarrass you in front of everyone you know.

Fair concern.

The party was spread throughout the house, and we had plenty to keep everybody busy. Tons of pizza, drinks, chips and dips, a s’mores bar at the fire pit and custom Halloween brownies from Sips & Sweets. Downstairs, they played pool. We had a costume contest with prizes. And the whole group went trick or treating together.

Yes, they are teenagers. Yes, they still wanted candy. I fully support that decision.

The first time I went downstairs to check on everybody playing pool, all the boys were on one side of the basement and all the girls were on the other.

A room full of friends, with an apparently very important invisible line down the middle.

I have seen plenty of dance floors that needed a little encouragement, but this one came with the added pressure of my daughter watching to see whether Dad could actually pull it off.

The living room became the dance floor

Toward the end of the evening, before everyone headed home, we got the music going on the main floor and turned the living room into a dance floor. We even played the custom Halloween song we had made for Brim’s party, which everybody thought was fun.

Then the room changed.

Every kid got involved. The boys and girls who had been keeping their distance downstairs were now having a dance off in the living room. We had kids doing the worm, break dancing and pulling out moves I did not know they had.

Apparently, nobody was shy anymore.

They were dancing so hard that we could feel the floor moving underneath our feet. At one point, I was afraid we were all about to fall through to the basement.

I wanted to bring the house down. Just not literally.

I think even Brim was surprised by how much everybody got into it. Watching her friends laughing, dancing and having that much fun together was my favorite part of the night.

This one was for my own kid

At Brock Entertainment, I get to help people celebrate some of the biggest moments in their lives. I love watching a room loosen up and seeing people who were hanging back suddenly join their friends on the dance floor.

Getting to do that for my own daughter felt different.

I am sure she had wondered whether her friends would have fun. Whether having her dad DJ was a good idea. Whether I would do something that required her to explain herself at school on Monday.

But by the end of the night, she was happy. Happy her friends came. Happy they had fun. And, at least for that evening, very happy that I was her dad.

I will take that over a five star review any day.

Our first big Halloween party at the house gave us a whole house full of teenagers, a lot of empty pizza boxes and a memory I will keep for a long time.

It’s all about the experience. This one just happened to be for my own kid.