Tag Archives: new acts

Reviewing Acts: Biting The Hand That Might Stab You in the Back Later

By , Thursday, 21 July 2011, 9:27 am Be the first to comment

Goodfellas Club Scene

When interviewing new staff for jobs at Sternberg Clarke – one of the most attractive prospects to prospective employees is the thought of Talent Spotting. Understandably so; it’s a sizeable part of what we do after all – but some interviewees get the impression that it’s the only focus of the job. They’re excited by the idea of swanning into a Cabaret club and flashing a business card – then basically re-enacting the club scene from Goodfellas – (You know, cutting queues, people carrying tables, performers coming over and grovelling) It’s an enticing prospect and something that has never happened to any of us.

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What’s In a Name? The Perils of Naming an Act

By , Wednesday, 1 June 2011, 8:28 am Be the first to comment

Anyone who, in their youth, has gathered together three or
four of their adolescent  friends in the
garage of their parents’ house to form a band has no doubt been faced with the
toughest question of all – not “What should we wear?”, “Who should be the
singer?” or even “What will we sound like?” No, the most important question of
all is “What should we be called?”

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The Band with No Name… Let’s give them one!

By , Thursday, 26 May 2011, 10:43 am Be the first to comment

 

Earlier on this week, we auditioned a new covers band. Nothing new there you might think – we’re always auditioning covers bands, but this one had two distinguisghing features.

 

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What AFC Wimbledon Can Teach Us About Entertainment at Events

By , Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 10:22 am Be the first to comment

 

 

AFC Wimbledon may seem like an unlikely topic for a blog post at Event Magazine, especially with my well documented Arsenal Fandom. What you may not know is that a certain Young Sternberg happens to be in the Youth Academy at the recently promoted club and with the Dons’ ascension to the heady heights of the Football League I can now begin planning my retirement (Provided the boy has some money left over from all the super injunctions that he may or may not be allowed to file… but lets not get ahead of ourselves.)

  

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Tactically Tacky – The Eurovision Song Contest

By , Wednesday, 18 May 2011, 11:23 am Be the first to comment

 

 

 

 

Saturday Night saw the return of that trundling juggernaut of bad taste The Eurovision Song Contest in which we sneer and laugh at those tasteless foreigners for their musical choices whilst surpressing the niggling truth that the UK will never be able to secure the votes of the other entrants thanks to our increasingly frosty relationship with… pretty much everyone.   

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Headshot Hell: The Promotional Photo Arms Race

By , Friday, 13 May 2011, 9:24 am 1 Comment

 

 

 

We’re all about to go through the squirming, fidgeting, flop sweating, hair flattening and all round excruciating process of having our photographs taken for our new website. Certain members of staff seem to have gone through the 5 stages of grief; Denial (“People don’t need to know what we look like, we don’t need them”), Anger (“It’s your fault for starting this stupid company!”) , Bargaining (“Perhaps we could have caricatures instead?”), Depression (“I’m going to have my eyes half shut and a double chin”) and finally Resignation (“Everyone can see my face when I’m walking around anyway.”)

  

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A Glossary of Meaningless Entertainment Words

By , Tuesday, 3 May 2011, 3:56 pm 2 Comments

  

 

 

Every day we have phone calls and emails littered with vague, near-meaningless terms in regards to events. Motivational buzz-words like ‘synergy’ and ‘blue sky’ have become punchlines in their own right. But in the booking of Entertainment, there are a number of specific terms and phrases that repeatedly crop up whose meanings are slippery.

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The Untried, Untested Method

By , Monday, 18 April 2011, 1:08 pm Be the first to comment

First Time You Heard... 

 

 

 

Do you remember the first time you heard your favourite song? Chances are, it wasn’t at an Event. Chances are it was on the car radio on he way home from a party, blaring out of the jukebox in some grimy bar, thrust into your ears by a significant other or any host of other ways… but probably not at a product launch or an awards ceremony, then.   At corporate events, we tend to reach for the familiar. We go for covers bands, we go for tribute acts, we go for jazz standards, big name comedians, talent show winners, look-a-likes, impressionists… we even have ‘In the Style of Artists’ that draw portraits in the style of the artistic greats from previous generations – in this industry, we’re probably not going to uncover the new Banksy but we’ll sure as hell find someone that can draw like him once he’s popular. 

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Enduring Entertainment

By , Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 9:10 am Be the first to comment

 

 

 

If you’ve ever been onto our website, you’ll have been greeted by the little trumpet a bowler hat and a garish lime green colour scheme. Much as we’ll miss the little trumpet, it’s on the way out. We’re in the process of creating an all new webiste with all new instruments peeking from the bottom corner of the screen when you go to click on contact… or perhaps not. But the process of putting together the new site has turned up an interesting topic.

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Always the Corporate Bridesmaid…

By , Monday, 21 March 2011, 4:27 pm Be the first to comment

The Wedding Sanctuary Logo 

 

 

Thanks to our Wedding coordinator Alice being struck down by some illness or other on Sunday, I was drafted in to represent Sternberg Clarke at the UKAWP’s Wedding Sanctuary bridal show at Somerset House. There’s a reason we hired a someone to do these sorts of things; Alice is just better at them – not that I didn’t enjoy spending time with the always pleasant wedding planners and the soon-to-be-brides in attendance, I even got a chance to meet Andy from men’s wedding blog Staggered – it’s just that Wedding entertainment requires a different approach from Corporate Events.  My thoughts have turned to weddings recently, partly because I spent Sunday in the company of people whose big day was looming in the near future, also because our own Hayley Hannam has recently caught a nasty case of ‘One Hand Heavier Than The Other’-Syndrome. Weddings make up a huge part of our business and no doubt the same is true of many readers of event magazine. 

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