Champions is an agency that sources talent for corporate gigs (whether as speakers or just handing out awards).

This story (here) seems a bit out of date (some of the links are ancient) but they have collated their top 25 “event and awards hosts to hire”. Aka Corporate gigs.

I won’t list the full 25 – but the top 3 are:

1. Jimmy Carr (examples of his work – here)
2. Katherine Ryan
3. Jack Whitehall

Out of curiosity I had a look around at various “speakers for hire” agencies and they all do a pretty poor job of describing the talent they are supposedly promoting, listing out of date TV hosting references and with old photos / videos.

There are some that look down their noses at corporates but, to me, they:

• Potentially promote your skills to a new audience, who may go on and buy tickets
• Help you keep your presenting skills sharp

In relation to the 2^nd point – Jimmy often talks in podcasts about how Pilots are judged on “number of hours flown” and that comedians should be looking at “hours on stage”. Every performance is flexing the comedic muscles and keeping you sharp.

These sorts of gigs can be a good workout as the audience is not “yours” and so you may have to work harder to build a rapport. Even though you may just be giving out industry awards and posing for photos, you still have to give value for money.

Eventually, when the TV work and touring starts to diminish, the people that have built up a good reputation (in this field) will still have an income stream.

I can’t see a downside, myself.

In the twilight years it will either be this, cruise ships or Only Fans…