In Montreal, the office Christmas party needs planning earlier than most people expect. Once the date is set, the rooms get booked, colleagues block off the evening and, at Karaoke Rental Montreal, December fills up fast. If you want karaoke at your team's holiday party, book as soon as the date is known. Here is how it works, from picking the room to the last song of the night.
Book as soon as the date is set
Online booking opens up to six months ahead and closes two days before the date. In December a surcharge applies on Christmas-period dates, and it shows in the availability checker before checkout, along with the delivery fee. If your first-choice date is gone, a January office party, once everyone is back from the holidays, is a fix plenty of social committees settle on without regret.
Which room works for an office party in Montreal?
Karaoke works in almost any enclosed room that fits the whole group. Three kinds of venues come up most often with Montreal organizers:
- A restaurant's private room. Handy for the office dinner: you eat, you sing, and the restaurant handles the service. Plan for a power outlet near where the screen will sit, and check that the restaurant's Wi-Fi does not open a login page.
- The boardroom or the office's open area. Push the tables back, keep the kitchen corner for the bar, and you are set. In a downtown tower, tell us about a loading dock, a security desk or a freight elevator that needs reserving for the driver.
- A reception hall in Laval, on the South Shore or on the North Shore. Plenty of companies rent a hall in Laval, Brossard or Terrebonne, closer to where the team lives. For those addresses we plan the delivery around bridge traffic.
Delivery fees start at $29 and depend on driving time; the delivery areas page gives a rough idea for each municipality.
Event Basic or Event Superstar?
For a group of 15 to 40 people, the choice is between the two Event packages. Both include the speaker, two microphones, a party light, a 22-inch screen and access to 67,000+ songs. No TV needed on site.
Event Basic suits a restaurant's private room or a boardroom, where everyone is a few steps from the screen. Event Superstar adds two wireless microphones, deluxe party lights and an 80-inch projector. In a reception hall or an open-plan office with 40 colleagues, the projector makes the difference: the lyrics are readable from the back of the room and the microphones move from table to table with no cable underfoot. The two packages are compared on the Event packages page. For a big hall, an extra speaker can be added as an option.
Quote, invoice, Wi-Fi and setup
The paperwork side
Most office parties go through accounting. Request an event quote: it arrives by email, you approve it, then you pay by invoice through a secure link. No deposit is required on a quote booking, and you can add your PO number. If it is simpler, online booking with Visa, Mastercard or American Express works too.
The technical side
The system needs a Wi-Fi connection and one or two power outlets. Your office's guest network is fine; the public Wi-Fi at a restaurant or hall with a login page is not. In that case, a phone hotspot solves it. The driver arrives in the window you chose, morning (10 am to 1 pm) or afternoon (1 pm to 5 pm), and confirms the exact time the week of the party. They set everything up, run a sound test and show the organizers how it works. They come back for the equipment at the arranged time, usually the next day; check with the restaurant or hall that this suits them. Phone support is available during the evening.
No host needed: a simple run-of-show, in English and French
Nobody has to play DJ. Your colleagues search for songs on their own phones and add them to the queue, which shows on the screen. Between songs, your Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube playlist takes over, cables included. A run-of-show that works:
- Arrival and cocktails. Background music only; the karaoke waits until people have had a chance to chat.
- Dinner. The organizers open the queue and invite everyone to pick a song on their phone during the meal.
- First song. The boss or the social committee opens with a classic everyone knows. It breaks the ice for the shy ones.
- The main stretch. The queue runs itself: duets, group songs, a few surprises.
- Last call. One group song to close, then the playlist comes back on while everyone packs up.
In a Montreal office the teams are bilingual, and the song list has to be too. The catalogue holds 67,000+ titles, mostly English and French: Québécois classics, French chanson, English hits, plus Spanish, Italian, Korean and other languages. Colleagues who will not sing still get a say in the group songs and the picks.
One last tip: put karaoke on the calendar as soon as the party date is confirmed, choose the room to fit the group, then request your quote. The rest, delivery, setup and pickup, is what Karaoke Rental Montreal is there for.