How to Spice Up Your Convention or Business Meeting with Music
A long business meeting or a week of meetings at a conference can get tiring no matter what the subject matter is. To keep your audience, clients or employees alert and interested you can employ many methods and devices.
One device that can really wake things up, feature your employees and reinforce your key point is music.
Hire event musicians!
Using music for conventions and business meetings in Orlando is easy because Orlando has unlimited resources due to the great amount of diverse and high quality entertainment needed for conventions, theme parks and parties.
Music is often used to spice up long days of meetings, classes, seminars, conventions and events. Hiring event musicians can break up the monotony of the day, and even inject a good amount of entertainment and humor sometimes not associated with business events.
Here are some examples of how music can be used.
A popular wake up call for morning meetings
Getting and holding the total attention of everyone in an early meeting can be difficult. If you wake everyone’s senses with something fun and exciting, obtaining their concentration is easier. One great “wake up call” is a surprise marching band, or dixieland band, marching through the room towards the beginning of the meeting. The band will march in and line up across the front of the room for a short performance. Songs can be tailored for your company or seminar theme.
- For a company from Indiana: “Back Home Again In Indiana,” Catholic meeting: “When The Saints Go Marching In”,
- Meeting/seminar about creativity: “Imagination” (From Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”),
- Conference on teamwork: “We are Family”
- Convention theme of overcoming obstacles with a positive attitude: “High Hopes (An Ant can Move that Rubber Tree Plant)
- For any corporation: your company theme song.
Does someone from your company sing?
How about someone from your company singing a song with a live band about the theme or key point of the meeting? See examples above.
Interactive Presentation
Event musicians can come in the form of a live band, orchestra or jazz group. These groups demonstrate skills that you would like your seminar attendees to learn and improve in a memorable interactive presentation. Key concepts are clearly demonstrated with music ensembles by examining the conductors role with the different parts of the music ensemble Your attendees will clearly see the correlation between the conductors role and musicians and a CEO and the different segments of a corporation Managers and workers are thoroughly entertained and learn valuable lessons to improve your companies productivity.
Demonstrated concepts and themes might include teamwork, leadership skills, micromanaging, how a company appears from a workers, middle management and executives perspectives, how management can help workers connect to the big picture, how management can help workers perform to their full potential, dealing with change and much more.
Parties and Meal Entertainment
For stress relief during a day or week of meetings a party or meal with live entertainment will recharge everyone’s batteries. Hiring event musicians can do the trick!
Welcome to Orlando
A music performance welcoming seminar or convention attendees can get everyone excited about the day or week. A band performing Disney and Universal Studios songs says “welcome to Orlando” in festive way.
There are so many ways to spice up business meetings and conventions in Orlando with Music. Use your imagination or contact your event music coordinator for more ideas and details.
Tips on Hiring Musicians for Events
Music sets the tone for any event. For sophisticated elegance, the harp or a string quartet set the tone.
For a dance and party atmosphere a band that performs the favorite songs of all your guests gets the party going.
Central Florida has every kind of event music available. Now, it’s just deciding what is the perfect entertainment for your event. This article will provide some tips about hiring music for events.
Some factors to consider before shopping for and hiring musicians for events
- Do you want the music as background for conversation? If so, start with the list for ambient background music below.
- Do you want background music at the beginning of the evening for dinner or cocktails and then transition into party music for a party atmosphere and/or dancing? In this case the best choice might be a group that specializes in weddings and events because they specialize in meeting both needs.
- Do you want music for dancing? You can use the bands that specialize in events and weddings or you have many other choices of dance bands. The bands that specialize in events and weddings will be able to play all styles and other dance bands will play just one or two styles.
- Do you want the music to include a show to entertain your guests? There are many different kinds of show entertainment, everything from dance shows to bringing in a famous entertainer. Having a show, and what kind of show, can often depend on your budget.
- How large is you venue and party? A small room will often dictate the size of music ensemble or band because of space and volume. Although, you can hire e a large band that specializes in events for a small room. They are adept at bringing, and controlling, the right sound reinforcement to keep the sound from blowing your guests out of the room.
