Brightelm Column
DEAR ROB...
Brightelm’s Rob Eveleigh provides some advice for
dealing with boring speakers and stubborn venues
18
Dear Rob, I run a large congress and a
number of speakers are invited back
to the podium year after year. The problem
is that they are, frankly, boring. Most have
no idea how to engage an audience and
I’d like them to be better. Do you have any
advice on how I could enact some change?
Alex, Brighton
Dear Alex,
This is a problem encountered by many
association event managers, so you are not
alone. I’m sure that many readers of this
publication resonate with your issues.
Unless you are lucky enough to work
in a very specialist area, we all have
competitors — even associations. Having
an engaging programme of speakers is of
paramount importance to attendees, and
their experience at your last conference
will influence their future decision to
attend your event, or a competitor’s. This
is a topic I’ll be speaking about further at
Confex in February.
You could consider educating your
speakers. Speaker training is becoming
increasingly popular as a pre-congress
session, particularly if you have speakers
who are new to presenting. Limiting
the number of slides, or using audience
engagement tools, can go a long way. Even
a simple tip such as speaking slowly can
increase engagement.
I know of one major corporate which
now uses data as a measurement of
speaker engagement during sessions.
They ask the venue for browsing statistics
via their wireless networks across time
for all speaker sessions. They then use
the data to run an inverse correlation
exercise across their entire faculty, and see
when people are on their phones instead
of listening. This information is shared
directly with each speaker post-event.
Dear Rob, I work with a number
of different venues across
the country but I’m struggling to
negotiate deals with them that suit
our budget. Can you give me some
advice?
Davinder, London
Here’s some general advice
on how to negotiate with
venues, Davinder.
First, ask yourself
— does the venue
really want your
event, or is it a
diary blocker?
If it’s a half day
seminar on a
Wednesday in
October, I assure
you most venues
won’t want it.
They’ll be looking
for full day, or
preferably
www.aenetwork.co.uk
two-day events that cross the mid-week
dates. If you can, you may have better luck
sourcing your venue at the last minute in
these sorts of cases.
Secondly — are you speaking with the
right venue? If you have a small budget,
try to be creative with your meeting space.
Can you use a community centre or church
hall, where costs are a lot lower, rather
than a 3 or 4-star hotel or conference
centre?
Are you speaking with the right person?
Most venue front-line staff are trained to
sell within certain parameters which are
usually based on revenue targets. If you
are trying to save money buying day-
delegate rates or other packages, try
negotiating to reduce the value
of the package. Examples of this
might be removing dessert or
break refreshments.
Lastly, try to bulk buy. If you
know you have an event
in the same area
four times a
year, then do
the deal in
one go.
Venues
generally
like this
as it saves
them
time;
and as
we all
know,
time =
money.