Game show helps local companies on team-building skills
Dec 30, 2012 (Menafn - Springfield News-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Companies used a local disc jockey service's game show at their holiday parties to help strengthen team-building skills among their employees this month.
All Occasion Entertainment Services, owned by Springfield resident Brad Webb, performed its Game Show Mania event three times this holiday season at different corporate parties around the area for companies like Brower Insurance and Cascade Corporation.
Webb, a DJ for 25 years, said he started performing the game show in 1997 and has been doing it ever since.
"We try to make it as close to an actual game show as you can, given the confines of company budgets and so forth" Webb said.
Webb has performed the game show for several different corporate clients over the years including McDonald's, the Builders Industry Association of Springfield, Lexis-Nexis and Eaglewood Village Care Center of Springfield among others. He said the game show provides an alternative to groups who didn't want to dance or perform karaoke.
"(Karaoke) was a struggle because how many people really want to get up there and sing?" Webb said. "It became a nice substitute for karaoke, which had run its course, and it became good for small crowds because it could be done on a small scale, intimate-type nature."
Webb said the game show allows contestants to use their pop culture knowledge. The game uses audio sound bites to help contestants to answer questions to earn points. Webb also keeps the crowd involved when contestants don't know an answer. Todd Stone of The Family Stone Photography also serves as his producer on show nights, helping with the audio portion of the game.
"This format allows you to take that useless information and purge it from your head and get out there and high-five with your friends," Webb said.
Brower Insurance is headquartered in Dayton and also has satellite offices in Springfield and Loveland, a suburb of Cincinnati. This year, instead of having separate holiday parties, they decided to have one.
"People talk to each other in different offices, but sometimes never really get to meet them," said Karen Harker, office manager and chairman of the organization's social committee in Dayton. "It was a combination of getting to know people in other offices."
Harker said the company also hasn't had success with dancing in the past and decided to have people stick around with Webb's game show. She also was able to match up contestants from other offices.
"We wanted to something competitive and help people get to know each other, but if you weren't playing, we also wanted them to stick around and get to know people while they were (playing)," Harker said.
"It was a good thing and brought everybody together," Harker said. "It was very interactive."
Webb said he's reinvented the game over the past few years, and said he "loves" performing the game show.
"I've always tried to push the envelope and truly be in the entertainment business," Webb said.
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