The Emcee Diaries

The Emcee Snaps

2006-09-26T14:01:00.000+08:00

F by Ferragamo Media Briefing @ Scarlett Hotel

Metro Cosmetics & Fragrance festival 2006 @ Century Square

Logitech’s Caltex House Roadshow

Heartware Network's New Year's Eve Party Concert

"Dancing Notes" children's music program for MediaCorp Channel 8

Thierry Mugler’s “Alien” Fragrance promotion

Focus First Cuts Press Conference

2006-09-26T01:11:00.000+08:00

My first press conference!

The media event took place at The Balcony @ Heeren, with local and international journalists gathering to meet a bunch of budding film auteurs from various parts of Asia.

These future Kurosawas and Wong-Kar-Wais were assembled by Focus Films (helmed by Andy Lau) under the Focus First Cuts Film Project.

In addition to emceeing the press conference in the afternoon, I also hosted a film symposium for film buffs and the film-makers later on in the night.

The "mischievous" antics of the Hong Kong and Malaysian directors provided some challenges in my hosting process. They gave short, comedic and slightly offbeat replies to the questions I were tasked by the movie company to ask. Thankfully, I was able to keep the group interview going by tossing the baton around instead of allowing it to drop.

That's the luxury of having 6 different personalities seated in front of you. If one or two does not elaborate much on the question, you can pass it on to another person for a different reply.

With the elegant director of The Shoe Fairy

With local director Kelvin Tong

I have to admit I didn't exactly shine in my first press conference emceeing job, but I got the job done and it is a good reminder that there will always be bigger projects that will test my capabilities.

The encouraging words of Beijing director Ning Hao autographed on my Lee Ang biography brought me a tiny slice of solace.

I brought the Lee Ang book along for these fresh filmmakers to autograph as I felt the book was in some ways a totem of the persistance and dedication that filmmakers must display in their quest to realise dreams and visions.

Local film auteur Kelvin Tong also graciously gave me his autograph.

Let us improve together

共同进步 === 宁浩

Youth.sg Launch Party

2006-02-28T12:19:00.000+08:00

With one of the beautiful contestants, Jamie

Hosting the web portal launch party for Youth.sg at Ministry of Sound provided a unique set of challenges.

Target Audience & Choice of Verbal Weapons:
First of all, despite my colourful singlets, coloured hair, and misty grey contact lenses, I do not see myself as a rambunctious teenager. The expected turnout however, will have its fair share of restless young rebels (and rodents!).

How do I connect with this easily bored, probably cynical bunch?

Well, I decided to go with a screaming-monkey meets honest-quip-freak combo. Act too cool, and they'll ignore you. Go too crazy, and you'll scare everyone away. The screaming-monkey, especially one with a big smile, can be a cute animal to some people. The honest-quip-freak? Well, honesty is funnier than you think!

Because there were also sponsors on our guest list, marketing messages related to the sponsorship had to be weaved into my interaction with the crowd. So in addition to ensuring that our youthful majority was entertained, I also had to make the cheque-signing, prize-providing people in the VIP area happy by showing them that their publicity/promotional needs were properly taken care of in the show.

This bit of spin was easy to do because the brand names involved (street fashion label, teen-oriented mag, pop music label etc.), and the goodies they provided, were relevant and appealing to the young crowd.

Venue considerations and Emcee's movement:
We were given the hip-hoppy "Smoove" section in Ministry of Sound. There was no proper raised platform, and instead of an audience on one side, and the show on the other, we had a 360 degree situation: a round cage with the party crowd sprinkled all around.

This meant that I had to constantly move around, North, West, South, East, in order to ensure that everyone felt they were properly addressed by the party hosts.

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Thoughts and Memories:
Meeting Ms Olsen in person was cool. She exuded a graceful air. I also had a great time ad-libbing during the "Extreme Human Body Parts" game. We couldn't script anything because we didn't know who we could find in the crowd, and what sort of "Extremely Pointless but Entertaining" game we could play with them.

Other than Ms Olsen, there was actually another celebrity encounter. This lady with the million-dollar-smile was there to cover the event for her campus newspaper. I spotted Miss-Diamonds-Dimple and dragged her out of the crowd to play some games with us. She showed great showmanship and sportsmanship, and of course, dazzled us with her effervescent sparkle.

We caught up later in the V.I.P area and I managed to get a snap-shot with her. She half-jokingly reminded me that she would get into trouble with her management people if visuals of her at this launch party (without the usual glam-young-queen styling) were leaked out.

So.... a gentleman's gotta do, what a gentleman's gotta do. That photo of Miss Diamond-Dimples will be safely stored in my harddrive, instead of Flickr.

Meanwhile,
here's a group photo of me, Youth.SG portal ambassador, my co-host, and Ms Olsen.

Cheerios
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From left:
Emcee "Reckless-and-Bloated-Fat" Khoon
Ronald "Youth.sg Ambassador" Susilo
Emcee "Miss Nice-nice" Elaine
Eunice "Grace in motion" Olsen

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technorati tags:
Singapore
Youth
emcee

Hello Host!

2006-01-27T01:10:00.000+08:00

Hi! My name is Khoon and I am a freelance emcee based in Singapore.

From concerts to perfume promotions to press conferences to launch parties, I have hosted a variety of events and have accumulated an array of audience-energizing tricks!

This blog chronicles my shining moments, my methodical madness, my emceeing adventures.

[Hopefully, before old age wipes my memory clean, I'll get to look back at some of the audacious things I did in front of people in the name of emceeing and entertainment.)

: )

Fellow emcees, feel free to share your wisdom in the comments section.

If you are interested in what events I have hosted, you can check out my portfolio.

Hopefully, through this blog, I will get a chance to meet other emcees who are looking to share their experiences, as well as potential clients.

Cheerios!