Grand Ballroom
The main room in the clubhouse: a twin sweeping staircase, high ceilings and a large dance floor. In the photo from the top of the staircase I'm set up in front of the center French doors with the floor ahead of me.
DJ and MC at The Club at Ruby Hill
The ballroom at Ruby Hill in Pleasanton is two stories tall with a twin staircase, so the room gets seen from above as much as from the floor. I DJ and MC company nights, weddings and birthdays here, and the lighting in these photos is mine: color on the columns, pattern across the upper walls.
Pleasanton, the East Bay
A clubhouse over
A clubhouse over
the fairways
The Club at Ruby Hill is a private golf and country club on the southeast edge of Pleasanton, where the East Bay turns into Livermore Valley wine country. Plenty of people still call it Ruby Hill Golf Club. The clubhouse looks out over an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature course, with vineyards past the fairways.
Everything stays on one property: getting-ready suites, a patio facing the course, and the Grand Ballroom in the clubhouse. Catering and the bar are in-house. Parking for guests is on site.
The setting asks two different things of the sound. Out on the patio there are no walls to hold a voice. Indoors the ceiling is high, and a toast can blur before it reaches the back tables.
The spaces
Ballroom, patio,
Ballroom, patio,
and a quieter room
Outdoor Patio
Faces the golf course, and the club uses it for ceremonies, cocktail hours and receptions. Open air takes a voice away fast, so anything out here gets its own small system, separate from the ballroom: a speaker aimed at your guests and a wireless mic for whoever is speaking.
Parlor Room
A smaller indoor room the club lists for private events. For a dinner, a shower or a meeting in here: a compact setup, music you can talk over, and a mic for whoever needs to say a few words. Ask the club what it holds.
Getting-ready suites
Rooms for the couple and the wedding party. No sound needed from me here, but they matter to the timeline. Nobody walks until the processional is cued and everyone is in place.
How I set up here
One room,
One room,
seen from two levels
A patio with no walls and a ballroom two stories tall. Each one gets its own plan.
Patio first, ballroom ready
When the ceremony or cocktail hour is on the patio, it gets its own setup, separate from the ballroom system. Both are tested before guests arrive, so when people walk inside the music is already playing and I'm not carrying a speaker past them.
Speech in a tall room
High ceilings are beautiful and they're hard on a microphone. I place the speakers for the tables, not only the dance floor, and the mic is checked before guests arrive, so the first toast is clear at the back tables. Dinner music stays at a level you can talk over, then builds as the plates clear.
Light the height
The staircase and the balcony mean guests look down into this room, so I light it top to bottom. Uplighting on the columns, a pattern or a monogram on the upper walls. It's set and running before doors open, because the first look into the ballroom happens once.
Early in, backups within reach
Before the day I ask the club where vendors bring gear in. Both systems, ballroom and patio, are set and sound-checked before the first guest parks. Backup equipment comes with me every time. If something fails out on the patio or under that high ceiling, the fix is already plugged in.
No planner? You're covered
You host.
You host.
I hold the clock.
A club like this handles the food, the bar and the room. Somebody still has to run the evening: start things on time, line up the entrance, hand the mic to the right person, and move the room from dinner to dancing. That's me. Before the event you fill out my planning questionnaire, we talk through the music and the order of events, and by the time I arrive I already know your event inside and out.
I couldn't find a published music cutoff for Ruby Hill, indoors or on the patio. So I don't guess. I ask the club, and your timeline gets built back from the answer.
Lighting
The lighting here
The lighting here
is mine
Amber leaf patterns across all three upper walls. That's my lighting in the Ruby Hill ballroom, and so is the rest of the lighting in these photos. Pink and magenta on the white columns for one dinner, lavender and purple up into the ceiling coffers for a reception, and a white monogram on the wall.
A two-story room gives light somewhere to go. Uplighting, dance-floor lighting and a custom monogram or pattern are add-ons you choose in the instant estimate.
More than weddings
Company nights,
Company nights,
birthdays, quinceaneras
The club books a lot more than weddings: corporate events and meetings, holiday parties, birthdays and milestones, quinceaneras, showers, celebrations of life and golf tournaments. Company nights, holiday parties, birthdays and quinceaneras are nights I play too. A holiday party wants a host on the mic and a floor that fills after dinner. A quinceanera has its own entrances and its own music, and I plan both with the family.
For a tournament dinner or an awards night, a Selector Session fits: up to four hours of my own programming, with a wireless mic for the presentations. And if your crowd wants the songs they already know, I play those too: Latin, Motown, funk and soul, 80s, Bhangra and Desi.
Good to Know
Asked about
Asked about
a DJ at Ruby Hill
Can you DJ both the ceremony on the patio and the reception in the ballroom?
Yes. The ceremony gets its own setup on the patio: a speaker aimed at your guests, a wireless mic for the officiant and your vows, and the processional cued. The ballroom system is separate and already tested, so nothing has to move while your guests do.
What time does music have to end at The Club at Ruby Hill?
I haven't seen the club publish a cutoff, and I won't make one up. I confirm the end time with the club for the ballroom and for the patio, then plan backwards from it so the dancing isn't cut short and your last song is the one you picked.
Is the lighting in these photos yours?
It is. The uplighting on the columns, the pattern projections on the upper walls and the monogram are all mine, from my own events in this ballroom. You pick the colors. Lighting is an add-on in the instant estimate.
We don't have a planner. Can you run the timeline and the announcements?
That's the job. I MC every entrance, toast and big moment, and I work from a timeline we put together ahead of the day. You get a planning questionnaire and calls with me, so on the day you can simply be there.
Do you play company parties and birthdays at Ruby Hill, or only weddings?
Not only weddings. The club hosts corporate events, holiday parties, birthdays and quinceaneras, and I play those too. Tell me the kind of night you want and I'll shape the music for that room and that crowd.
More rooms
Other rooms I've played
Other rooms I've played
in the East Bay
- Alumni HouseBerkeley
- The Brazilian RoomBerkeley
- Little HillsSan Ramon
Every room, from Napa Valley to the coast, is on the rooms list.
Your event
Tell me about your night at Ruby Hill
Your date, the kind of event and the feeling you want in that ballroom. The instant estimate takes a couple of minutes, or book a short call and we'll talk it through.