Corporate Entertainment in PittsburghThey will notbe on theirphones.
Corporate entertainment that turns a room full of coworkers into a room full of people connecting with each other.
The problem
The 8:40 exodus.
Dinner ends. The playlist comes back on. Nobody wants to be the first table to leave, so everybody leaves at once.
- Two hundred adults who do not know each other
- An open bar doing all of the heavy lifting
- The quiet fear that this one is on you
about ninety minutes in
Your people gave up an evening. That should buy them more than a buffet and a slideshow.
The venue is fine. The chicken is fine. Somebody reads the year's numbers off a slide, three people get plaques, and by February the only thing anybody remembers about the evening is that parking was a nightmare.
Nobody blames the caterer for that. They blame the night. And the night has your name on it.
What it actually buys you
Connection.
Your people mix
Give them something to talk about that isn't the weather. Sales ends up talking to operations, which no seating chart has ever managed.Nobody gets embarrassed
Nobody gets dragged on stage and made to look foolish. Your VP of Sales ends up looking better than they arrived.They remember it in February
Not the venue, not the chicken.The night.
I'm Michael Misko
An Audience Engagement Specialist
Your guide for the evening
I've stood in that room too.
You are not throwing a party. You are on the hook for one. My job is that by nine o'clock nobody in the room remembers they were nervous. Including you.
Twenty-five years of watching rooms decide whether they are having a good time, and I know in the first five minutes which way it is going.
Hired by
Coca-Cola, CBS, UPMC, Workday, Datto, Inc., Penn State, bioMérieux and Princess Cruises.On stage
Thirty-eight sold out performances at Liberty Magic, Pittsburgh. One of the highest grossing shows in their history, and back for a third time September ’26.The job title
Audience Engagement Specialist.Magic is how it gets done. It is never the point.
Watch the room • 90 secProof
Watch a room full of adults forget to be professional.
Ninety seconds. Real people.
Nobody paid to look surprised.
How it works
Three steps.
Nobody gets sold.
Tell me about the night
Eight questions, about two minutes. Your date, your venue, your crowd, and what you need the evening to do for them. By the time you hit send, I know most of what I need.We talk it through
Fifteen minutes on the phone if that is easier, email if it is not. Either way you get my read on where the entertainment should sit in your run of show.This is why you are hiring me.
Take the credit
I show up early, connect your people, and hand you back an evening they'll remember next quarter.Where it lands in your run of show
Your night. Three ways.
Cocktail hour
Table to table, group to group, six or eight guests at a time. No stage, no sound system, no setup. The most awkward hour of the evening becomes the one they talk about.
After dessert
Thirty to forty-five minutes for a room that has been fed and is finally paying attention. The single best slot of the night, and the one most often handed to a slideshow.
Emcee
Awards, transitions, dead air, the raffle nobody planned. The evening keeps moving and whoever is running it looks like they planned it perfectly.The face that greets them at the door, and makes them laugh after dessert, is the same one that waves goodnight.
That is the difference between any entertainer and one who becomes
An extension of your hospitality.
Where this works
Any time people gather.
Every one of these is a room that demands connection, and most companies have several of them a year without ever counting them up.
Greater Pittsburgh is home, and most local work is inside two hours of my front door.
Anywhere else is a plane ticket, quoted as its own line so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
Not children's parties.
I have nothing against them. I am just not the guy.
What the room looks like afterward
Nobody left at 8:40.
it was closing
That face is the whole product
Quiet all the way to the backThe skeptic in row two
Nobody left at 8:40In their words
You're darn right they said it.
"An excellent collaborator, professional when it counts, skilled magician and true theater artist."
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
"Provided all of our guests the laughter they needed to decompress from stress."
"You were the highlight of the evening!"
Deka Lash
And from the press
"His sharp, edgy humor is a kinder, gentler version of the legendary Don Rickles' style."
"His acerbic, biting, comical ad libs never quite cross the line to insulting."
Lonnie the Theater Lady, 'Burgh Vivant
And from people who do this for a living.
"Your stage presence is unmatchable."
T.J. Miller, actor and comedian
"I love the part where you harpooned the guy in the chest!"
Brian Regan, comedian
"A show of quick wit, intelligent trickery, seamlessly held together."
Dan Appleby, Entertainment Director, Princess Cruises
What it costs
Three things form the number.
Format. Scale. Date.
A Saturday in December is not a Tuesday in March.
You will not find a number on this page, because the number is the last part of the conversation and not the first.
Thanking people who had a hard year is a different job than putting your clients and your sales team in the same room. Both are different from getting the awards handed out before the people drift to the parking lot.
We work out what you need your night to do. We land on a number together, that makes sense for both of us.
And if I am not the right fit for your night, I will say so and point you at someone who is.
Before you ask
The questions I get every time.
Why is there no price on this page?
Because you are not value shopping for a can of soup off the shelf. Nobody remembers a can of soup. The number depends on what you need. Tell me about the evening and we will come up with a number together.Do I have to get on a call?
No. There is a box on the form for it if a conversation makes you feel better, and plenty of people tick it. If you would rather do the whole thing over email, we will do the whole thing over email.Do you need a stage and a sound system?
Do I? No. I can perform my show anywhere. But you do. Why? Because you want your people to see the people speaking to them without craning their necks. Not just for the performance, but also to see their colleagues accept their awards, and to hear the CEO thank them for a job well done. I send a one page stage plot that suits most venues and even liaise with the production team.Is anybody going to get embarrassed?
No. Nobody gets dragged on stage and made to look foolish. The people who help end up looking better than they arrived, and we even might discover the quiet person from Accounting is hilarious.Is it clean?
Yes. It plays for a room with the CEO, the new hire and somebody's spouse.Nothing dirty. No religion. No politics. Ever.
How far ahead do I need to book?
For November and December, earlier than feels necessary. Those dates go first and they go early. The rest of the year, a few months is comfortable and I have filled a date with three weeks' notice more than once.What about insurance and paperwork?
Contract, certificate of insurance, W-9 and references arrive together in one email. Your procurement people will not have to chase me for any of it.
Not ready to book?
December is decided in September.
Venues across Greater Pittsburgh book their November and December dates early, and most of what goes wrong on the night was decided months before it.
So I wrote down what I have learned watching hundreds of these from the front of the room: the month by month timeline, the questions to ask a venue before you sign, and a run of show you can hand straight to your team. Twelve pages, free.
The last word
In February they will still be talking about it.
Not the venue. Not the chicken. The night the whole room lost it at the same time, and you are the one who booked it.