My mum is having a bash for her 70th Birthday -it's going to be in a Church hall in Ilford next month. My brother is going to source all the music as there are some special requests -it'll probably just a play list on a laptop or something -we don't want a DJ. Other than that we haven't a clue. Anyone have any ideas/advice please.

are you talking about just a little background music or disco noise levels?

Have you done this sort of thing before? How many guests? Be aware that if you have a laptop PSU with an earth, you may get a hum through the PA from the PSU so worth considering using an unearthed (double insulated) power supply.

are you talking about just a little background music or disco noise levels?

 

Probably more background noise.

 

Have you done this sort of thing before? How many guests? Be aware that if you have a laptop PSU with an earth, you may get a hum through the PA from the PSU so worth considering using an unearthed (double insulated) power supply.

 

No neither of us have done anything like this

It's a bit too far for me to make it worthwhile sadly, but all you need is a pair of powered speakers on stands for something like that..

Also what j0hn says is true, you can get a ground loop in a PA system with certain types of psu, you can also get the same phenomena happen between a laptop and a projector too, it's easily solvable with a DI box however, it takes the low Impendenc unbalanced signal/s from a laptop and feeds them through a transformer which lifts the earth and converts it to a hi-z balanced signal.

Probably more background noise.

No neither of us have done anything like this

How many guests? How big is the room?

It's worth getting in some quotes from a DJ, depending in what you have to hire in and whether you are reliant on the hire firm delivering and setting up the kit, you might find a DJ is not that much more expensive.