Jeff Civillico

Jeff Civillico spent a decade headlining the Las Vegas Strip, which is the least glamorous and most useful qualification an emcee can have.

He performed more than five thousand shows for Caesars Entertainment at The LINQ, The Flamingo and The Paris, won three Best of Las Vegas awards, and became the youngest producer-headliner in the city's history. The relevance to a conference is what that volume teaches. A resident Vegas show plays to a room that did not choose the act, is half drunk, and will leave if bored, every night, twice. A speaker who has held that room for ten years is not going to be thrown by a delayed start or a general session that has lost the plot after lunch.

His own format is what he calls Comedy in Action, a blend of physical comedy, stunts and world-class juggling and balancing with direct audience interaction. It is a distinct skill from magic or scripted humour: the work is sustaining physical attention in a large room, which is precisely the problem a main-stage host is solving.

He has hosted more than eight thousand events and is a three-time Las Vegas Entertainer of the Year and a Hall of Fame speaker. The client list runs across industry rather than within one, including Disney, AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Honeywell, Cisco, Grainger, AAA and OSHA, covering general sessions, awards banquets, game shows and national sales meetings.

He is the right booking when the agenda is long, the audience is large, and the risk is the room going flat between sessions rather than the content being wrong. He also delivers a keynote, which gives a planner one person covering the opening session and the full program. Where he is not the right pick is a small, senior, analytical room that wants a strategist in the chair rather than a performer.