Corporate comedian hire in Australia: the complete guide

A corporate audience did not buy a ticket. They were told the date, they came because it is work, and half of them are sitting with people they report to. That single fact changes the job so much that corporate comedy is treated as its own trade by the performers who do it, and paid as one.

Current figures for the comedians doing corporate work are shown further down. What lifts a quote is rarely the length of the set. It is the amount of preparation the brief demands, and how much of the material has to be built for your company specifically.

What corporate work costs across the capitals is set out underneath. The lower figures generally buy a straight set delivered as it is performed anywhere else, with the language cleaned up for the room. The higher figures buy research: a briefing call, time spent on your industry, and jokes that only work at your event because they are about your people.

Conference work and awards nights often sit at the top of the range because the performer is also carrying the shape of the evening, not just a slot inside it. Ask what the fee includes before you compare two quotes, because they may be describing two different pieces of work.

Send more than a date and a headcount. A useful brief names the company, the industry, why everyone is in the room, the mood of the year just gone, and the two or three things everybody there already jokes about among themselves. That last one is the gold, and it is why an in-house joke lands harder than a professionally written one.

It also has to name the fences. Restructures, a difficult departure, a safety incident, anything that has been in the news. A comedian cannot avoid a subject they have never heard of, and finding out about it from the silence in the room is the worst way for everyone.

Most corporate bookings ask for material that will not embarrass anybody in front of a colleague. That is fair and the good performers do it without losing anything, because taking the swearing out is a craft problem rather than a personality transplant. Ask what clean means to them and get an example.

Watch out for the opposite failure. Material so cautious it says nothing gets a room of polite smiles, which feels safe and achieves nothing. You want someone with a point of view about working life who has the judgement to keep it on the right side of the line.

After dinner, before the dance floor is the standard placement and it works because the room is seated, fed and finished with the serious part. Put comedy before the awards and you will lose the awards. Put it after a two-hour presentation block and you are asking one person to resurrect a room that has stopped listening.

Conference openings are the other common slot. A short spot to start a day can reset a room that arrived flat, and some performers build that as a specific service with the day's theme woven through it.

Naming people from the stage is the highest-risk and highest-reward part of corporate comedy. Done with permission and warmth, a gentle roast of a retiring manager is the moment of the night. Done off a list of names the performer was handed an hour before, it is a problem you have to manage on Monday.

If you want individuals mentioned, clear it with those individuals, tell the comedian what the person will find funny about themselves, and agree that anything not on the list stays off the microphone.

Do you run a briefing call, and is it included? How much of the set will be about us? What do you need from us to write that part? Have you worked in our industry, and can we see footage from a company event? And who do we contact on the day if the run sheet slips, because corporate nights always run late.

One more that saves trouble: ask whether they will stay for the rest of the evening or leave straight after the set. Both are normal. Knowing which one you are getting stops an awkward search for a guest speaker at photo time.