Announcing Winter 2017 Touring Season

Have a Hit Holiday Party with BNHM & TrivWorks

What does your company party look like every year? Less than inspiring? Or a riot that is fun to top year and year? Either way, BNHM has teamed up with TrivWorks to bring you a holiday party that you will still be talking about on St. Patrick's Day!

We asked TrivWorks creator and CEO David Jacobson some questions to give you the info you need to make this holiday party a hit!

What would a TrivWorks/BNHM party look like?

Companies who bring in TrivWorks/BNHM to produce their office trivia party will first partake in a very brief (10 minute) advance customization call, so that we may tailor both the trivia as well as the overall experience to the specific group in attendance. After researching/writing original questions, we will arrive to the event with a troupe of master improvisers/musicians, as well as a professional corporate event emcee, who will conduct orientation and host full-room rounds of raucous team trivia. In between rounds while score sheets are tabulated, BHNM will take fictional song titles directly from the audience, and spontaneously perform those songs on the spot! The event culminates with a formal awards presentation, followed by a grand finale performance. The entire event is 1-2 hours, and can easily be integrated with cocktails, appetizers, or even a full seated meal.

What’s the number of people that this format works best for?

We can produce hybrid trivia/improvisation holiday parties for groups as small as 15, to 1,000 or more! 

How do you handle pricing?

Pricing is very competitive with other forms of corporate party entertainment; our trivia/improvisation events are available in a variety of formats, to accommodate to a range of entertainment needs and price points

Tell us more how you can tailor the event to our company? 

During our customization call (referenced above), we will utilize a proven process to tailor the experience precisely to the culture of the group in attendance, which requires minimal commitment or time investment on behalf of the client/planner. When crafting trivia questions, we will take into account the group’s age range, gender ratio, nationality, employment duration/managerial level and other key factors, as well as incorporate fun facts, inside jokes, past shared experiences, messages, etc. We will also make sure we know which specific topics to avoid; clients can rest assured there will be nothing political religious, controversial or otherwise inappropriate for a company event setting. For holiday parties, we will also want to know whether spouses/significant others will be in attendance, as we want to ensure they feel welcome and included as well!

What kind of companies have you done parties for in the past?

TrivWorks has produced company holiday parties in NYC and beyond every year since being founded in 2009 (in fact, our first event EVER was a company holiday party!) These have ranged from small businesses/departments with 15-20 people, to Fortune 500 companies with 200+ people.

What are people saying about past parties?

Planners love TrivWorks trivia holiday parties not only because they’re fun, laugh-filled and highly customizable, but also because they’re flexible/adaptable to virtually any venue, and can be done indoors, day or night, snow or shine! They also enjoy the fact that it’s interactive/engaging, and highly social – which is essential for a festive holiday party atmosphere! We also strive to make them turnkey, and as easy as possible for the organizers.

A final note from David Jacobson:

Our holiday parties are a truly unique offering, which groups will almost certainly never have experienced before. If companies are looking to “spice things up” at their annual celebration, this is an extremely compelling, highly professional option which people will be talking about long after the event is over.

Producer Spotlight: 85 Minutes to 15 at Arts Midwest

A few months ago, I applied for a performing slot at Arts Midwest. Similar to the APAP Conference, the objective of Arts Midwest is to introduce many performing groups to various presenters and promoters. This facilitates the ‘sale’ of the show for a performance in any given city or venue. Weeks later, I was thrilled to find out that we had been accepted to the conference and would be heading to Milwaukee in September. However, unlike the APAP Conference, we were not given a slot that allows us to do the full 85-minute version of our show. In fact, our slot at Arts Midwest is a whopping 15 MINUTES!!! That’s 70 fewer minutes to communicate the show, make people laugh and feel that they have had an enriching night of theater.

The word that immediately came to mind: UGH!!!

The task of turning the 85-minute version of Broadway’s Next Hit Musical into a 15-minute version was a deceptively tricky one. There was a lot of back and forth as to what the essential elements of the show are and what can be let go.

First Act Songs

We HAD to do several first act songs based on suggestions by the attendees so that they understood the basic premise of the show: THEY give us the titles and WE make up the songs.

Emcee

Did we have to set up the show with an emcee like we generally do?

On one hand, the emcee provides customized comedy about the town we are visiting at any given time. On the other hand…15-minutes!!!!

Vote

Did we have to do the vote to see which of the first act songs became eligible for a full production in the 2nd half of the show? One one hand, it shows the further nature of the audience involvement in the show as THEY are the ones who vote. On the other hand, there will NOT be a 2nd half of the show at this particular performance. Decisions, decisions!!

While daunting, this task was also educational. When you have to strip a showdown to its basic elements, you find out a bit more about what makes your show tick. It’s the tweet version of our show. We must convey a message, several actually, in a compressed form. While challenging, this was also an exciting exercise that helped us to know our show on a deeper level.

In the end, we found a structure that seems to capture all or most of the necessary elements of the show and without sacrificing the most important elements: energy, fun and flow. We had to create a situation where the actors feel they can play and not feel rushed.

Will we do it?

If you are in the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee at 8:15pm on Wednesday, 9/14 let us know what you saw and what you liked! Tweet us @BwaysNHM