STREAMING
WITH NO INTERNET

On TIDAL the answer is flat: "Due to TIDAL restrictions, it's not possible to play TIDAL tracks when you're offline."

There is no plan, setting or cache that changes that inside rekordbox. A TIDAL set is an online set, full stop.

SoundCloud splits by plan. "SoundCloud Go+: Tracks cannot be played offline." SoundCloud DJ can store tracks offline, with a clock on them: "If 30 or more days pass after tracks are stored offline without connection to the Internet, these offline tracks are deleted. However, if the device is connected to the Internet and logged in to SoundCloud on rekordbox while connected to the Internet after a term of 20 days after tracks are stored offline, the time limit for offline storage is reset."

Read the clock carefully, because it is two numbers, not one. Stored tracks are deleted after thirty days without a connection. But logging in online after twenty days resets the clock. So a DJ who stores tracks, tours for three weeks with no signal, then connects once, keeps them. A DJ who leaves it to day thirty loses them. Reconnect somewhere between day twenty and day twenty-nine and the library survives.

Beatport describe their own service as "the only streaming service that allows DJs to store music offline for playback without an internet connection", and put a condition on it: "Offline locker storage is available for Professional subscribers only." Once stored, they say you can "play any track" from the offline library "without an internet connection".

The condition is the whole answer. Beatport's offline locker is the reason people say streaming works offline, and it exists on the Professional subscription. On any other Beatport plan, a venue with no signal is a venue with no Beatport. Check the plan name before you rely on it.

rekordbox answer the export question in one sentence, under "Are there any functional restrictions when using tracks from a streaming service on rekordbox ver. 6?": streaming tracks "Cannot be exported to a USB storage device or SD memory card." That is every service, with no exception for a paid tier.

The same answer closes another door: "The recording function cannot be used. This is due to copyright restrictions set by the streaming services."

So offline playback, where it exists, is playback from the laptop in PERFORMANCE mode and nothing else. The tracks do not go onto a drive for the club's players, and the set is not recorded inside rekordbox. The USB question has its own page.

Any track the set depends on is a file you own, on a drive, tested on a player before the gig. Streaming is for discovery, for tracks you can afford to lose, and for gigs where you have checked the plan and the signal in advance.

Put "streaming: which plan, and does the venue have signal" on the pre-gig checklist next to the drive and the adapters. It is the same kind of item.

A phone hotspot is the only thing on this page that helps in the booth, and only if the phone has signal and the plan allows it. Try it once. If it does not hold, stop.

Then play what you own. Anything already on the drive, anything already downloaded. The streamed tracks are not coming back until the connection does, and the set does not have to wait for them.