Event Services
Rik and Bob can be hired as your MC rather than as the band. Two hosts, one microphone shared between them, and neither of them is singing when the room needs holding.
A Master of Ceremony (MC) booking is a different hire from a band booking. We are not playing, so the whole night is the room: the running order, the introductions, the handovers, and the person who has to be found before the toast starts. In character and in costume, or in black tie. Your call.
The usual objection to a band emceeing is a fair one, and we make it ourselves on the guide. A bandleader who is also the lead singer has one attention budget. While they are singing the first verse they are not watching the kitchen door, not noticing the best man has gone outside, and not tracking whether the photographer is in position.
That limit is real, and it is a limit on a band that is playing. Book us as your MC and we are not playing. There is no set to get back to and no song to count off, so the attention that was going to the music goes to the room instead.
There are also two of us. One can be on the microphone while the other is at the back finding the person who is speaking next, and we swap. We work on wireless, so the host is out among the tables rather than fixed behind a speaker.
We can work in character and in costume as the racing drivers the band’s name plays on, played straight for the length of the night rather than as a gag that wears off after the first announcement. For a lot of parties and fundraisers that is the reason to hire us instead of someone in a suit reading names off a card.
If your evening is black tie, or the family would rather the host disappear into the room, we dress the part instead. Say which you want when you book and that is settled. It is a choice, not a condition.
Hosting is mostly the part nobody sees. The announcements are the visible tip of it.
Two ways this goes, and they are priced and planned differently, so tell us which one you want early.
We can run the music ourselves off the DJ rig, which is a laptop through our own PA. No turntables and no beatmatching, and the DJ page is straight about what that is. The advantage is that the host and the music are the same people, so nothing has to be handed over and a cue never gets missed.
Or you book music separately and we host around it. A band, a DJ, a string quartet for the ceremony: we work from the same running order they do and cue them the way any MC would.
Worth being exact, because this is where the honest answer differs from the one that sells better.
You can book the band to play and to cover the announcements on the same night, which is what most bands mean by emceeing. Rik and Bob share the microphone so one can talk while the other starts the song, and the announcements get made properly. What that covers is the announcements. It is a smaller job than hosting, because the moment we are playing the attention limit above comes back.
If your evening has real programme in it, an auction, an awards sequence, traditions that need explaining as they happen, book the MC and the music as two things. That reasoning is worked through in do you need a separate MC if you have a band.
We own a full PA and stage lighting, and what comes to an MC booking depends on the room and on what else is already going in.
Sometimes it is the full rig, up early and carrying the ceremony, the toasts and the background music across the whole event. Sometimes the venue system is good and the right answer is our microphones on it. Sometimes it is something in between, sized for speech in a room that is not a ballroom. We would rather look at your venue and tell you than promise a rig you do not need.
The one thing worth asking your venue early is when we can get in, because anything set up before doors is only possible if they let us load in early.
Conducting an auction in Texas requires a licence, so your auctioneer runs the bidding and we do not touch that part.
What an MC does around an auction is the rest of the evening: the programme either side of it, the handover into the auctioneer and back out again, the room held between lots, and the reset before the big item. If you have not booked an auctioneer yet, hire a licensed one. It is a regulated profession here and the good ones raise more than they cost. The band-side detail is on the live auctions and fundraisers page.
There are rooms we are wrong for, and we would rather say so now than on the day.
Then hire us as the band and we work with them. The PA goes up early so your MC has a microphone that reaches the room from the moment doors open, we work from the running order they own, and during a set they can cue us: we bring the song down, they make the announcement, and we come back in. Nobody shouts over anybody.
For every announcement a reception actually needs, in order, see who announces what at a wedding reception. For the whole evening including the music, see wedding music services.
Yes. That is a Master of Ceremony booking rather than a band booking. Rik and Bob host the night and share the microphone between them, and because neither is playing, the person talking to the room is not also the person counting off the next song. Music either runs off our DJ rig or you book it separately and we host around it.
Your call. We can work in character and in costume as the racing drivers the band’s name plays on, or dress for the room in black tie. Tell us which when you book and we will hold to it.
The difference is attention rather than ability. A frontman singing the first verse is not watching the kitchen door. Booked as your MC we are not playing, so the whole night is the room. Booked as the band we cover the announcements well, and that is a smaller job than hosting.
No. Conducting an auction in Texas requires a licence, so your auctioneer runs the bidding. As your MC we run the evening around them: the programme either side of the auction, the handovers, and the room held between lots.
Ask about the setlist, the show, or what we need from your venue. If you want a date looked at, I can send it straight to the band.