We’ve provided you with speakers, SO LET’S USE THEM! Let’s put on something famous, or popular, or catchy, or energizing (think of the music you listen to when you run), and crank up the volume.
to learn, for the journey they’re about to embark on by attending this conference.If we don’t do that,we’ve lost a lot of people fromthe beginning,and it can really bring things down.
On the flip side, if you get people into the event, they’re going to be easier to teach, easier to network with, and a lot more receptive to your message. They’re going to want to attend the rest of the sessions, and they’re going to want to come back. They’ll also be buzzing about your event. They’ll tell their friends how great it was, or how cool the opening
was.They’ll get more people interested in attending next year. Hey, go search YouTube – if you do something really cool, your event may go viral and end up as an Internet sensation. That’s a lot of free publicity!
The“how”of doing this is the harder part. There are a lot of different ways to set the tone at the opening general session, and they depend on a lot of different factors. Who is your audience? A meeting for bankers, for instance, is different for a con- ference of antique enthusiasts.
What’s the venue you’re at? If it’s a famous or historic landmark, maybe you can incorporate that. What city are you in? Maybe you can get a local sports mascot to show up.What’s the event about? How much time do you have?What’s the budg- et? There are many questions you have to answer,and you have to weigh all of them when figuring out how you’ll open the show up with a bang.
I work in audio-visual, so when I want to grab the attention of the audience I start by thinking about the technology my team is bringing into the space. I’m also thinking about content.
Forget the normal “company logo on two screens with light jazz in the background.” Let’s open with a quick,high energy video telling the story of the company,complete with flashy graphics. Instead of the video playing on the standard two screens, let’s throw a third screen in there behind the
88 May June 2016
stage. If we really want to grab the group’s attention, let’s use an LED wall, which is bright and crisp. Let’s get some moving lights in the room, spinning around the stage (the technical terms for this,no lie,is “ballyhoo”) and washing over the audi- ence.
We’ve provided you with speakers, SO LET’S USE THEM! Let’s put on something famous, or popular, or catchy, or energiz- ing (think of themusic you listen to when you run),and crank up the volume.
You also want to think about the presen- ters on that first day of the conference. I keep mentioning energy, and the presen- ters are no different.Whoever gets up to speak first should be someone who’s engaging, someone who will immediately command the attention of those in atten- dance.
Find someone in your organiza- tion who isn’t afraid to get up in front of all these sleepy people and get them going. Have them walk out to the music, have them clapping their hands, have them dancing a la Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates (search YouTube for “Windows 95 Launch”), or simply get someone who’s confident and ready to roll, and have them open the general session.
Obviously, your opening keynote also is important. When I attended MPI’s 2015 World Education Congress in San Francisco, the opening keynote was deliv- ered by James Curleigh, the President of Levi’s and ExecutiveVP of Levi Strauss.Of course,this is an extremely high-end event with a huge budget. Not everyone can afford James Curleigh, but I think he’s a good template. He’s local to the area where the event’s being held (Levi’s is based in San Francisco), he’s got some-
thing interesting to talk about (Levi’s is an iconic American brand), he’s relevant to the event (doing business by thinking out- side-the-box), and he’s engaging.He knew how to get and keep us invested in what he was talking about.
You don’t have to shell out a huge fee for a speaker. Find a business leader or cul- tural entity or politician or philanthropist or someone involved in the community. These people have a lot to share that may bemore relevant than you expect.Heck, if you can’t find someone local, find some- one that meets the rest of the criteria and use your AV company to webcast them into the meeting.
There are a lot of other things to think about, too. For instance, a simple change that might help set the tone and get peo- ple to buy-in is the timing of the event.A lot of people aren’t“morning people,”and can’t function at 8:00 am or 9:00 am no matter how much coffee they’ve been
drinking.Consider shifting the start of the event to 10:00 am, and give them that extra hour or two to rest up and grab some breakfast.
Another possibility to consider is starting the event with some kind of interactive session or maybe a panel discussion with Q&A. That will get people involved from the start and they’ll want to remain involved for the duration of the show.
Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression.Whatever you do at the start of themeeting will set the tone for the rest of
it.That applies if it’s a half- day event or if it’s a week long.
You want to start off on the right foot,and you want to keep your attendees hungry for more.
Cameron Wicks is a Show Solutions Sales Representative for Cenero, a service-focused audio visual, unified communications and IT solutions provider dedicated to the intelligent integration of products and services to create high-value systems that
improve communication and efficiency.
www.cenero.com
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