Your keynote speaker is on stage for an hour. Your MC is on it all day.
Every transition, every piece of housekeeping, every name in the awards running order, every gap while the next panel gets miked up, and the moment a session runs eight minutes over and somebody has to find that time again without the room ever feeling it. That is a different job from delivering a keynote, and it is the one that decides whether your programme lands as an event or as a schedule.
It also decides how your own day goes. With the right host in front of the room, you stop watching the stage and get on with running your event.
ODE Management manages four of them: James O'Loghlin, Adam Spencer, Tracey Spicer AM and Brad Twynham. Between them they have anchored national television, fronted breakfast radio, hosted hundreds of live events and interviewed prime ministers, Hollywood stars and Nobel Prize winning scientists. Live broadcast is where a host learns to hit a mark, fill to time and stay level when the plan changes, and it shows on stage. All four run conferences, awards nights, galas and product launches, and all four are booked as keynote speakers in their own right, so the person running your day can headline it as well.
Tell us about your event and we will tell you which one suits your room.
James O'Loghlin
A multi day conference where nothing can drop.
Three hundred episodes of The New Inventors on ABC TV, fifteen years presenting on ABC Local Radio and hundreds of live events behind him make James one of the most experienced masters of ceremonies working in Australia. He is the safe pair of hands for a programme that cannot drop.
He holds the thread between sessions so a three day conference reads as one event rather than a series of them, introduces speakers in a way that makes the room actually want to listen, and quietly pulls back time when a session overruns without the audience ever noticing it happened. Stand up comedy before broadcasting, so an awards night or gala dinner is well within range.
He has written twelve books, including Innovation is a State of Mind and the bestselling Minding Your Mind with Professor Ian Hickie, and their podcast of the same name has been listened to more than a quarter of a million times. He is also a keynote speaker on innovation, persuasion and mental health, so he can host your conference and open it. Profile.
Adam Spencer
A technical programme the host has to keep up with.
Adam hosts the hit television series Epic Builds, which has drawn more than three million viewers in Australia, and spent fifteen years in breakfast radio across triple j and ABC Radio in the country's toughest markets. Twenty five years across television, radio and live events, and it is the live end of that which matters most to you.
He has interviewed prime ministers, Hollywood stars, Fortune 500 chief executives, Nobel Prize winning scientists and Australians of the Year. He interviewed John Travolta in front of seventy five thousand people. He was the first person in the world to interview the Thai cave rescuers. In 2013 he shared the TED stage in California with Elon Musk, Ben Affleck and Bono, and his own TED talk on monster prime numbers has passed two million views.
He has hosted AusCERT, Australia's major cyber security conference, since 2010. A mathematician by training, so he follows a specialist speaker on their own terms, asks the question the room wanted asked, and carries the answer back to the people who are not technical without stripping the substance out of it. An improvised theatre competition winner before radio, which is why an awards night or gala sits just as comfortably as a technical programme. Also one of Australia's most booked keynote speakers on AI, cyber security and numeracy, and the author of six books on numbers. Profile.
Tracey Spicer AM
An awards night, or a panel that needs real interviewing.
A multiple Walkley Award winning journalist with almost forty years in the media, Tracey anchored national programmes for ABC TV, Network Ten and Sky News. An awards night is a long, name heavy evening that has to be lifted again after every category, and anchoring live television is exactly where that stamina is built.
She interviews rather than introduces, which makes her a genuine panel moderator instead of an announcer, and she handles serious or sensitive subject matter with real care. Her own description of how she works on stage is the most useful thing anyone could tell you before booking her: warm, razor sharp and surprisingly funny, a seasoned anchor who makes a hard subject land, then stick.
She holds an Order of Australia for thirty years of media and charity work, was NSW Premier's Woman of the Year, and accepted the Sydney Peace Prize alongside Tarana Burke. Her TEDx talk The Lady Stripped Bare has attracted almost seven million views, and her book Man-Made was longlisted for a Walkley. Also a keynote speaker on AI bias, misinformation and crisis communications. Profile.
Brad Twynham
An event that opens with Country.
