This is the 3rd instalment of the So You Want To Be A Professional Emcee in Singapore guide. You may refer to the links below for the first two articles or click on 'Emcee Resource' tag on the lower right side of this blog.
In this article, I will help aspiring emcees crack the code and better understand their audience by presenting an overview of the Singapore audience followed by tips and tricks on how to engage the audience.
1. Overview
Singapore is a melting pot of different cultures and languages as a result of our diversity. There are the 4 main races Indian, Malay, Chinese and Eurasians on one hand, and on the other, the many other races and languages of our foreign counterparts, either working or residing in Singapore. While that can be said of many western developed countries and cities like US, UK, Europe, Hong Kong and Australia, engaging the audience is never the same in Singapore. Since this article is about helping you as an emcee in Singapore to navigate your audience, we will neither be doing a deep dive of the societal differences of the East and West nor discussing human origins or genetics.
2. Understanding Your Audience As An Emcee in Singapore
In order for you to have a clearer understanding of the audience, it would be better to take an approach of focusing on the various events types and the audience at such events including community events, road shows, corporate functions (both formal and informal), family days and private functions such as weddings and birthday parties.
A. Dinner and Dance
Many young emcees whom I had spoken with tend to think that Dinner and Dance is the holy grail of an emcee's career. The truth is, emceeing a Dinner and Dance requires the emcee to have a multi-talented persona on stage. Singing, dancing, comedy, games, hosting awards presentations and speeches, and the list goes on.
However, if you prepare well in advance, you will likely do much better than trying to react on the spot and think on your feet. Always try to find out more about the audience during the events meeting with the client, like demographics, nationalities, past Dinner and Dance experiences and what sort of games worked well with the audience. Especially if the company has a track record of organising Dinner and Dance every year, then one can imagine that the audience excitement will only be visible during the lucky draw. But fret not, this is not over for you! You have still got a chance to make this event fantastic for the audience. And that is the best part about being an emcee; the challenge of bringing the audience alive, and once their energy is flowing, you will enjoy the rest of the evening with so much explosive fun!
There are a million and one way to spice things up. Think about how you can make the lucky draw more exciting, do your research on games that will work for the audience after knowing their profile, and find out any chance to insert other interesting segments like mass activity segment or showcase the hidden talents among the audience.
Dinner and Dance can be fun and exciting and doesn't necessary have to be a terrifying experience for an aspiring emcee. In fact, because of the fun nature of this type of events, it can be a lot less intimidating than a formal event where a wrong pronunciation or inaccurate fact or figure read could cost you your job!
In order for your jokes and punchlines to resonate with the audience, always stay current to world news. I know sex, race, nationality and politics are some of the great ingredients for laughter, but I always stay away from any of these and would advise you to do the same. Unless you are very confident, DO NOT try any such jokes that you may have seen other comedians did on YouTube and the crowd went laughing belly up. The last thing you want is to have an adverse reaction from the audience and seeing yourself on headline news.
Lastly, most if not all the audience at a Dinner and Dance just want a good time and be entertained for 3 hours or so. If your jokes or games not working out the way you want it, don't be upset and don't be afraid to wrap up the segment sooner than it should be and move on to the next game or segment. Always be real and sincere towards your audience, this way they will be more willing to connect with you, making your job for the night a lot easier.
B. Community Events
The term 'community events' is used rather generically to describe events where the event is held for anyone and everyone from all walks of life. The audience do not necessary come from a single organisation such as a company or a school, but rather they are there for the event. Think about block parties, festive celebrations at your community clubs, launch of new facilities in your neighbourhood and residents are invited as guests, National Day Dinner Celebration, etc.
Community events serve as an outreach and connecting with the residents or the public. As such, you will likely expect a very diverse audience. Some adults, pioneer generation or senior citizens may only be fluent in their mother tongue languages and as such are more reserved and will usually not take part in stage games or activities (unless the prizes are very attractive). They will prefer to stay in their seats or stand at the perimeter of the audience zone to watch and enjoy the performances. Children and youths are naturally more open to taking part in stage games or activities. Also, there will usually be other fringe activities contesting for their attention thus you may find yourself having to conduct games when there are only few people in the audience. Don't worry, just go ahead and do your games, the crowd will return to the stage area.
Given that the crowd is diverse, it will help you as an emcee if you speak slightly slower, do away with complicated words and speak other languages (as best as you can) to connect with the crowd. There's nothing more heartwarming than going off stage and into the audience zone to start light conversations with them. Sing a few lines of the popular songs (even without the backing music) and you will find the audience clapping and cheering for you!
C. Road shows
Many new emcees start off by doing roadshows as a way to build their skills - speaking with a mic, learning to use their voice, getting comfortable with hearing themselves through the speakers and gaining confidence to interact with people. As they get comfortable with their newly acquired skills, the next level is to understand how road shows work, what is the objective of the roadshow, the location or venue, timing, and promotional or awareness mechanics available. Audience or shoppers or passer by at road shows have short attention span and will only pick up key words and decide in a split second if they should check out what you are doing. Given the distracting environment in a shopping mall, or an open space in a heartland shopping area, there are 101 things to distract your audience. Going through lines after lines of your script on the product, features and why this is better than your competitors will not attract their attention. As the world develops with information in abundance online and everywhere, consumers don't like to be sold to or hard pressed to buy. In fact, they may know your product better than you do.
To be successful as a roadshow emcee, you must create the environment through your voice, words, sentences and your presence to gain the confidence and trust of the shoppers. If you listen and watch the voice, pitch, tone, presence, body language, facial expressions, words and sentences of the emcee, you can sense whether he is aurally creating the consumer's sanctuary, making the consumer feel comfortable and ready to take a step in and make a purchase.
While road shows may seem easy, it is often the most challenging. Unlike Dinner and Dance or Community Events, you may not have the luxury of a captive audience sitting in front of you. Sometimes you may think no one is listening as they appear uninterested or just shuttling past, trust me, their ears are listening for your key words.
There are many other types of events such as weddings, forums, private parties and more. But over the course of my experience, the 3 types of events above are the most often held in Singapore and you can be successful in all three. 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 How To Excel At Stage Games. You may be surprised that planning and executing games is both a science and an art.