Give them an experience!

Amanda Vickers shares her ideas on how to create a memorable event

Picture the scene. Two hundred sales people from one of the world’s leading financial organisations are standing up and speaking with passion like Martin Luther King. Then they fill out a quiz to find out what kind of animal they are. Or perhaps a group of ninety accountants, from one of the big four accountancy firms, singing in harmony to the sound of African drums, talking ‘at the drop of a hat’, and then participating in a recreation of the BBC’s Question Time. This is not entertainment for entertainment’s sake – there is real learning to be had. Creative ways to develop personal impact, energy and passion can be so much more memorable, compelling and sustainable than traditional exercises.

Do the delegates at your conferences talk about them for days, weeks, even months afterwards? Or are they soon forgotten? Creating a successful conference or large group meeting requires a lot of creativity, planning and judgment to make sure you achieve a balance between having fun and learning something useful. If you are clear about your objective and have found out as much as you can about your audience you are off to a good start.

You can’t afford to skimp on the time you spend brainstorming ideas on how to make your event engaging and memorable. People want to feel they’ve had an experience – and not just been talked at. Once you’ve gathered a host of ideas it’s time to ask yourself “So what?” It may be fun to have everyone learning to juggle balls but does it fit in with the key messages you want to get across? Being clear about two or three key messages is essential for success. Once you’ve worked out what they are keep coming back to them to make sure your latest brilliant idea truly supports them.

Next you need to structure your material in a way that will be easy for people to follow. Organisation is really important and you will need to time everything down to the last minute. Imagine a nightmare scenario. You’ve got eighty delegates moving between syndicate rooms and the main room. The break isn’t scheduled yet, but a large number take out their mobiles or blackberries and use the time between sessions to catch up on work. You’ve allowed 3-4 minutes, they’ve wandered off to a quiet place and then got lost, less than half show up to the designated rooms. The next series of sessions start late and at different times and as a result finish at different times as facilitators wrestle with whether to be timely or get all the messages/learning across. It’s not yet lunch and you’re behind time.

Planning ahead means you avoid chaos. If you want a large group to split up and move around from one room to another to take part in various activities or simply to take a coffee break you need to allow time for them to get there with clear instructions of where to go. All of this takes a lot of planning and requires a certain amount of flexibility when the day arrives. If there are lots of people involved make sure everyone is fully briefed and have a system in place to be able to communicate last minute changes.

Once you’ve organised everything into a logical flow you are ready to add some ‘flavour’ to the facts. You need to make sure the people at the back on ‘table 19’ are fully engaged. Maybe they’ve had a long day or been up since 5 am and had a long drive to get there. There are lots of ways to achieve this. You can use music, add images, tell stories and create a series of activities. Once you’ve included them – revisit your timings to make sure it fits into the overall plan.

Another way of getting close to your audience is to get out there among them. Get off the stage and engage with them on a more personal level. If you opt to do this and budgets allow, arrange for a camera crew to be there so everyone can see what you’re up to on a big screen at the front or wherever you are in the room.

Microphones are a must for big events and having the right technical support to hand to make sure everything is working is crucial. It’s also essential to practise – ideally well beforehand if you can. How many times has momentum been lost because of poor technical cues, or you are unfamiliar with technical equipment, or you trip up as you get on stage? Simple things like negotiating the steps up and down from the stage or working out where best to stand are important parts of the rehearsal process. These help to make the whole experience run like clockwork once the hour arrives for you to step up and speak.

This should be the time when all your hard work and preparation bears fruit, and yet it is often marred by an attack of nerves that gets in the way. Being well-prepared often reduces anxiety about public speaking considerably. If you have a speaking role at the event, it can be useful to develop a routine of breathing deeply and using exercises that relax your jaw and shoulders. Have a glass of water to hand too, just in case your throat feels dry. If there is a lot riding on the event you may even want to invest in some one-to-one presentation skills coaching so you can get expert feedback on how you come across and advice on what to do to communicate with greater impact.

How do you manage the handovers? It’s easy to fall into some common traps such as forgetting to make clear links between sessions, lowering energy by using a standard introduction of a new speaker or a cliched close. No matter who is responible you need to ensure that they are reinforcing key messages and have thought through how sessions link – this is the glue that sticks it all together. If professional event managers pay as much attention to these details as the core content then you need to as well.

When the day arrives, be prepared to enjoy the experience. Remember that your audience is on your side and they want you to do well. It won’t be long before it is all over and you are walking away to the sound of people clapping and congratulating you on a job well done.