We've been building rosters
since 2008.
Showcraft is the corporate spinoff of Characters.io — the performer agency that's been booking working actors, dancers, hosts, and character performers for live events since 2008. We launched Showcraft because corporate buyers kept asking us for the same talent we were already sending to weddings, brand activations, and family days — but with W-2 compliance, COIs, and the procurement-grade paperwork the legacy event-staffing world hasn't bothered to modernize.
Our leadership brings 16 years of experience in special events — built across festivals, theme parks, theatre, brand activations, and corporate productions — into how we run every booking.
We don't outsource.
We hire.
Every staff member on a Showcraft event is a working performer. Actors, dancers, models, hosts, character specialists, on-camera presenters. People who have spent years working live audiences — comedy stages, theme parks, theatre, runway, on-set, kids' parties, brand stunts, festival sampling, awards shows.
They are not gig workers we pulled off a temp app. They are not someone's neighbor in a clean shirt. They are not a virtual assistant we hope can answer a venue question. The person on your booth, in your character costume, hosting your stage — that person has been doing this work for a living before we ever called them.
That's the whole product. Everything else — the operations, the insurance, the captain on-site — exists to make sure those people show up calm, prepared, and ready to actually be good in person.
4.5% acceptance is the whole point.
Out of every hundred applicants, fewer than two make the roster.
- 01Application + reel reviewHeadshots, performer reel, work history. We want people who already work — not people looking for their first gig.
- 02In-person interviewEvery applicant meets a Showcraft team member face-to-face. Camera presence, improv response, brand-voice exercise, professionalism cues. Zoom doesn't count.
- 03Reference checksWe call past employers, casting directors, agents. We're checking for reliability, attitude on set, and whether they show up on time when nobody's watching.
- 04Background checkStandard background check on every roster member. Enhanced tier for staff working financial services, restricted corporate campuses, or events with minors.
- 05Ongoing performance ratingsEvery staff member is rated by the captain after every event. Anyone who drops below a 4.5-star average comes off the roster. The bar doesn't move.
Trained in-house.
Not just sent in.
We don't assume the application pool already knows how to work a corporate room. We teach it.
A captain runs the day so your team doesn't have to.
Every event with six or more staff gets a senior captain on-site, included in the proposal — no extra line item.
The captain leads the pre-event briefing, manages call times and break rotations, handles the venue and the client point of contact, troubleshoots whatever goes sideways, and submits a post-event report with photo verification before you've finished your morning coffee.
Staff arrive on time, in dress code, briefed, and ready. We're proud of the operational rigor — but more than that, we're proud that you get to be a guest at your own event instead of running it.
- Pre-event briefing run by the captain
- Call times confirmed 48 hours out
- On-site, in dress code, ready to go
- Live day-of comms with your point of contact
- Photo verification at every shift
- Post-event report in your inbox by morning
One team owns your event end-to-end.
From the first inquiry to the post-event report, you have a named human running your booking. No ticket queues, no anonymous pools, no "let me check with the team and get back to you in 48 hours."
Cast for the audience,
not for the calendar.
Brand activations work when the staff matches the audience. We cast each booking to the brief — not from a generic dispatch pool.
Every event has a target audience and a brand vibe. A skincare launch in Soho, a sports family day at SoFi, a financial-services dinner at Brookfield Place, a Latin-music brand activation in Wynwood — these need different people in the room. We cast accordingly.
If your brief has specific casting requirements — age range, gender presentation, ethnicity, language fluency, body type, energy / vibe match, or a coordinated group look across the team — tell us at the inquiry stage. Our roster is built deep enough across our metros that we can usually match without compromising the talent quality.
- Age range / demographic match
- Specific ethnicity or cultural background
- Bilingual / trilingual language fluency
- Body type and styling alignment
- Group look — coordinated team aesthetic
- Energy / vibe match (high-energy festival vs. white-glove luxury)
- On-camera comfort and red-carpet polish
- Specific industry experience (tech, finance, beauty, sports)
Casting requests for performers, brand ambassadors, and on-camera talent are evaluated as bona fide casting criteria — standard practice in talent agency and entertainment work.
Procurement-clean. Underwriter-friendly. No surprises.
What every applicant has to clear before they make the roster.
Ten standards. Ten different ways we test for them. If an applicant clears all ten, they make the roster. If they don't, they don't — no matter how good the headshot looks.
| Standard | Criteria | How we assess |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | Prior live-event, performance, or hospitality work — not their first gig | Resume + reel review |
| Cultural fit | Aligned with how we run a room: warm, professional, low ego | Behavioral interview |
| Personality | Genuinely friendly, reads a crowd, communicates clearly | Panel interview |
| Professionalism | Presents on-brand, on time to interviews, dressed appropriately | Interview observation |
| Initiative | Solves problems on the fly without escalating every detail | Improv + scenario task |
| Work ethic | Reliable, honest, shows up when nobody is watching | Reference checks |
| Growth potential | Hungry to learn — open to coaching, not defensive | Interview questions |
| Brand fluency | Can absorb a brand briefing and represent it on the day | Brand-voice exercise |
| Judgment | Owns their decisions, escalates the right things, no drama | Trial shift |
| Client interaction | Handles real clients, real venues, real attendees with composure | Second trial shift |
I started Characters.io in 2008 because I wanted live performance in places it doesn't usually get to live — kids' parties, brand activations, weddings, corporate offsites. We built a roster of working performers, ran thousands of events, and learned that most of the legacy industry's problems aren't talent problems. They're operations problems.
Showcraft is what that roster looks like when you wrap it in W-2 payroll, real insurance, modern operations, and a captain who actually runs the day. It's the same talent backbone, dressed for procurement.
We staff brand activations, trade shows, corporate offsites, family days, conferences, and team-building productions across eleven metros. If you want your event to actually be remembered — by your team, by your buyers, by the photographers — we'd love to staff it.
— Hayley Henning, founder
Brand experiences, on demand.
Tell us what you're putting on. Quote in minutes, talent on-site in days. No phone tree.