Brad is a direct descendant of Bungaree of the Garigal of Broken Bay and Matora of the Walkaloa of Lower Lake Macquarie, and a direct bloodline custodian of the SaltWater People north of Sydney, the Stingray people. He delivers Welcome to and Acknowledgement of Country with substance rather than as a formality, with Yidaki performed live.
He is also an award winning enterprise technology entrepreneur with more than twenty five years building products and leading change inside Visa, CBA, UBS, Swisscom and DXC Technology, and he has worked on significant AI projects since 2010 while mentoring startup founders in Silicon Valley and New York. His Radical Leadership framework is used by Harvard Business School to describe what today's business leaders are being asked to do, and he is the author of Radical Thinking.
That combination is the reason to book him. Your opening and your content can come from the same person, which is one booking rather than two, and it gives the event a beginning that connects to everything after it instead of sitting apart from it. Profile.
Which MC suits my event?
The fastest way to narrow it down is by what kind of day you are running.
- Multi day conference. James O'Loghlin.
- Awards night. Tracey Spicer where it is formal, James O'Loghlin or Adam Spencer where it needs to be funny.
- Gala dinner or milestone. James O'Loghlin, Adam Spencer or Tracey Spicer.
- Technical or scientific programme. Adam Spencer.
- Panel that needs genuine interviewing. Tracey Spicer, or James O'Loghlin for a business audience.
- Opening that includes Country. Brad Twynham.
- One person to host and also deliver a session. All four.
If your event is not on that list, ring us anyway. Shortlisting is the part we are best at, and it costs you nothing to ask.
How do I hire a master of ceremonies in Australia?
Tell us the date, the kind of event and the room, and we will come back with a short list rather than a catalogue.
Because we manage these four hosts and hold their diaries, we can confirm availability in the conversation instead of going away to check. You do not need a shortlist or a locked date to start. If the right host for your event is not one of ours, we will find them for you, so our roster is never the limit on what we can put in front of you.
Three things make the shortlist accurate: the format, the tone you are after, and what the day has to achieve. Awards night humour and a serious industry conference are different jobs, and the honest answer about who does which is what you are really ringing for.
Can the MC also deliver a keynote?
Yes, and it is one of the better decisions available to you.
All four of these hosts are booked as keynote speakers in their own right, so one person can open your event and run it. That means one booking, one brief and one set of travel arrangements instead of two, and a host who has already earned the room's attention in a keynote carries that credibility through the rest of the day.
How is an MC priced compared with a keynote?
On the day rather than on time at the lectern, because hosting involves scripting, rehearsal and being across the whole programme from the run sheet up.
There is no standard formula, and anyone who offers you one is guessing. Each of these hosts prices a full day differently, and the relationship between a keynote fee and a day rate varies from one to the next. Tell us the format and we will give you the real number. Our guide to budgeting for a keynote speaker in Australia covers what else belongs in the budget.
Will they moderate a panel as well as host?
Yes, and it is worth saying so at enquiry so the right person is shortlisted.
A panel where the moderator genuinely draws something out of the participants is a different skill from introducing them and watching the clock. Tracey Spicer and James O'Loghlin are both interviewers by background, which is why panels tend to go somewhere with them in the chair.
What does an MC need from you before the event?
The run sheet, an honest description of the audience, and the two or three things you want landed on the day.
A briefing call a fortnight out is worth more than any amount of emailed material, and it is where a host earns the difference between a competent day and one people talk about afterwards. We make sure that call happens and that your host comes to it prepared.
Talk to ODE Management
We manage these hosts exclusively and hold their diaries, so we can confirm availability immediately and tell you honestly which one suits your room. If none of them do, we will say so, and we will tell you who does.
We manage a small roster exclusively, which is why we can talk about these hosts from real knowledge rather than from a listing. Event organisers are welcome to book with us direct, and speaker bureaus can book on behalf of their clients. Ask us whatever you need to. An enquiry commits you to nothing, and nobody here will chase you afterwards.
Tell us about your event and we will come back with a shortlist and a quote. Contact ODE Management, or call +61 2 9818 5199 in Asia Pacific or +1 877 950 5633 in the USA. See also how to book a keynote speaker in Australia.
