The Water Coolers

First, We ListenWe meet with you by phone to learn about your meeting’s objectives, your organizational culture and the audience. One of our writers always participates in this call to ensure a solid connection between your needs and the creative perspective.Then We Build a Set ListDrawing from our ever increasing wealth of existing material, we create a set list that aligns with your objective, fits with the culture and is particularly relevant to your audience. For example, for audiences that travel a lot, we do our “Air Travel Medley” including “Flying in Economy” (sung to the tune of Leaving on a Jet Plane) and “De-Lay” (Harry Belafonte’s Day-o). For sales audiences, perhaps “Nowhere Close to My Quota” (Somewhere Over the Rainbow) and “We Are the Sales Reps” (We Are the Champions). For audiences that spend a lot of time dealing with technology we’ll include our IT medley, which speaks to anyone ever held captive by a help line (“And Hold Please”), who has pretended to understand an IT guy (“The IT Cowboy”) or found themselves judged by how many words a minute they can type with their thumbs (“Blackberry”). Where possible, language can be added to introductions and existing numbers that speaks directly to your audience. And finally, you review the set list to make sure it’s on target.Add in Customized Material that speaks directly to your Event Goals!Some clients like to send up the competition, some like to celebrate the craziness of “a day in the life” of their audience members and some simply request a roof-raising showstopper that salutes audience members, customers or even the conference theme. We work with you to determine which approach will work best and describe the information we’ll need to write the number. You provide the information (often clients hand this off to someone in the organization who knows the audience members and we work directly with that person); we develop the song and send an MP3 demo of the number for your approval. We then arrange, stage and rehearse your number. We've also created an award show package that has been winning raves from clients all over the country. We'll kick off the evening with a dynamite opening number; celebrate your top award winners with a musical tribute; and end the evening singing the praises of the entire company. Customization at this level typically requires additional costs.Getting the Timing RightWe’ve done shows of almost any length. We recommend that a dinner show be approximately 45-50 minutes and an afternoon performance be 35-40. We’ve kicked off events with a 10-minute teaser and then come back after dinner to do a full set. You may also want to use us interstitially throughout your event; introduce the next speaker, etc. The final decision is, of course, yours.