Weddings, stag and hen events
Crashing Waiters for dinner and evening entertainment
About 15 years ago, I saw the introduction of a fabulous surprise dinner entertainment called ‘singing waiters’. First in London, then quickly spreading to other regions, various forms of singing waiters were to be found in corporate dinners everywhere.
The concept was, and still is, effective. Waiters actually turn out to be opera singers, and dinner guests are typically treated to a 20-minute show before an arousing finale of Nessun Dorma!
Back then, I was an event manager, about to launch a new events company. I would often watch from the side-line and analyse what worked and what didn’t with this format.
I soon realised that, because the audience were just being sang to, it was easy for some of the diners to lose interest in passive watching and listening. Many quickly returned to their conversations.
Instead, I considered that combining the use of surprise undercover waiters with the unique idea of diners actually creating music themselves would deliver a winning activity. So Crashing Waiters, our interactive dinner activity, was born!
Just like any new idea, some things worked immediately and some things had to be tweaked to create the winning format we offer today.
Interrupting someone’s conversation and dinner, particularly after a few glasses of wine, and then keeping diners entertained is a highly skilled job. The facilitators have to create a believable initial surprise to ‘reel’ diners in, sustain energy and interest levels and then know when to finish on a high!
We find that our Crashing Waiters activity works best between the main course and dessert, and should last for about 30 minutes. We are always mindful that the venue has to finish serving the meal.
Crashing Waiters is now one of our most popular events and continues to stun diners all over the world. Our video below shows two different Crashing Waiters events. One was a 400-person spectacular and the other involved a more intimate group of 70. Both, as you will see, immediately created a party atmosphere, and this allowed us to generate as much fun and rhythmical entertainment as possible. Our aim is always to have everyone involved and, just like all our other activities, create a space where almost anything might happen…and sometimes does!
We get asked to deliver Crashing Waiters in company canteens, at evening dinners and even at wedding receptions. There is always great demand during the Christmas party season.
While this event is primarily just for entertainment, there is a powerful message about what can be achieved by working together as a team. In under 30 minutes, and after an uninvited initial surprise interruption to a meal, the entire room always buys into the concept of working together to create music with gift bags of assorted utensils! We believe that only the leadership and people skills of the facilitator mixed with the committed energy of his or her support staff make this possible.
Please enjoy the video. Maybe after this year’s Christmas party you will also be going home with a gift spatula and pan!
About the author:
Mark Hunter is Head Facilitator at Creative Team Events, which provides a range of unique events to clients worldwide. For more information, please contact us.
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Creative but traditional Morris Dancing for team building
We are always up for a challenge and, recently, we were asked to provide old English Morris Dancing to enhance a unique teambuilding event that would see 200 delegates rotate around many traditional English countryside activities.
Last Friday, the special medieval-themed teambuilding session took place. In between duck herding with expert farm dogs, long bow archery and making of 15th century canapés, groups of 30 people at a time met our amazing, and totally passionate, Morris Dancers!
Morris Dancing is not something I am intimately familiar with, and, like many people I suppose, I have preconceived ideas about it. Yet, I was proved wonderfully wrong!
Just before the session was due to start, I went up to the dressing room to bring down the 15-strong ‘side’. I learned that this is what a collection of Morris Dancers is called. I was stunned when I walked into the room and discovered everyone in their amazing, colourful costumes, with faces blackened in the traditional way and with bells hanging off every possible limb. I can’t describe the looks from the venue staff as the Morris Dancers all quietly ‘jingled’ through the hotel.
In typical conference style, the speakers were running late, so we hid in an adjacent corridor, and I usefully spent the time learning about the many customs and fascinating folklore surrounding this rare element of English heritage.
Soon it was time to start and the first participants walked in, took a big breath and then learned to Morris Dance! As someone who regularly facilitates drumming and Haka worldwide, I was very pleasantly surprised to witness clients getting stuck right in, quickly learning the steps (and all the variations involved) and having fantastic fun.
Participants loved it, and even the passers-by at the venue couldn’t take their eyes of our Morris Dancing sessions. I would like to commend our Morris Dancers for being so professional and flexible for the entire afternoon.
Morris Dancing is one of a long list of unique options available from us, which can add something very special to your family fun day or even wedding!
About the author:
Mark Hunter is Head Facilitator at Creative Team Events. For more information about our team events, please contact us. Please don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list to receive our weekly blogs directly by email.
Unique hen party entertainment with drumming
As almost every activity we provide is full of fun, energy and surprise, it’s no wonder that exhilarated participants occasionally ask about doing the same thing within a birthday, stag or hen party.
If they had this much fun with work colleagues and, sometimes, total strangers, then what must it be like sharing these interactive events with friends and family? The answer is: amazing fun and never-to-be-forgotten memories.
Recently, we integrated a drumming activity into a hen party. There are now so many options to choose from for hen party entertainment, such as pole dancing lessons, beauty spa treatments and cake decoration, but nothing rivals the energy and level of interaction with drumming.
We discreetly parked outside the house in central London. I was met outside and quickly ushered in, to discover that the room was already cleared and set up with seats.
To keep the surprise for the bride-to-be right up until the last second, everything was organised like a military operation. Every last detail had been thought of. All the nearby neighbours had had slips of paper put through their doors explaining that for 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon the street would sound like an African village!
The bridesmaids kept the unsuspecting guests and bride-to-be out of the way. As they enjoyed Pimms in the sun, we secretly passed sixteen drums into the house and got into position.
