“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” -Charles Schaefer
This is the 4th instalment of my "So You Want To Be A Professional Emcee in Singapore" guide. You may refer to the links below for all articles or click on 'Emcee Resource' tag on the lower right side of this blog.
In this article, I will share insights on emcee games as part of your stage entertainment to engage your audience.
Why Play Games?
Anyone and everyone, from a child to a senior citizen, all love to play games. From more sedentary type of games such as chess, sudoku, crossword puzzle to active sports such as telematch, treasure hunt and sports, games have been used for competition, entertainment, icebreaker, teambuilding, learning and development.
If you aspire to be a great emcee, apart from great linguistic and communication skills, great persona and disposition, you have to develop a great forte in engaging the audience through playing games. Many emcees are cognisant of this truth but still find it challenging to be a master of games, citing reasons including
- The audience is uninterested! I can't seem to get them to listen to me and play my game.
- How to play game when no one is in the audience? There are so many other activities fighting for their attention.
- The audience has played or seen the game last year. I am at a lost what games to play.
- Oh dear, my game doesn't work for this crowd!
- I am stuck. My game is already completed and I still need to kill time before the next performance is ready.
- It is so tough getting the 4-5 teams of 12 participants.
- My games are plain boring.
The list goes on and on. Trust me, every emcee's nightmare is having to do stage game with a cold and unresponsive audience. Sometimes at an event meeting, the organiser may have the impression that their staff are very enthusiastic and ready to party. On the actual day, it is appalling to find out the opposite, especially if they had a long day at work or they experienced a quarter of dismay business results. How to still engage their audience and be a successful emcee for the night?
Emcee Games Format: Stage, Table, Mass
In general, all games take on one of the three basic formats - Stage, Table, Mass. Let me first explain the game formats
1. Stage
- Participants are invited up onto the stage and the game will usually take place on the stage. The key characteristic is to entertain the audience through the game played by the participants on stage. Audience will predominantly be watching the action on stage. Classic example of a stage game would be the best dressed award catwalk contest.
2. Table
- This format is common for an icebreaker at a dinner event. The aim is to break the ice among guests at a table through competition and teamwork. In smaller events where there are around 5-8 tables, the tables can be given a team name each and compete amongst the other tables. The best example would be the scavenger hunt game where each table will be required to collect the items called out by the emcee.
3. Mass
- Mass games are predominantly interactions and activities that everyone can participate. Be it a cheer, dance, song or icebreaker, the key objective is usually to get everyone together as an organisation.
Principles of Emcee Games: Competition, Entertainment, Showmanship
1. Competition
Most aspiring emcees think about games as the games they played during their school days. Most of these games are played among different teams with a clear absolute outcome or winner. Winners are usually the fastest, most accurate, least mistakes, tallest, highest score etc. These games are focused purely on the first principle - Competition. Competitive games works in general with a younger age group audience or among audience with defined groups or teams like departments, divisions, nationalities, gender, etc. Each team ideally would have similar headcount strength to ensure exciting competition.
2. Entertainment
Entertainment, the second principle, takes the art of playing games one level higher. As an emcee, it is paramount to keep your audience entertained. Sometimes you might have a great competitive game going on stage and you completely forgot about the rest of the audience on the floor watching you. When you plan a game, it is important to incorporate the element of entertainment. Avoid games that are only visible at close range (as you may have audience sitting at the back of the ballroom who can barely make out what you doing on stage!). The tendency is for young emcees to copy games from TV game shows. TV cameraman can zoom in to give home viewers the close up of what the participants are doing. In live events, unfortunately, you don't have the luxury. I have tried those games when there where live feed big screens provided at the venue, but the audience were not as engaged as I thought.
To better incorporate the second principle, start by putting yourself in the shoes of the audience, not the participants in the game. Visualise in your mind how the game is played and ask yourself if you would be entertained.
On the same note, how much of entertainment your game provide to an audience really depends on what the game is, how you play and where you play. For example, the straw tower game, where each table is given drinking straws to build the tallest tower. I have seen it played as a team building game at a workshop and also at a dinner event as a table game. The level of entertainment to the audience is rather different. Make a guess which set of participants enjoyed the game better? The group at the workshop or the dinner event?
3. Showmanship
The third principle is the icing on the cake or I should say the tip of the iceberg. Just like an iceberg, you only seen the tip, but it extends way below the ocean. Simply speaking, to incorporate showmanship into your games, you need to think beyond the face value of competition and entertainment and really be excellent. This is what takes an emcee from good to great.
Using a simple game of throwing crushed paper balls into a waste paper basket:
The participants will stand on the stage while the waste paper basket is placed some distance away. The aim is to throw into the basket and win the game. We can easily identified the first principle Competition where the winner is defined by accuracy. The second principle Entertainment is also present, as audience can visually see the participants on stage representing their respective departments and making their throws. To further hype up Entertainment, emcee can ask audience to poll the winner or to cheer the participants. Showmanship in this case refers to the ability of the emcee to be successful in 10 consecutive throws, winning the wows and applause of the audience. Or showmanship could also refer to the participants being excellent with various fanciful throwing techniques, in between legs, hook shot, blind throw, back facing basket throw and all. This will certainly crank up the excitement of the audience.
When To Play What Games (Assessing Suitability)
It is crucial to know what games work for what crowd. Each of my game is assessed based on a number of factors. You may use some of these assessment criteria for your games:
1. Do the audience know each other well enough to want to play together? Any limitations of the audience that I must take into consideration during the games planning?
2. How is the seating arrangement? Round tables, standing cocktail, long tables, theatre setting, free style, etc.
3. Do you have a professional DJ and sound system to help you play music that will add effects to your game?
4. On games logistics, do you have a helper to help you with the game or the props? It will look too messy to be doing everything by yourself
5. Can you reuse your props or do you have to incur costs to purchase each time you play that game?
6. How is the language and level of interaction with your audience? Are your games instructions too complicated to comprehend?
7. Are there any sexual or sensitive connotations in your game that might offend the audience?
One important final question...
8. Is there a chance for me to display showmanship that will make me a better emcee and leave a deeper positive impression on the audience?
Games are great for any event in general and also a great tool for the emcee when there is a delay or hiccup in the event programme. Start to build your games repertoire today!
If you would like me to discuss a specific area or topic about being an emcee in Singapore, feel free to drop me a comment on the Contact page or email me at style.emcee.sg@gmail.com.
For all articles on emceeing, please refer to my link 'Emcee Resource' on the lower right side of my blog.
Stay tuned for my next post on Complete Showmanship. Good emcees have excellent showmanship. With just a microphone in hand and their high powered intellectual capacity, they can keep their audience interested, react to any contingency and hold their stage presence. Find out what it takes to develop yours!
