We appreciate that this year has been incredibly difficult for everyone. When lockdown approached back in March, the most important thing for us as a business was to safeguard our staff, close our offices and embrace working from home. As was the same for many businesses across the world, we had to get used to a new way of working, adopt new technology and take everything virtual. The use of Microsoft Teams to host online meetings, and even our partner events, was now the new normal as the pandemic changed the way we work forever.
Although we couldn’t meet up in person, as this festive season approached, we wanted to give our employees the opportunity to celebrate together. We thought what better way to allow everyone to de-stress and put the troubles of 2020 behind them than through live comedy! Since March, many of us have spent our days attending virtual work meetings, so we felt it was important to add an element of fun and surprise to our new work routine. Therefore, we decided to bring the party to our staff this year – all from the comfort of their own home!
On Wednesday 9th December, we invited our employees and their households to join us via Zoom for what could only be described as the comedy event of the year! Live from their front room, we brought to staff, Comedy on the Couch – a festive and fun-filled evening with plenty of laughs.
We had an excellent line-up in store for our employees, including stars from the UK stand-up comedy circuit. We brought acts that had appeared on Live at the Apollo, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week – performing especially for us at our very own exclusive show!
Our CEO, Terry O’Brien, opened the evening with a short speech, thanking our staff for all their hard work this year and welcoming some new faces to the business, including employees of Giacom. After last month’s acquisition of the Cloud services provider, Comedy on the Couch was an excellent opportunity for us to welcome the Giacom team and bring everyone together.
To ensure that our comedians had a virtual audience and plenty of people to joke with, we offered our teams the opportunity to sit on the VIP front row. Having a seat in our virtual front row meant that staff could interact via video call with the comedians, have some banter and be a part of the show. This was a great chance for us to see which employees were most game for a laugh as a lot of our front row took a good roasting from the comedians!
In addition to the show, and since we couldn’t get the drinks in at the bar on this occasion, ahead of the evening all our staff received hampers with beers, nibbles, pub snacks and some festive treats.
All in all, the evening was a great success and was just the pick me up we needed to get ourselves in the festive spirit and to round off what has been our strangest year to date. Comedy on the Couch was a true testament to the idea that laughter really is the best medicine!
A huge thank you to our party planners at DWS, to Nice N’ Spiky Comedy, and to the comedians!
@nathan.caton @tomdeaconcomedy @simonbrodkin @abandoman @esthermanito @nicenspiky
