Two years in the making: the Stonewood Homes Gala in Queenstown
The 2024 gala was never meant to be a one off. Stonewood Homes had been trying to get me back ever since, and it simply took until this year for it to work!
Two years is a long time to keep asking. It is also the best feedback a night can get, because nobody chases a rebooking for an event that was merely fine.
The event
Stonewood Homes’ 2026 national conference and gala, held at The Winehouse in Queenstown, with around 80 guests. The conference theme was “Preparing today, winning tomorrow”. The gala theme was Enchanted Forest.
I hosted the night as MC, presented the awards, performed two entertainment spots and worked through the room before and around the formalities.
It was my second time with them, after the 2024 gala in Christchurch.
The brief
The event team wanted the same energy as 2024. That is a big ask, mostly because 2024 was such an epic night, and the two galas were nothing alike.
The 2024 theme was Dare to be Pink, and the room went all in, me included, in a pink suit! Enchanted Forest was a calmer, classier affair. Plenty of guests still committed to it, but the tone of the room was different from the start. Same people, same good vibes, different night.
Matching the feeling of a previous year does not mean repeating the night. It means reading what this particular room, in this particular year, is up for, and building the evening around that.
There was also a quieter piece of context. It had been a hard year for the building industry, and everyone in that room knew it. A night like this is not the place to dwell on that, but it is part of why the night mattered. The job was to celebrate a cracking conference, to properly recognise the people who had got through a tough year, and to send everyone home with some energy about what is coming next!
The surprise
Me hosting was kept under wraps. The delegates knew there was a gala. They did not know who was MCing it.
What the event team had been hearing beforehand was people bringing up the 2024 night unprompted, and joking that they hoped this year’s act would land as well.
So when I walked into the room, it landed before I had done a single thing! Double takes, a few shouts across the room, and hugs from guests and suppliers, some I had stayed in touch with since 2024 and some who had just been following along with what I have been up to since.
That is the part I am proudest of, and it is the part no run sheet can arrange. Two years earlier I had learned their names, heard about their families and their builds and their year, and then actually kept in touch. So this was not a performer arriving. It was someone they knew walking in, and the night started from there.
How the night ran
With the room that warm, the MC work gets easier and the awards get better. People were listening, the banter had somewhere to go, and every winner walked up to a crowd that was genuinely pleased for them.
The banter is the part I enjoy most. Knowing who can take a gentle ribbing and who would rather be left alone, catching the thing someone mutters at table four and giving it back to the whole room, and keeping it cheeky without anyone ever being the butt of it. That only works when you are paying attention to the people rather than the programme.
The conference theme was kept in mind across both spots too, so the material sat naturally in the room rather than on top of it. Little nods to what the company had actually been working on all year, which is usually all it takes for the entertainment to feel like part of the night rather than a break in it.
The awards themselves stayed the centre of the evening. In a year that had asked a lot of everyone there, being recognised in front of the people who understood what it took was the thing that mattered.
What made it work
The relationship did the heavy lifting. Two years of remembering names and staying in touch meant the room had a reason to be pleased I was there. No cold start.
One person held the night together. MC, awards, two show spots and the mingling between them, all run by the same person, so the evening moved as one piece.
The night was about them. Eighty people who had earned a good night after a hard year, and an evening built to say so!
Big thanks to the Stonewood team for the trust, and for another fantastic night. It is a genuine pleasure watching what this crew are building, and I cannot wait to do it all again!
Planning a conference gala or awards night?
I am an Auckland-based comedy magician, mentalist and MC, working conferences, awards nights and gala dinners across New Zealand and internationally, with 1,500+ shows in 15+ countries behind me, including headlining at the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood and on luxury cruise lines worldwide.