Reply to Warming up at a mainstream event

Hey guys !

So i've done quite a lot of gigs and openers. I am more of an underground DJ but i still do mainstream events.

I've always had some problems handling the warming up of a mainstream event. Where i live, the "average" person is pretty intolerant to anything that is not top 40. And they need to be drunk to enjoy remixes. So it is kinda hard to start the groove with more obscure stuff. Normally i play some less known or older hip hop reccords, then jump of to classics and mainstream songs remixed into pure/tech house. Then i try to make it last the longest possible in order to keep the most known songs for later. But it is kinda hard.

Do you have any tips in order to make a better warming up set ?

In two days i have another of these kind of gig, it is for university students, and i start at 5 P.M. until 1 A.M. It is so long that i was believeing of literally putting a playlist for the first two hours of rock classics and stuff like that, as it is a ... pledge i believe it is called in english ? Like a party for the new students ? And i guess it will just be background music while they get drunk real fast. And i guess 8 hour of electronic music might be a bit too much for the average guy...

What do you believe ?

Thank you very much