If you are in charge of planning your company's corporate events, you know how hard it is to make an event something that your staff actually looks forward to. As the owner of a real estate company, I struggled every year to find something that our agents would actually enjoy. That is, until this year.

A few months ago, for “date night,” my wife and I attended an improv-comedy show at a small theater in Westminster (Madcap Improv Theater). For those of you that don't know, improv-comedy is completely different than stand-up. Rather than rolling the dice at a comedy club, not knowing how good, bad, or crude the comedian will be, improv comedy is always unscripted, and the topics they cover are completely up to the audience. You could go the same comedy show 5 nights in a row, see the same actors, and have a completely different experience every night. It's a riot!

I digress. About halfway into the night, the M.C. asked the audience to suggest a sales position for the next sketch. My wife, of course, suggested a Realtor. The cast immediately launched into a hilarious real estate sketch about a Realtor showing a home to a buyer, and created a hilarious string of events that had the audience in stitches! After the show, my wife suggested that we have our holiday party at the comedy club. I called about a week later, and asked if they did private shows, and it turns out that they do them all the time. In fact, coordinating an event at the comedy club was easier than most corporate events we have had in the past, and surprisingly, it was similar in price!

The most impressive part about our event was the level to which the actors were able to tailor the various comedy sketches around what we did. One of their sketches (called “the dating game”) was designed to poke fun at 3 of our managers (including me), and our agents died laughing. It was completely tasteful, funny, and most of our agents asked how the actors were able to imitate us so well.

If you're thinking of a holiday party, company party, or any type of corporate event, think about improvisational comedy. Most cities have one or two venues in the area, and if not, I know “Madcap Improv” will travel to any of the 48 states. (If the price is right, I'm sure they could have their arms twisted into traveling to the other 2 states as well.) In fact, since I don't know about the talent at other improv comedy clubs, I would say it's worth a shot to give Russ or Brian at Madcap a call to see what it would cost to bring their cast to you. Call 303-460-3854 & tell them Joel sent you.

I can personally speak from experience to the fact that your employees/staff/contractors will remember your corporate event a lot longer than your typical stuffy holiday party. In fact, our agents have already asked us if we can do it again sometime.