The Outdoor Art Club is a 1904 timber hall with a redwood garden beside it in downtown Mill Valley, and the club sets a firm end time for the music. I run the sound, the microphone and the timeline, so your birthday, wedding or company dinner fits that clock and you never have to watch it.
Thirty-five Mill Valley women started the Outdoor Art Club in 1902 to protect the redwoods near the train depot. Two years later Bernard Maybeck designed their clubhouse and its grounds. The club still owns the building and still runs it. It's a California Historical Landmark, and it's on the National Register of Historic Places.
A brown-shingled Arts and Crafts building sits at West Blithedale and Throckmorton, close to the shops and cafes of downtown. Inside is one great room with a high beamed ceiling, a hardwood floor and French doors that open to the outside. Outside is a garden shaded by redwoods and a large native oak. Your ceremony and your party are a short walk apart.
It's also a working club in a downtown neighborhood, and it behaves like one. It rents on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Its published hours end the music at 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, with the event itself over half an hour later. The venue's listings put amplified music indoors, at a moderate level. I don't fight any of that. I build the night to fit it.
Maybeck's main room: a high peaked ceiling on timber trusses, a hardwood floor, multipaned windows and a raised stage at one end. I've set my booth on that stage and beside it, with a speaker on each side of the hall so the sound reaches every table evenly.
A shaded patio with redwoods behind the seating and a big native oak overhead. For a ceremony here I've put two small speakers on stands among the trunks, close to the guests. Outdoor sound is the club's call, so that's the first question I ask.
Several sets of French doors open the great room to the outside, and I've stood a single speaker on the brick terrace beside them. It's a natural spot to drift during cocktails, and with the club's okay the music can follow people out.
One building, one garden, a short walk between them and a clock set by the club. Here's what that asks of a DJ.
The garden and the great room each get their own sound, once the club has said what's allowed in the garden. For a ceremony under the redwoods that's a second setup: small speakers on stands close to the chairs, a wireless mic for the officiant and the vows, the processional cued. The main system is already tested inside, so nothing gets carried past your guests.
Timber overhead, wood underfoot and a venue whose listing calls for moderately amplified music indoors. So I put a speaker on each side of the hall instead of one loud stack, and keep dinner at a level people can talk over. When the plates clear I build it, and the floor feels full at a volume the room can hold.
Music stops half an hour before the event has to end, and earlier on a Sunday. I plan your timeline backwards from that minute. Entrances, toasts and the first dance land early, dinner breathes, the dance floor gets its full stretch, and the last song is the one you chose.
Downtown means the load-in is something to plan, not guess at. The club's published access starts at 10 a.m. on the day, and I ask ahead where to unload, how far the carry is and whether the stage is free early. I arrive early, carry backup equipment, and sort out problems before you ever hear about them.
Set up and ready on the stage at the Outdoor Art Club
My booth set at the stage edge, redwood beams overhead
Working a reception on the stage at the Outdoor Art Club
At the decks, relaxed and tuned in
Focused behind the controller at the Outdoor Art Club
The great room, with the DJ booth set beside the stage
Ceremony sound set up under the redwoods
Speakers on both walls cover the whole hall
The redwood garden, set for a ceremony
A wedding party gathers in the redwood grove
Ceremony garden under the redwoods, speakers ready for the vows
Ceremony sound hidden in the garden greenery
The whole room moving, seen from the booth
Ties loosened, everybody singing along
Sound extends out to the terrace by the green doors
The controller and mic, set beside the stage stairs
Hands on the controller during a reception
Maybe you're running this celebration yourselves, with a caterer and a few vendors and nobody whose job is the clock. That's fine. Before your date we go through a planning questionnaire and planning calls: the order of the day, the must-plays, the do-not-plays, the exact versions of the songs you love. By the time I arrive, I already know your event inside and out.
On the day I'm the MC as well as the DJ. If there's a ceremony, I cue the processional. I line up the entrances, introduce the speeches and toasts, and move people from the garden to the hall when it's time. And I don't guess at the club's rules. I ask.
Here's what I'd do with light in this room. The great room is wood from floor to peak, and wood takes warm light well. Uplighting along the walls would lift the timber and the ceiling after dark, dance-floor lighting would mark where the party is, and a monogram or pattern could land on the floor or a wall.
The club asks that decor be approved ahead of time, so I'd clear any lighting with them before it goes near the walls or the stage. All of it is an add-on you choose in the instant estimate.
The club rents the clubhouse and garden for weddings and receptions, and also for rehearsal dinners, cocktail receptions in the garden, private parties and milestone celebrations. I play all of those. A 50th birthday, an anniversary, a company dinner or holiday party on a weekend, a fundraiser, a mitzvah: the hall has a stage for the speeches and a wood floor for what comes after.
Not every event wants an MC and a dance floor. For a dinner or a welcome party where you want a sound more than a program, a Selector Session is a set of my own programming, up to four hours. And a room like this one, wood and quiet with the redwoods outside, suits The Journey: a live sound bath that flows into a facilitated ecstatic dance.
Every room, from Napa Valley to the coast, is on the rooms list.
Your date, the kind of celebration and the feeling you want in that room. The instant estimate takes a couple of minutes, or book a short call and we'll talk it through.