Holiday Party Magician · Company Parties · Year-End Events

The Timing

Why December dates go first

Every company in your city wants the same four Fridays. Venues know it, caterers know it, and entertainers know it, which is why the good dates in the first half of December are usually gone six to twelve months out. Booking a holiday party in October means choosing from what is left rather than what you wanted.

There is a straightforward way around it that more companies should use: hold the party in January. The room is cheaper, the diaries are clearer, the entertainment you actually wanted is available, and staff are considerably more pleased to be at a party in the flattest month of the year than in the busiest one.

The Room

The company party is a harder room than it looks

Three things make it difficult. Everyone knows each other, so the usual novelty of a shared audience is absent. Everyone has brought a partner who knows nobody, so half the room has no social footing at all. And it is a work event with a bar, which means the material has to be genuinely clean rather than clean-ish.

That last point is where holiday party bookings most often go wrong. An act that plays well in a club room is a very different proposition in front of the whole company, and the risk lands on whoever booked it.

The Plus-Ones

The half of the room nobody plans for

Partners and spouses are usually the largest group at a company party with nothing to do. They do not know the in-jokes, cannot join the shop talk, and generally spend the first hour attached to the one person they came with.

Close-up magic during the drinks reception fixes that faster than anything else on the run of show, because it hands them a shared experience with people they have just met. It is a small thing that changes how the whole first hour feels.