Every now and then you hear about the Sultan of Alabazakazaaah paying 10 million for one performance by Hayzi Fantayzee – but I am interested in the more mundane, fist biting what-am-i-doing-with-my-life Corporate gig?
I was at a conference last week and there was a singer just mumblin’ away tastefully in the background. Nice bloke – but what a life. It was full room but nobody really paid attention to his lip trembling treatments of “Alleluia” or “Angels” – there was no Amanda Holden wiping away tears and beckoning the audience to stand up and applaud. But, as the singer reasoned to me later, “it’s a very good payday” and seemed happy.
On other occasions there has been the odd bit of live music from fairly well-known (here) NZ entertainers, happy to be background music in order to pay the rent.
In the world of comedy, I once sat through a Barry Cryer routine about pensions. Full of in-jokes and good-natured ribbing of senior execs of the insurance company running the event. It sounds appalling but Cryer is a genius so it was (and I mean this) a privilege to witness it.
At the other end of the scale, YouTube reveals nothing but I am certain I saw a special version of They Think It’s All Over – produced as a one-off special for a life insurance company. To his credit, Nick Hancock was nowhere to be seen so it was presented by the “I’ve Got a Handful of Songs” hitmaker Christopher Lillicrap. Otherwise, I think the same people were there. There were straightforward jolly sporting questions and then – with a straight face – the contestants broke off to discuss the importance of having good life insurance and pensions, making sure that the insurance company sponsor was mentioned.
So what have you got? Did you work for a roofing company and did Mark Hollis bash out ‘knees up mother brown’ for your end of year bash?
Many years ago, the biggest food wholesale dealer in Sweden would set up a big annual trade fair and invite all of their customers. Every brand they sold would have a food stall where you could taste their products and place orders for Christmas, and get lots of free samples to take home. And once you’d made the rounds you’d go to the canteen where a big Christmas smörgåsbord was laid out, and on a small stage in the last year that this event took place, a Swedish stand up comedian was doing his routine. Twice, since all of the guests couldn’t fit in the canteen at once, so they had two sittings.
We came for the second one. Barely anyone laughed at any of the jokes, and he got very annoyed and aggressive, and after the show we could hear him complaining to the guy in charge of the event that the audience was useless and he’d never do another corporate gig again.
He shouldn’t have complained about the audience, he should have complained about the fact that some schmuck (probably the same guy he was moaning to) had decided it would be a good idea to send his first (identical) set through the speakers that were everywhere in the building. Of course nobody laughed – we’d heard all of the jokes already, just thirty minutes earlier. They weren’t that funny the first time either, second time around we were absolutely sick of them…
I hope the food was not as stale as the jokes, Locust.
The right kind of artist, such as a lively, up-tempo party band, can make a corporate gig work for them.
I suspect Leonard Cohen doesn’t get offered too many.
I’ve sat through Barry Cryer doing a corporate. He’s funny but basically just a stream of one liners. I’ve also seen Jimmy Carr, Willy Rushton, Jack Dee, Jonathan Ross, Rory Bremner, Bobby Davro, Graham Norton and Vernon Kay (died on his arse). It’s a very good payday for them. Ross was reputed to get £20k for an awards show.
There was a very good article in Word about musicians doing corporates. Basically almost everyone has their price, except people like Dylan and Springsteen. Trouble is, you have to accept that the audience aren’t there to see you and they might be more interested in talking about chipboard, potatoes or whatever line of business they’re in.
Just remembered. I did a few days in Glasgow for an audience of American travel agents. The turn was Natalie Cole who was quite a diva. She came on stage in a skin tight white dress (not a good look for her at the time) and when she realised her image was on a screen over the stage, turned her back on the audience until the screen was blanked. The only interaction she had with the screen after that was when she duetted Unforgettable with a VT of her dead father.
Comedians doing corporates is something that comes up time and again on podcasts like Comedians Comedian and RHLSTP. They seem to be generally seen as a payday that allows the artist a bit more leeway in the rest of their work. Most seem to appreciate that nobody there has paid to see them and that they’re lucky if there are a few fans in.
A company I worked for many years ago were quite lavish in their Christmas parties and had The Three Degrees and Don MaCLean (the comedian not the singer). The audience were barely interested in either so it was a rather forlorn attempt to curry favour.
When did Hayzi Fantayzee reform?
I worked for some years for a major financial services company where the annual conference / convention events were the backbone of their being. If you were in sales, the only thing that mattered was making it to the very top convention – there were 4 “tiers”, each more opulent than the last – suites at the 6 (or is it 7) star Burj Al Arab, first class flights (seats were allocated in sales revenue order from 1A back). Acts like Booby Davro and Jonathan Ross would be flown out to host a dinner at these events. I remember seeing Stan Boardman doing 30 minutes where the best laugh he got was unintentionally mispronouncing the MD’s name.
Wembley Conference Center would be booked each year and the good and the great would assemble to take in the center piece of the day, announcing the targets and the loactions for the following year. The day would close with a musical act – Jools and his Orchestra one year (prompting some terrible dad dancing from a few over refreshed area managers) followed by Status Quo the following year, received mostly by grimaces due to the volume they were cranking out “Rocking All Over The World” (i.e. about 25% less than their usual gig volume). I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun on company time.
A few years back I spent a day at Epsom races courtesy of Sony. I partook enthusiastically in the food and drink on offer but called it a day when Lemar hit the stage. At the time Sony were near neighbours of Vodafone whose most recent event had Robbie Williams as star turn.
Apropos the OP, and the mention of Nick Hancock, strange he wasn’t there as, I recall, he gave up showbiz to sell mortgages. Wiki tells me he gave that up 2 years later.