Three tips for Speakers, Facilitators and Event Managers

The events industry is about creating engaging and memorable experiences. Bringing people together, sharing knowledge and creating business opportunities. It might be a conference where anyone can show up, it might be global company and an internal audience of thousands or it could just be a workshop with ten people. Event managers have so much to deal with, be it the hospitality, coordinating a thousand moving parts or making sure there are no brown M&M’s in the backstage area (or conversely a 1000 brown M&M’s for a brandy glass). And it’s all for an audience who’s time, money and mental bandwidth is under ever increasing pressure.

Here at live Illustration being at events is normal for us. The environment of a workshop room festooned with post its and templates is a totally normal place to be. A multi track conference with goody bags and foyer stands populated by hopeful SAAS providers is the norm. It’s one of the great things about being a Graphic Recorder - that you are regularly transported to places where people are working at their best. These days are special days for all concerned, and that makes the task of visualising the event that much easier. And we are playing our part, integrating into the flow of an event and working hard to engage audiences. And we know - every event is different and unique.

But there are a few things that, over the years, we have observed as critical to the success of any event. Immutable laws that must not be broken if you wish to avoid disaster. Be it a small workshop through to a giant conference. Even the most professional organisers can over look these, so whatever your level this is important.

Number One: Organisers! Do not be late for lunch and make sure there is enough for everyone.

Don’t make people late for lunch and let them have seconds…

If you want to lose the audience run over the allotted time and into the lunch break. There is no quicker way to have people develop a seething resentment of you and your content. In one tick of the clock you can have 300 people filled with business insights and optimism for the future change into a hangry mob who will possibly eat you if this goes on much longer. It depends on the organisation. Perhaps a Professional Services company will have a C’level exec ramble on for an extra 20 minutes. Meanwhile beads of sweat form on the audiences brow as they maintain eager alertness as their stomachs churn. In other scenarios I’ve seen people just walk out of the room while a panel continues to pontificate when the first whiff of catered stew drifts over.

Also.. if someone wants extra chips.. give them to them. It’s just basic hospitality!

Number Two: Speakers! Do not be late for the coffee breaks and don’t bust your session time

Do not delay the coffee break or the audience will hate you

Speaking as an events professional I can think of nothing ruder than exceeding your allotted time because for some reason you are more important than all the other speakers. If you were forced to start late then it is your moral duty to finish at your original finishing time to bring the agenda back up, rather than do your 30 minutes anyway and keep the knock on effect rolling. And let me tell you why, because the only way to get back on track will be to eat into the coffee break. And whichever unfortunate speaker or panel is responsible for a delayed coffee break.. everyone will hate.

And from a Graphic Recording point of view - we operate on a square footage of drawing basis, carefully calibrated to the timing of the event. Go on too long and you kick the drawing out of alignment!

Number Three: Power point is the devil

Power point is fraught with danger for a man of a desert island

We advocate for a policy on non intervention on Powerpoint Problems. If a speaker has bounded on stage to great fanfare and applause, the clicker doesn’t work and the powerpoint is wrong and someone says ‘does anyone know how to do powerpoint?’ Do not get involved. If the video embeds and sound clips don’t work, do not bat an eyelid. Getting involved is going to make things immeasurably worse and magically make it all your fault. Nancy Duarte has written several excellent books on how to create powerful narrative driven slide decks for keynotes. And I think about 0.1% of people using powerpoint to present have read them, let alone implemented any of the ideas.

I’ve seen people who’s presentation is reading the deck off the screen. I have seen people brought on stage with drum and bass dubstep intros and dry ice to present a deck made of pixellated excel spreadsheet pie charts. Worse I have seen people ad lib a really good talk when the deck doesn’t work, and then suddenly turn into robots when it springs back to life.

If you are going to insist on using powerpoint always make sure you can get by without it. Make sure you can do your ‘bit’ on stage without relying on a deck. And if you can do that, then just don’t use it. The best talks to scribe are always the ones with no decks.

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