With the annual awards season in full flow, Halloween always seems to sneak up on us – that last themed party before the eight-week slog to Christmas. In the corporate world where so many of our clients are looking for “something new”, “something different” or a theme so exciting for their event that it’s never been done/attempted before (often for a good reason!), in my 8 years at JLA I cannot remember booking anything – be it business speaker, a comedian or live music act – for a Halloween related event.
If this was to suddenly change and a client unexpectedly called up (maybe something strange was happening in their neighbourhood…) and decided to put our knowledge to the test, we are a fairly informed bunch and are pretty good at finding a solution – be it some celebrity speakers, relatively unknown presenters etc – who are prepared to dress up and muck in with an event’s overall theme.
However, sadly, as far as I’m aware, there aren’t any famous pumpkin farmers out there, nor sought after witches or warlocks… This wouldn’t be the easiest of briefs to solve, the connections would be tenuous at best. From the raft of celebrity speakers on our books, there’s only one who I can think of with a connection to Halloween that is common knowledge: Jonathan Ross, courtesy of the annual bash he throws at his home in North London.
Every year he goes to astonishing lengths (and expense) to transform his humble abode into a medieval dungeon, castle of the doomed, or a Tim Burton-esque haunted house. The paps are always outside, readying themselves to snap away and upload onto showbiz websites what outfits celebrity speakers such as Jimmy Carr, Claudia Winkleman, Alan Carr and David Walliams (to name but a few JLA favourites) are modelling for the evening.
So if you’re sitting there wondering why you can never find stage & screen speakers who are available that evening, it’s very simple – they’re all chez Wossy.