Despite our best intentions, each of us has committed a sin or two against audience interaction when organising an event. Despair not, sales event planners. It’s not that hard to repent and fix our mistakes.
1. Packed agenda
More speakers on the line-up doesn’t necessarily mean more value for your attendees. As an attendee, I’m usually completely drained after two to three sessions, especially when there is no dedicated time for interaction.
Yet, many conferences insist on packing their agendas with eight to nine ‘keynote’ speakers, with the last session finishing at 5:30 p.m.
Keeping audiences engaged in the late afternoon then becomes a massive challenge even for the most seasoned speakers or moderators.
How to fix it:
Don’t be scared to loosen up your agenda and leave out a session or two. Instead, build in some buffer time so people can catch up on the emails or tasks that they fell behind on during the day.
Or if you organise a multi-day internal sales conference with evening entertainment, give people enough time to refresh themselves before the night out.
Related: Engage Conference Delegates With Polls
2. Long sessions
Neuroscience research indicates that we humans are able to pay attention for a maximum of 10 to 20 minutes before we start losing focus. We can get through the first 40-minute keynote, but it gets hard with the second one and becomes almost unbearable with the third session in a row. You can bring top TED speakers on stage, but if there is no change in the delivery, our thoughts are most likely to drift away.
How to fix it:
Plan to ensure that no block is more than 60 minutes long – this time may consist of a series of presentations.
To keep participants focused, consider asking the audience to grab their chairs and turn the other way to face alternative stages. The combination of various formats and physical movement keeps people energised.
3. Monotonous speakers
Uninspiring speakers are one of the biggest challenges in the industry. As the presenters form the backbone of your event, making sure that they deliver an engaging talk should be among the top priorities.
Of course, it’s easier said than done.
While we might have a certain amount of control over the speakers that we pay fees to, the situation gets complicated when we have presenters who agree to speak for the benefit of ‘exposure.’
How to fix it:
Coaching speakers requires a lot of work. It all starts with the proper briefing so the speaker can get a better idea of who is sitting in the audience and what the participants expect. Outlining and reviewing the presentations before the event should also be one of the standard practices. TED gives lots of great ideas in its guidelines; look them up online.
Finally, not leaving things to chance and hiring a professional coach could be a great investment with a potentially massive impact on the content delivery and overall event engagement.
Related: How To Manage Risks When Planning Your Event
4. Overruns
There is nothing more frustrating than a speaker who overruns an already long session. To patch the hole in the agenda, most events cut off the Q&A session or shorten networking breaks, which leads to even less time for actual interaction. And that makes people even more frustrated.
How to fix it:
The danger of overruns can be mitigated by lots of practice on the speaker’s part. Or if you don’t want to leave things to chance, simply have your speakers consult with seasoned coaches who can help ensure that the talk will be delivered within the allocated slot. Also, you should always have a time keeper so speakers can adjust their pace.
If even this doesn’t help, your moderator should step in and bring the talk to an end.
5. No time for participation
This is probably the most deadly sin of all. Getting people to only passively listen to a series of presentations is unforgivable in the 21st century. And a five-minute Q&A session at the end will not fix it. People want to be part of the experience. They don’t want to be spoken to all day long; they want to speak.
How to fix it:
In order to create a meaningful dialogue, there are three main elements that you need to get right.
- First, ditch one-way formats and pull off interactive formats like fireside chats, Ask Me Anything or interactive panels instead.
- Second, brief a moderator who will lead the conversation on behalf of your audience.
- Third, equip your moderator with live interaction technology that will allow her to crowd-source audience questions.
Related: Planning A Product Launch Event
6. Short breaks
Many breaks that are meant for interaction are scheduled with barely enough time to run to the bathroom and grab a cup of coffee.
How to fix it:
People love breaks. They also love the opportunity to fraternise with each other. Therefore, make sure that your attendees have ample time not only to refresh themselves but also to interact. Some
event planners allocate up to 45 minutes per break.
To boost interaction, you can take it a step further and give people a gentle push to interact with collegues from different divisions or territories by giving them a small task to complete during the break.
7. Dull space arrangements
The venue and room arrangements have the maximum impact on audience engagement. Traditional theatre set-ups are dull and hardly inspire interaction. On top of that, they often remind us of our school days when we hesitated to ask questions for fear of looking stupid.
How to fix it:
In his book, The Architecture of Happiness, philosopher Alain de Botton emphasises the power of the physical space to influence people’s emotions by making them happy or moody. Stimulate your attendees by offering them flexible meeting spaces, creative environments for group work, leisure areas for networking and unusual design solutions for different formats (e.g., a real boxing ring for Q&A sessions).