- What is your budget for music? This will effect the instrument choices and number of musicians in your band or ensemble. When hiring musicians for events, groups charge according to the number of musicians that they will be paying. Large instruments like drums and harp usually charge somewhat more per musician. Bands or singers needing amplification include in the band fee a cost for using, bringing and setting up equipment. The number of hours that you decide to use music can sometimes save you some money although it is a misconception that one hour will cost 1/4 of what four hours would be. Once a musician is booked for your event for the evening they usually can not fit another performance in and so you are paying for the evening minimum. If your event is at an unusual time/day you can sometimes get savings compared to a Saturday night in peak season.
Below are lists of music ensembles and bands that I believe work very well for special events and parties. All of these musicians and bands can be found in Orlando and Central Florida.
For themed event music see blog “Great Wedding and Party Themes” below.
Event with ambient background music
- Brass Quartet: Two trumpets, trombone and tuba. Some ensembles vary instrumentation.
- Brass Quintet: Two trumpets, french Horn, trombone and tuba for a slightly more full sound than Brass Quartet.
- String Quartet: Two violins, viola and cello, gives a sophisticated elegant feel.
- Harpist
- Harp and Flute Duet
- Solo Violinist
- Violin duo
- String trio
- Violinist with piano, guitar, harp or organ
- Fanfare Trumpets: The long trumpets used to announce royalty. Used to announce changes in the evening such as moving from the cocktail hour to dinner or that an silent auction is ending.
- Jazz Guitarist
- Classical Guitarist
- Guitarist performing a mix of music including light classics, jazz, standards and pop.
- Classical Pianist
- Jazz Pianist
- Pianist performing a mix of music including light classics, jazz, standards and pop.
- Italian Tenor
- Singer with piano, guitar, or harp
- Singer performing pop or jazz accompanied by guitar or piano or ensemble of guitar bass and drums or piano, bass and drums
- Jazz Combo
- Woodwind Quintet: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and french horn
- Chamber Orchestra: combine the brass quintet and string quartet for a small orchestra
- String Orchestra
- Full Symphony Orchestra
- If you have something specific in mind for an event, any music ensemble that you can dream of is available in Central Florida and Orlando.
Event with the Entertainment as the Focal Point
You can use anything from a wedding/event variety band with multiple singers to a full blown Vegas show. Some popular shows are:
- Swing Show with singers, dancers and a live band
- Vegas Dance Show
- Magician or comedian with band
- Interactive Variety Band: A wedding/event band that has a huge amount of audience interaction. The interaction includes things like playing a medley of surf/beach songs while dozens of beach balls are tossed over a volley ball net by guests, a rock tune while guests grab blow up guitars and take the stage, and music with twist and hula hoop contests.
- Celebrity Impersonator Show: Blues brothers style act singing all of the movies big hits, Marilyn Monroe singing “I want to be loved by you”, “Happy Birthday” and other favorites, The Rat Pack with a live big band.
- Contortionist, Stilt Walkers, Caricature Artists, Face Painters, Clowns, Circus Acts, Balloon Makers and Character Actors
The sky is the limit for shows!
Event to include dancing
- An Event/Wedding band: This genre of band will be able to play music of all styles and eras to please all of your guests. These bands also have expertise at functioning as the Master of Ceremonies (MC) to announce speakers, awards, auctions, etc.
- A Rock, Pop, Country, Salsa, Swing or other style band: Remember that you will not get variety for your guests or the MC expertise
- Jazz Band or Combo: For a more mellow but still danceable approach. I suggest getting one with a singer to please more guests.
- Orchestra, Society Orchestra or Big band: For ballroom dancing
Once you have defined your musical needs of background music, entertainment, show, dance music etc., theses lists can be helpful in hiring musicians for your event.
Think of Music Remembrance the next time you think of hiring music for your event. We have many professional event musicians available in all varieties so you will be able to find the perfect music for your event.
