Event Production (416) 318-4231

Persian

DJ services for Persian celebrations in Toronto

Mehmooni, club night, engagement, birthday. The Persian floor, shaped from your selections and adjusted live rather than run from a generic playlist.

Bandari, 6/8 and Tehrangeles are the whole set, not the twenty minutes before the lights come up.

Private events from $2,500 · Club and promoter rates on request · Our own sound and light

Check the date Call and talk it through
  • English-language service
  • Our own gear, not rented in
  • $2M liability, certificate on request
  • Toronto and the GTA
Dance floor filling under arched white drape uplit blue, guests dancing in silhouette
Club room in blue with the booth lit and the floor filling
Percussionist playing a hand drum and singing into a stage mic, drum kit behind him

Two very different rooms

A mehmooni in a private hall and a Friday at a downtown club need opposite things from the same catalogue. The house wants a long, patient build with dinner underneath it and a floor that arrives when the family is ready rather than when the schedule says so. The club wants the floor inside eight minutes and no dead air, ever, all night.

The catalogue is the same. Everything else (the levels, the build, the length of a blend, when the microphone comes out, what happens at midnight) is different. We do both, we plan them differently and we quote them differently. Tell us which one you are running and the conversation gets short.

The catalogue

Several rooms of music that most of the city treats as one, and the skill is moving between them without the floor noticing the seam.

  • Pre-revolution. Googoosh, Hayedeh, Dariush, Sattar, Moein. The dinner hour, and the moment the older half of the room decides whether you are serious.
  • Tehrangeles. Andy, Shahram Shabpareh, Kamran & Hooman, Arash, Mansour. Where the floor fills the first time and where a room that has been sitting down all evening finally stands up.
  • Bandari and 6/8. The engine. Long blends, no hard cuts, and enough of it that nobody has to come and ask for it.
  • Current. Whatever is actually moving in the GTA this year, which is not what was moving two years ago. This list changes and we keep it changing instead of pretending the peak was 2016.
  • Turkish. Turkish pop, çiftetelli and halay. In this city it is a room of its own rather than a footnote to the crossover: a Toronto floor with Turkish, Persian and Arabic guests on it will ask for all three, and the middle one is the one most DJs here carry thinnest.
  • Crossover. Arabic, Turkish, Afghan, Latin and Top 40, sequenced so a mixed room stays one room instead of two rooms taking turns.

Send the ten that have to be played and the five that must not. The do-not-play list is the more useful of the two and almost nobody is asked for it. There is usually one song in a family that will empty a floor, and it is better we hear about it in an email than at 11pm.

Mehmooni: how the evening actually goes

A Persian house party does not run to a timeline and it does not need warming up. It needs someone who can read the difference between a room that is still eating and a room that is politely waiting.

  1. Arrival, and the long hourGuests arrive across ninety minutes rather than at a time. Instrumental and classic, low, under a room that is greeting each other. This hour looks like nothing is happening and it decides how the rest of the night goes.
  2. Dinner, lateLater than a non-Persian host expects, and longer. Golchin under the conversation, levels riding down as the room fills and back up as plates clear.
  3. The turnThere is a moment (usually somebody's aunt, usually a specific song) where the room decides it is a party. The job is to be ready for it rather than to schedule it.
  4. Tehrangeles into 6/8The first fill. Familiar, fast, and long enough that the people who came to dance know the night is theirs.
  5. BandariThe engine. This is the hour the evening will be described by afterwards.
  6. Crossover, if the room is mixedArabic, Turkish, Afghan, Latin, Top 40: sequenced into the set rather than announced as a change of subject.
  7. The last half hourSlower, older, and sung rather than danced. A mehmooni does not end on a drop.

What we bring

Every speaker, light, stand and cable on site is ours and has been out with us before. Nothing is rented in on the morning and no third-party DJ arrives under our name.

