Here we go folks - my 2018 look for the Wellington Gold Awards Quiz! It's the Duke of Wellington (although in historically inaccurate blue uniform). Sometimes just the sheer ridiculousness of the costume is enough to provide inspiration. Certainly, for the Duke, that bicorn was a masterpiece. I don't believe the angle of this photo does true justice to the magnificent stupidity of the hat. The Costume Cave have a treasure right there. When you've been doing characters and ent

Seems lie a great idea to have a long term recurring character like Des Lawson, quizmaster for the Wellingtonian of the Year awards. And it is. I'm 12 years into playing Des. I've talked about the 2015 appearance and the 2016 one in this blog. And in the last post I talked about how important the ever changing costumes are for Des. But I may have reached the back of the wardrobe with this year's look. When next year rolls around I'll be in uncharted territory. There will need

Nowadays you can find me doing a different sort of creative job during the day - I'm a Creative director for a Sales and Marketing agency called Stun. How I ended up there is another blog post in itself but it's a great way to fill in the day, continues the sorts of things I like doing for a living - research, learning new things, meeting interesting people and coming up with creative and cool ways to get their message across. That job still gives me the flexibility to pursue

It's that time of year once again - I become Des Lawson, quizmaster extraordinaire for the Wellingtonian of the Year Awards. There's not much that I haven't covered about this long-running gig in previous years' posts. So instead I'll talk about costumes. Des' look is something that I try to change up every year - within the narrow confines of the fact it needs to be gaudy, tasteless and flamboyant. Coming up with the costumes for characters is one of the really fun parts of

How did we get to this point from what was supposed to be an innocent Christmas food challenge?! Simple - the power of creativity cannot be contained or predicted. There is always someone in a group who thinks outside the box and is able to take things in a direction that you never expected, with fantastic results! For my last job of the year the client requested a real mix of options provided to them: a kiwiana quizz, a bit of "Its In The Bag", some bingo and a food challeng

There are all sorts of ways to get a message out to the members of an organisation and a customised quiz is a really good way to get the job done. Today we sent Jerome Chandrahasen (pictured here so you can really enjoy his beard!) to help Z Energy reinforce their company values with a quiz. Thanks to Julie at Z we had a set of questions that helped reinforce company values in a fun way and Jerome was just the man to deliver them. Jerome is a stand-up comic with loads of expe

Tonight, at the 2015 Wellys Awards (Wellingtonian of the Year), I brought up a decade of performances as a particular character and until it was announced in my introduction I nevber even realised it! Time flies when you are having fun and this is certainly the case with Des Lawson, the quizmaster for the annual Wellypedia Quiz which is held as part of the awards every year. This year Des wore a silver leisure suit but over the years he's worn sequins, suits and more sequins

That's me as Dr. Colin Scopy, world reknowned trauma surgeon and member of Doctors Without Borders. And I'm helping break the ice at the 2015 Nurse Managers' Conference dinner in Tauranga. On the night I did double duty. For pre-dinner drinks Colin did the rounds of the guests regaling them with his far-fetched tales of courage under fire in tent hospitals dotted all over the Horn of Africa. He was also busily trying to recruit new managers for his hospitals in Africa because

These quizzical looking chaps are Mac and Noel. You've probably seen them on this blog before (although Noel may have looked a little different) they are some characters that we have created especially for Mac's Function Centre - a couple of quintessential Kiwi homebrewers. In the past they've served as roaming characters, improv entertainment or as MCs but on this occasion, for the lovely folks at MITO, we came up with something that combined a few of those things into one.

Every year the Wellington Golds business awards have a quiz and I have had the pleasure of hosting it a fair few times in the last few years. One of the best things about the quiz is that it always involves me getting dressed up in character, which is still a favourite thing of mine to do. In the past I've been Maggie Thatcher, Einstein and Kim Dotcom to name a few - each time to fit in with the theme of the event. This year had an Eco theme and so my quizmaster was Sir Josep

NZ Law got a bunch of legal secretaries together for a conference in August and we were there. More specifically the awesome Jen O'Sullivan was there as a French quiz mistress. NZ Law had a dinner at Mac's Function Centre and they wanted a wine quiz. We decided to put our own spin on it. Rather than just have a run of the mill MC Jen turned up as a slightly crazed Frenchwoman. By putting a little twist on things like quizzes you take something expected and elevate it to the m