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5 Star Live launched in Herne Bay as owner tries to bring human touch to auditions for professional dancers and entertainers

00:01, 29 October 2015

updated: 09:26, 29 October 2015

If Spectre ends up being Daniel Craig’s last Bond movie, the actor may miss corporate bashes featuring beautiful women in iconic costumes from the 007 franchise.

Running those kind of shows is a speciality for entertainment business 5 Star Live, which lays on performers for product launches, nightclubs and high-roller Christmas parties across Europe.

The company’s work has ranged from supplying 10 cheerleaders to the ExCeL in London for tourism agency Visit Florida to providing the aforementioned Bond babes for a corporate party at Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo.

5 Star Live provided Bond girls at a corporate party in Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo
5 Star Live provided Bond girls at a corporate party in Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo

“I wanted to put a different spin on things,” said Sophie Quinton-Jones, who set up the company from her home in Herne Bay in 2012 and began trading a year later.

A dancer since the age of two, she went to the town’s Hasland Dance Studios until she was 16, before spending three years training at the Urdang Academy in Islington.

She had performed all over the world, working for various agencies, but launched her own company “to give them a run for their money”.

She said: “I wanted to choose my own songs and have more control.

5 Star Live owner Sophie Quinton-Jones
5 Star Live owner Sophie Quinton-Jones

“I can put a different twist on shows and make them more entertaining. It’s the control aspect I wanted.”

Behind the glitz and the glamour, there is also an ethical focus for 5 Star Live.

“It’s nice not to be on the employee side where you are auditioning all the time,” said Miss Quinton-Jones, 25.

“That can be a slog. It’s a hard industry and it’s good to be away from that.

“When you watch X Factor, that is how it is. It’s ruthless but I can take that away on the management side.

5 Star Live offers corporate entertainment including its diamond show girls
5 Star Live offers corporate entertainment including its diamond show girls

“I won’t be horrible to people and I can change the way auditioning is done. In a management sense, I’m coming at it from a performer’s point of view.”

Miss Quinton-Jones still performs but does that through other agencies – “competitors” she says awkwardly – to avoid any appearance of nepotism and keep her business simple.

“I want to keep managerial status at 5 Star Live but I don’t want to give up performing just yet.”

This year was the first summer in six years that she has stayed at home, as she puts more of her time into her business.

Her sister, Louise, who is also a performer, is involved in the company too, often on the creative side.

5 Star Live provided Bond girls at a corporate party in Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo
5 Star Live provided Bond girls at a corporate party in Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo

The business sub-contracts its talent rather than having them all on payroll like an agency.

She said: “I have lots of contacts in the industry and we audition depending on what the job is.”

She still works from home but has ambitions of setting up the firm in a grand office one day.

Miss Quinton-Jones has had a mentoring session with young people’s business charity the Kent Foundation, which she felt confirmed the company was on the right track.

She said: “I have lots of faith in my product. That is the easy bit.

“People are impressed with what we can do.

“The hardest part is getting people to that stage.

“Sales and marketing is the most difficult thing. We do lots of videos and try to take photographs at everything. We are trying to get the name out there.

“Running your own business does bring pressure but I have belief in it.”

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