When you open for a big DJ, your job is to get the room ready, not to win the night. Play music from the headliner's world, a step below their energy, with none of their tracks and none of the biggest anthems. Here is how to choose it, with ideas from DJs who play warm-ups often and from James Hype, who filmed how he got ready to open for David Guetta in Ibiza.
Your job: set the mood, not the peak
The opener, or warm-up DJ, plays first, often to a half-empty room, while people arrive, get a drink and decide how they feel about the night. You build the mood they carry into the headliner's set. A good goal: finish your set just below the energy where the headliner will start, so they have somewhere to go.
AJ Christou, who played elrow at UNVRS Ibiza in July 2026, put it simply in an interview with the club: "A good warm-up isn't about trying to steal the show." The most common mistake, he said, is "trying to force the peak too early." His way into a big room: "You earn people's trust record by record."
Rule one: never play the headliner's tracks
Every source agrees on this one. Before opening for David Guetta, James Hype's first move was to take out anything by Guetta, even acapellas (vocal-only versions you lay over another track). Play a headliner's song before they go on and you spend one of their best moments for them.
Hype knows it from the other side. In his video he remembers openers who played cheesy pop or very heavy techno before him, and one DJ in Luxembourg who played his own hit "Ferrari" right before his set. The same goes for the other DJs on the bill, above all the ones who play after you.
Leave the anthems for later
Next, Hype went through his music looking for tracks that were "too big or too iconic" for an opening act. One track had been played at a lot of shows that summer, so he took it out of respect. Then he dug through his Beatport downloads for replacements with the right sound that the crowd did not know by heart. For a Guetta night, he picked a hybrid between house and big room: close to the headliner's sound, without taking it.
That is the sweet spot for an opener: tracks that feel familiar but are not the obvious hit. Keep your favorite peak-time track for the nights you play last.
Stay in the headliner's world
Your set should sound like the start of the same night, not a different party. Before the gig:
- Listen to the headliner's recent sets. Note their style, the tempo they start at and the tracks they open with, so you can lead into them without copying them.
- Ask the promoter. When does the room fill up, what tempo does the headliner usually start at (in BPM, beats per minute), and is there anything they would rather not hear before them?
- Keep a narrow tempo range. Start slower and climb a few BPM over your set instead of jumping around. Our BPM guide for every style shows the usual ranges.
- Plan loosely. You cannot know how fast the room will fill. Prepare more tracks than you need, at a few energy levels, and choose on the night.
A digging tip: in a style crate on Digger Digger, every track shows how many recorded DJ sets it was found in. The ones found in the most sets are the ones a big headliner is most likely to play. Look a little further down the list for tracks with the same sound that get played less.
When you are a name too
Hype's night had a twist: he headlined shows all summer, so part of the crowd came to see him too. He decided to play some of his own big tracks and his trademark technical transitions, because "I've gotta still give them the show that they want." He set hot cues (saved start points you trigger with one button) on an acapella of Fatboy Slim's "The Rockafeller Skank," so he could drop it at the exact moment he wanted.
He even asked on Instagram what was fair to play, and Guetta himself answered: "You can play anything, brother." Hype still held back the biggest tracks. If you are a local DJ opening for a touring act, the lesson is the same: even with a green light, keep the biggest moments for the headliner.
What changes in the booth
Opening also means playing with less. In the video, Hype explains that a sound check (a test of the sound system before the doors open) is often a luxury kept for the headliner. He got one at UNVRS and used it to test his tricks, so he would not get them wrong in front of thousands of people. He estimates that 60 to 70% of the club's lights, screens and effects are kept for the headliner, and says the volume is always lower for the opener.
That is normal, so do not fight it. Instead of pushing the mixer into the red, turn the booth monitors down for a moment and listen to what the dance floor hears. And expect a different crowd: Hype called the night "really humbling," because most people react less to the opener when they came for the headliner.
The handover
- Arrive early and end on time. Your slot ends when the headliner's starts, not one track later.
- Leave an easy track to mix out of: a steady groove at a tempo close to where they start, not a breakdown or a big vocal moment.
- Make room. Take your USB sticks, headphones and bag out of the way and let the headliner set up.
- Stay and watch. The first ten minutes of their set teach you more than any guide, and a short thank-you to the promoter the next day helps you get booked again.
See what James Hype thinks
James Hype filmed the whole day for his YouTube series "Moving Differently": choosing the music, the sound check at UNVRS, and his set right before David Guetta at the closing party of Guetta's Galactic Circus residency, listed for Friday, October 2, 2026. The video came out on October 12 and lasts about eight minutes.
Play the video: DJing For David Guetta... Nobody Tells You This.More ideas and resources
- The Art of the Warm-Up: UNVRS Ibiza's interview with AJ Christou (August 2026), the first of a series with the club's supporting DJs.
- How to DJ warm-up sets (and when to break the rules) by Phil Morse of Digital DJ Tips: when it is fine to play bigger, like a late headliner or a night where every DJ is a guest.
- Opening DJ tips from Dubspot (May 2026): the shape of a warm-up set, tempo ranges and how openers get rebooked.
- The art of the warm-up by Toolroom's Danny Rhys: reading the room, starting slow and checking your levels.
- Watch the throne, Mixmag's 2015 feature on why the warm-up DJ matters as much as the headliner.
To build the set itself, read how to prepare a DJ set and our guide to harmonic mixing. Then open the headliner's style in all styles, play the 30-second previews and save the tracks that fit your warm-up to your crate with the + button.
Sources: James Hype on YouTube, Welcome to Ibiza, UNVRS, Wikipedia, Digital DJ Tips, Dubspot.