Private event: up to 150

Tops
2× 12" powered on poles, placed for the floor rather than for the corner of the room
Subs
1–2× 18" powered, ground stacked and off-axis from where people are eating
Console
Digital mixer with a redundant playback pair. A laptop is never the only path to sound
Mics
1× wireless handheld for announcements, plus a wired spare
Lighting
4–8 wash or moving fixtures on the floor, run live rather than left on a chase
Power
Two independent 15A circuits, and our own distribution if the room has one
Operator
On site from load-in to strike. Setup is about ninety minutes, strike is forty-five

Bigger rooms scale up from there. See sound system rental for the sizing. If you are in a club with a house system we bring controller, microphones and a technician and leave your PA alone.

Condo party rooms and rented halls

A large share of the mehmoonis in this city happen in a condo amenity room or a small rented hall, and both come with rules the booking form does not mention: a single circuit, a two-hour service-elevator window, a deposit, and a noise cut-off that is usually 11pm and usually enforced by one neighbour.

Ask the building for the amenity-room rules in writing before you book anything, and book the elevator both ways: load-out at 1am is the one everybody forgets. The private party page has the rest of it.

Club nights and promoters

We work with promoters on Persian nights across the city. The DJ, the system, the lighting, or all three, and an invoice with insurance behind it, which is more than half of what a venue actually needs from a supplier and more than half of what it usually gets.

  • Sub reinforcement, because a house rig that carries speech and top end runs out of low end the moment a Persian floor forms.
  • Booth monitoring that works, which is the single most common complaint from a guest DJ anywhere in this city.
  • Moving heads, blinders and haze so the room reads on a phone camera, run live rather than on a loop.
  • A technician who is still there at 2am when something fails.

The production side is on the club event production page.

Check your date

The first question is always whether the date is open. Start there: the rest takes two minutes.

1. What is the event?
Estimate Shown on each option above Flat quote confirmed before any work starts. Prices in CAD, before HST.
2. Where will it happen?
Name the venue if it is booked. If you are still choosing, leave this blank. The date is enough to start.
3. When is it?
If the date is not fixed, choose the first day of the month you are aiming for and tell us in the notes. Popular Saturdays often book nine to twelve months ahead. Short-notice dates are still worth asking about.
4. How do we reach you?
5. Review and send

Two separate permissions, because in Canadian law they are two separate things. Ticking one never ticks the other, both are optional, and neither changes how we handle your booking.

No payment now and no obligation. We reply within one working day with availability and the right next step.

Common questions

Is the DJ Persian?

No. Emshab is a Persian word and this service is built around Persian music, but the DJ is not Persian. DJ services and planning are provided in English.

Do you play current Persian music or only classics?

Both, and the skill is the transition. Dinner is classic, the first fill is Tehrangeles, and the last two hours are whatever is actually moving in the GTA right now.

Can guests make requests in Farsi on the night?

The DJ communicates in English and does not speak Farsi. A host or guest can relay requests in English, and every request is screened against your do-not-play list rather than played automatically.

What does a Persian DJ cost for a private party in Toronto?

From $2,500 for a full evening with our own sound and lighting and one operator on site from load-in to strike. A smaller room where the venue already has a usable system starts around $900. The figure is fixed in writing before you book.

Do you work with promoters for club nights?

Yes, on DJ-only, system-only, or full production. We carry $2M liability and invoice properly, which is more than half of what a venue actually needs from a supplier.

Do you have a mixed Persian and Arabic set?

Yes. Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Afghan sit together well when they are sequenced deliberately rather than alternated. Ask for the crossover set and tell us roughly what the guest list is made of.

Do you play Turkish music?

Yes, and as a real set: Turkish pop, çiftetelli and halay, not one track played to be polite. It moves in and out of the Persian and Arabic catalogue more easily than anything else does, which is why a mixed Toronto room asks for it so often. Requests in Turkish get screened against your do-not-play list the same as everything else.

Is this the same person who does the weddings?

Yes. There is no agency behind this and nobody else arrives under our name. If we are booked on your date we will tell you that instead of sending someone else.

How long do you play for?

Four to five hours is standard for a private evening. Additional hours are agreed in advance rather than negotiated at midnight, and a mehmooni that is going well is exactly the wrong moment to open that conversation.

Can you MC as well, in Farsi?

No. The DJ works in English and does not provide MC services. If you need Farsi announcements, arrange a Farsi-speaking host or MC and we will coordinate their cues and microphones.