We're havin' a party, a scientific party...

September 12, 2008 5:14 PM

We're scientists. We're in Frederick, MD. We need entertainment.

It's a regional meeting (potomac division), and we're stuck hosting it, so we have to come up with a venue and entertainment for the banquet. Normally, the entertainment is a band, but last year the WV hosts had a great bluegrass band, so we have to come up with something else. Germanic polka band? Or do we think out of the box? Educational wine tasting of Maryland wines? Rent a mechanical bull? Since I'm deciding, I want no storytellers and no re-enactors. Anyone ever provided entertainment for a banquet?

posted by acrasis to education (12 comments total)

What's the budget involved?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:18 PM on September 12, 2008

Have you met many scientists, Rubbstone?

acrasis - wherever you decide, make sure that booze is available =)
posted by porpoise at 5:52 PM on September 12, 2008

Seems like Frederick has several theater groups. Maybe arrange for them to perform something at your banquet? Not necessarily a fully staged play with props and costumes, maybe just a dramatic reading. I went to one conference where the big entertainment was a reading of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" and it was more enjoyable than I expected.

Rubbstone, you remind me of a story my dad likes to tell. He was a scientist too, and every year he would go to a large scientific conference that, in those days, always met in Atlantic City in June. Year after year a few thousand scientists would arrive in Atlantic City in mid-June, and one year Dad caught a taxi at the train station and the cabbie asks him "So you're a scientist, right?" Dad says "Yeah, how did you know?" Cabbie says "I can always tell when the scientists are in town because that's when the hookers take their vacations."
posted by Quietgal at 6:01 PM on September 12, 2008

Get in touch with the owner of Frederick Brewing Company. He's pretty cool about providing brews for things like this. And they make awesome beer. If you have a few FBC kegs on tap, no one will care how lame the entertainment is. And I'm not just saying that because I may end up at the event.
posted by Patapsco Mike at 6:55 PM on September 12, 2008

A friend of mine has ties to the big jazz/swing/brass bands in Frederick. If it sounds like this would be a type of entertainment your group would enjoy, I could get you in touch. MeFiMail me.
posted by Alterscape at 7:53 PM on September 12, 2008

I gather you want the entertainment to be kind of in the background as people eat and mingle? So something like the nerdy NASA a cappella group The Chromatics would be out?
posted by sarahnade at 7:55 PM on September 12, 2008

Local beers and wines. Good.
Anything that smells of dance. Bad.
Mechanical bull. Strangely appealing.

I missed Rubbstone's comment, but, let's just say, where is the page where the people in the humanities or social sciences show off their tattoos?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 2:15 AM on September 13, 2008

The Comedy Pigs.
posted by imjustsaying at 2:52 AM on September 13, 2008

I don't have any specific recommendations, but you're definitely close enough to DC that any entertainment provider there would be willing to drive out to Frederick. Should expand your options a bit.
posted by valkyryn at 5:15 AM on September 13, 2008

Beer tasting.
Comedy show
Steel band
Ask the people at the venue what they've seen recently & loved.
posted by theora55 at 6:25 AM on September 13, 2008

I don't know what rubbstone said, but when our society met in Las Vegas, we were asked never to come back, because none of us spent any money. And we'll have something in the low hundreds to work with here, Cool Papa Bell.

We've got the beer angle all figured out, believe me. We're thinking of having the business meeting at Brewer's Alley, because, well, that's the only way I would go to the business meeting.

My problem with storytellers, theater groups, and nerdy a capella groups is that it requires the audience to stay polite for an extended period of time. I would prefer something where people coud chat and mingle without being cruel to the entertainers.

I'll be talking to you, Alterscape. *I* would enjoy a big band.

Wear a red carnation, Patapsco Mike, and I'll know it's you.
posted by acrasis at 7:41 AM on September 13, 2008

The DNA Band
posted by oneous at 12:28 AM on September 18, 2008