Christmas dinner entertainment

The welcome drink is the most honest minute of the night. Name badges, prosecco, a glance at the phone. Anyone left by the cloakroom often stays inside their department until dessert.

Agnes does not perform on a loud stage. She draws at the edge of the room. A portrait of the CFO’s scarf is a better reason to walk over than “So, how was the year?”. Guests have somewhere to go before the soup arrives.

How Agnes opens a Christmas dinner

Partners make the table wider and the small talk thinner. The plus-one does not know the quarterly numbers. The colleagues do not know the plus-one. Without partners, the silos simply stay, only without a plus-one.

In fifteen years of Swiss company dinners Agnes has drawn both rooms. A portrait is a third topic. Not the org chart, and not “What do you do?”. Two people on one sheet, and the table finally has something to look at together.

Live caricatures for mixed tables

The next morning the chat called “Xmas_final_2” holds a chin, three blurred glasses and the back of a dessert. That is not a keepsake. That is a folder nobody opens.

Fotobox.ai.studio keeps the company gallery on one link. Agnes’s drawings stay as originals on paper. The photos belong in a gallery, not in a group chat.

Open the photo booth on fotobox.ai.studio

A stage asks the room to be quiet while someone is loud. At dinner, people want to talk. The best programme does not compete with the main course.

Agnes sits to the side, often with a visualiser and a screen in the corner of the eye. People who look up laugh. People in conversation stay in conversation. Nobody is called on stage. Nobody is roasted. The entertainment is quiet and still visible.

Quiet entertainment instead of a show act

A speech lists numbers. A portrait shows the person the team actually knows: the bicycle helmet, the espresso, the calm in a crisis. Humour here is not mockery. Agnes draws the beautiful side.

The original stays. In July it is still in the office. The speech is already gone. Respect grows when someone is seen accurately, with warmth and a wink.

Portraits people keep

Silent Night at a company party is not a carol. It is the hole after the speech, when only cutlery speaks. Fill the gaps with looking, not with volume.

1. Aperitif: two or three voluntary portraits, so the room has a destination.
2. Starter: keep drawing quietly. Conversation stays at the table.
3. Between courses: one short two-hand moment only if you want a single accent.
4. Dessert: the last originals on the table, not in a drawer.

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