Corporate Entertainment in Sydney

What we book for corporate events

Every corporate booking starts with the room: how many people, how much time on the run sheet, and what the event actually needs to achieve. From there we match acts from across the roster rather than pushing whoever happens to be free. These are the formats that get booked into Sydney offices, hotels and function centres most often.

• Hosted game shows for a whole department on its feet at once, a live feud format or a fast trivia round scored on the night and run by a professional host.
• Mentalists who read the room and get the CFO up on stage.
• Magicians and illusionists for close up wonder at the tables during drinks or a stage scale reveal during the formal part of the night.
• Comedy hypnotists and stage hypnotists for a laugh that pulls half the room into the act, without anyone being made to look foolish against their will.
• MCs and hosts to keep the run sheet honest, introduce the speakers, and hold the room together between segments.
• Roving entertainment for the mingling hour before doors open properly, working small groups rather than holding the whole floor.
• Bands and musicians and DJs for the part of the night people actually remember and keep talking about afterwards.
• Comedians for an after dinner set that lands with a mixed crowd, not just the people who already know each other.
• Dancers and feature shows for an opener, a showcase moment between courses, or a change of pace before the dance floor opens.

Occasions

The room shapes the format more than the industry does. Here is what tends to work for the occasions we get booked for most.

• Conferences and offsites: something between sessions that resets attention without eating into the agenda. A roving act at the break or a short game show segment works better than another speaker slot.
• Awards nights and gala dinners: entertainment either side of the speeches, not during them, so nobody is competing with the microphone or the video wall.
• EOFY and Christmas parties: the busiest weeks on the calendar, and the ones where popular acts and hosted game shows book out first. These dates need the earliest notice of any on this list.
• Team building and training days: a hosted game show splits a group into teams and gets everyone competing within minutes, with no props, costumes or fitness level required.
• Trade shows and product launches: a roving act or MC draws a crowd to a stand and keeps people there longer than a bowl of lollies and a brochure will manage on their own.
• Client hospitality and venue events: quieter, close up entertainment that lets people keep talking rather than a stage act that stops the room and demands everyone's attention at once.

Gala dinners, awards nights and conferences

These three get their own section because they are the briefs where the entertainment has to fit around a program rather than be the program. A gala dinner has courses, speeches and usually a fundraising segment. An awards night has a running order that cannot slip. A conference has an agenda that was locked weeks ago. The act has to land in the gaps, and the gaps are always shorter than the organiser hoped.

• Gala dinner entertainment: a feature act between courses rather than during them - a mentalist or illusionist for a twelve minute stage spot, a short dance or aerial piece, or a band that holds back through dinner and opens up once the plates are cleared. Roving magic during pre-dinner drinks is the lowest risk start to a gala we know.
• Awards night entertainment: the MC matters more than anything else on the night. A host who can hold a room through forty presentations, keep the winners moving and recover when the video wall fails is the difference between an awards night that runs to time and one that loses the room before the main award. Feature acts sit either side of the presentations, never in the middle of them.
• Conference MCs and session breaks: a professional MC to open, link the speakers and run the audience questions, with a short interactive act at the afternoon slump - a hosted game show segment or a mentalist working the audience - to reset attention without eating into the agenda.

Every act is briefed on the run sheet before the night, and the MC gets the full program, the pronunciations and the sponsor list in advance, not on arrival. Tell us the program and we will tell you where the entertainment fits and where it does not.

How booking works

1. Tell us the event. Use the finder or contact us directly with the date, venue, guest numbers, budget and what the event needs to achieve, whether that is filling a gap in the agenda or giving people a reason to stay past the main course. The more context we have, the tighter the shortlist.
2. We shortlist and check availability. You get a small number of matched acts with real video, credentials and honest advice on what will and will not work in the room, not a long list to sort through yourself.
3. One confirmation, one invoice. Once you choose, the act is briefed on your run sheet, insurance is sorted, and everything runs through one invoice, whether it is one performer or a full program of several acts.

Why companies book through an agency

Booking a performer direct puts the risk of the night on you. Going through an agency moves most of that risk off your desk.

• Insurance and paperwork are handled as part of the booking, with certificates supplied to your venue and finance team rather than chased down the week before.
• If an act falls ill or cancels close to the date, there is a backup to call rather than an empty slot on the run sheet.
• One contact covers several acts, so a multi-act program is one relationship to manage instead of five separate bookings and five separate invoices.
• Honest advice on what will not work in the room comes before you book it, not as a surprise on the night, because the agency's name is on the outcome too.

We have been booking corporate rooms across Australia since 2003, so most briefs are a version of one we have handled before, and we know which formats hold up on the night.

There is one more difference from booking direct. Our clients plan and run their whole event on Show Me Now, the event management platform we have chosen to run our events on: a free portal for the guest list, RSVPs, dietary needs, seating, documents, budget and suppliers, one floor plan, and a run sheet that updates on every screen when the night moves. The entertainment is the part we look after inside it. See how your event runs.

Sydney first, Australia wide

Action Entertainment is based in Sydney, and that is where most of the roster lives and works, which keeps travel costs down and availability easier to confirm. For interstate events, or when the right act for the brief happens to be based elsewhere, we bring them in and handle the travel, with those costs quoted up front rather than added to an invoice later. The booking process does not change: one enquiry, one shortlist, one point of contact, regardless of which state the act is flying in from.

See the roster by city: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, or the dedicated pages for corporate entertainment in Melbourne and corporate entertainment in Brisbane, each with the acts based in that state and the same booking process behind it.

Corporate acts on the roster

Further reading

• Our Top Five Corporate End of Year Entertainment Ideas
• How To Spice Up Your Next Corporate Event
• The Best Themed Events For Corporate Functions
• Unlocking the Power of Laughter: Why Corporate Clients Should Book a Comedy Hypnotist
• Team Building and Reconnecting Work Relationships in a Post-Pandemic World
• Booking Tips