If you're organizing an event and worried that booking a celebrity to attend will invariably end up being a disastrous blunder like Katie Price's appearance in this year's I'm a Celebrity, then fear not. With some thought, planning and savvy rumor seeding, you can create real hype and intrigue around your event.
First off, you want to think about the connection between the celebrity and the event. Envision the ideal tone of your event and think about personalities that will reinforce it. If you're hoping for a social yet focused and businesslike environment, the cutting sound of Lee Evans impersonating a Chicken on stilts will probably sabotage this mood - much better to have a personality like Adrian Chiles, who you could trust to lighten proceedings without offending or going schizophrenic on your guests!
Once you've thought through some realistic options, the next step is seeing who you can land. When booking a celebrity for an event, it is possible to cold-approach the celebrity's agent. This can work if you've got connections with the relevant agents or enough experience with booking acts to know how much the service of a given celebrity is worth. The problem is most people don't and many agents are opportunists. If they sense you don't know, they can easily quote you too much, call it the standard price and say "take it or leave it". Leaving you in a position where you either pay up, or move on. Agents get so many offers; they probably won't be too heartbroken if you do move on.
The way round this is to use an established entertainment agency. A consultant working for an have both the connections and leverage to properly negotiate the attendance of your desired celebrity. Aside from doing the leg-work in sourcing and hiring the best celebrity for your event, the other key advantage of using an entertainment agency is that they haves tons of experience with running events. They know what makes an event work, and can make suggestion on how to make it memorable and even work with you to turn new ideas into reality.
Lastly, once you have the celebrity booked, the temptation is to mention it at every opportunity and cover the promotional material with the celebrity's name. This can work if you're certain the celebrity's name alone will generate hype. However, it can be more effective to avoid making anything official and instead circulating a rumour. If the event you're planning is not a media/PR event, it's likely that your attendees - and guest they're likely to bring - are part of a social network. Take advantage of this! Ask a couple of 'connected' people to surreptitiously mention that they've heard X celebrity is attending. Ideally you want one person (or people, depending on the scale) whistle-blowing in person and another person to make similar noises on Twitter and Facebook. This lack of certainly will soon spread, which is good for intrigue and intrigue leads to action!
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