5 Proven Techniques To Make Your Friends, Clients, and Audiences Laugh Out Louder
Historically, women have not made it into certain industries (who’s the last female magician you saw?), with one of those industries being comedy. But lately, females have started rising. Comedians such as Whitney Cummings and Christina Patsitsky have been breaking through to fame and fortune and there’s a lot we can learn from it.
It takes a lot of confidence to claim that you have a good command of humor, especially when you’re surrounded by people and have an audience. However, according to Adam Christing's website, once you understand comedy, it becomes easier to relate to your audience and make them laugh. This is especially important when it comes to managing an audience for business or personal reasons.
While most career event and corporate emcees don't necessarily consider themselves as comics, they do recognize the importance of humor when hosting an event. This is the reason why they put in extra work in making themselves … well … funnier.
Those who are planning or building a career as an event host, therefore, have to work on the humor aspect of their craft. Although some may have been born with an innate comedic talent, hard work and practice beat talent all the time. Here are a few proven techniques shared by seasoned public speakers and hosts to make your audience laugh out louder.
1. Do Some Research
As with all of your hosting gigs, you'll need to put in time researching the industry, theme and primary purpose of the event. Immerse yourself in your research until you gain a better understanding of what the event is all about. This way, you'll be able to create better and more effective kind humor that is appropriate for the event.
2. Don't Be a Threat
While members of the audience are fair game in comedy bars, the opposite is true in most corporate events. Such events are mostly geared toward pandering to the attendees. You, therefore, need to take care of them and make them feel safe. Your humor has to assure them that they will not be the target of it. Better yet, make yourself the target by using self-deprecating humor. Once your audience realizes that you are not a threat, they will be more responsive to you as a host.
3. Keep the Proceedings Light and Positive
Try to keep dark, cynical and dour humor out of your spiels. You need to come on stage with as much energy as possible, and you have to maintain this level of energy. Adding dark and cynical humor might deflate and dampen the mood of your audience.
4. Use Funny Stories and Anecdotes Instead of Jokes
Relating a funny story that is related in some way to the theme of the event is better than telling "have you heard the one about …" jokes. Injecting smatterings of jokes that disrupts the flow of your talk will make your gig appear somewhat disjointed. You need to keep your stories to a minimum to not to take up too much time. You can inject more humor to your hosting gig with the next tip.
5. Use a Variety of Humor
Apart from stories, anecdotes and jokes, there are other techniques that you can use to make your audience laugh. Some of these suggestions may take a little practice and comedic timing to execute them properly:
Set up a question and give a different answer than what the audience expects. For example, "Is making money all there is to life? The answer is absolutely."
Set up what seems to be a pattern of 3, end with an unexpected third item. For example, "There are three things in life that I cannot live without: good entertainment, good food and laxatives."
Build anticipation to a seemingly predictable punchline with a delay and then deliver an even funnier, unexpected punchline.
Another technique, which is perhaps an important one that you can work on, is getting a feel of your audience and coming up with funny stories for them on the fly. Nothing beats preparation and practice.
The tips above should get you started in the right direction towards being funnier. For the rest of the way, come up with humor that is uniquely yours as you progress in your career as an event host.