When the BG Göttingen plays a home game in the basketball Bundesliga, he sets the tone: Jan Ohms is the DJ and responsible for the music in the Sparkassen-Arena. While he is usually faced with the challenge of getting more than 3000 musical tastes under one roof, he currently has to manage to spread a good mood in front of empty seats. He has not lost the fun of his job.
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Jan Ohms is in the hall two hours before the game starts and plays music for the players while they warm up. From this point on it is in constant use until the final siren: music before the start of the game, music during the arrival of the teams, music during breaks in the game, music at halftime and so on. “Many think the music comes on the radio or via a Spotify playlist,” says the 18-year-old. But far from it. Almost everything that sounds from the loudspeakers in the Sparkassen-Arena is controlled by Ohms from his seat at the jury.
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No song is fully played out
As a DJ, Ohms mainly spins at weddings or other private celebrations. Since August 2019, the 18-year-old has also been in action at the home games of the BG Göttingen. Jonas Friedrich, among other things responsible for organizing the match day at BG, became aware of the young DJ during a party and brought him to the Veilchen in the Sparkassen-Arena.
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That was a completely new experience for him, says Ohms. Much is different than at a wedding, for example: “I can’t play the songs to the full during the game, but only for ten seconds. The difficulty is to filter out the ten seconds from a song that are the most meaningful. ”
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In addition, there is hardly any direct interaction with the spectators in the hall. The grandstand is not a dance floor. That is why he has to “read the audience in a different way” in order to be able to play the music that suits the mood. A task for which he has developed a feeling, according to Ohms, but which is actually impossible: “With more than 3000 spectators, it is difficult to get all musical tastes under one roof.”
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There’s hip-hop to warm up
What criteria does the DJ use to choose his music? “During the warm-up, the players want to hear hip-hop most of all, they have very similar tastes,” says Ohms. As soon as viewers come into the hall, he switches to charts and pop music. Basically, he is always open to music requests from the audience.
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The DJ has sorted his music into folders according to decades and genres. Musically, however, he does not go back any further with the BG than in the 1980s. “Most of the time I move in the 2000s, and that always fits very well,” explains the 18-year-old. “I always try to orient myself to which songs you can dance to well.” He also makes sure not to play the same songs over and over again: “It shouldn’t be possible to place bets on me, I want to be individual in every game . “
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Ghost games are another challenge
His goal is to “underline” the emotions of the audience well, to enable everyone in the hall to have a “good experience”. Ohms emphasizes: “The worst would be if the atmosphere in the hall were bad because of the music.”
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Due to the ghost games, he is facing a completely different challenge in his second season as a BG DJ: to create a mood in front of empty stands. For the DJ, no audience means: no feedback. “That was a big change for me,” says Ohms. “Being a DJ normally lives from feedback.” That is why he was very pleased when the MagentaSport unit manager and a referee recently came to him to praise the choice of music.
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Since Jan Ohms and the BG Göttingen are often asked by viewers about certain songs that were played during a home game, the DJ has created a playlist on Spotify, which he updates regularly. The link can also be found in his Instagram profile (djjangoettingen).
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