Audience management in presentations can have a significant impact on the atmosphere you create.
As a speaker, you generally want your audience as close to you as possible. You also want them in close proximity to each other.
Get both right and it becomes much easier to generate energy in the room.
Here are two examples of audience management in presentations that worked particularly well.
Example One: Give Someone Responsibility for the Audience
The first involved a team presentation given by two colleagues from the same company.
And they behaved like a team, rather than two individual speakers.
Too often, both speakers will be playing about with the technology as the audience begins to arrive.
Not these two.
They had a clear agreement.
Speaker one was responsible for all technical issues. Speaker two was given free rein to interact with the audience as they arrived.
Speaker two acknowledged each person and encouraged them to fill the room from the front, leaving no gaps.
The audience followed the instructions.
After a while, a pattern had been established and people began doing it without being asked.
Example Two: Manage the Empty Chairs
The second example involved a speaker who was at the top of his game.
He was told to expect around 100 people.
Accordingly, the organisers had set out 100 chairs.
But he knew that if 100 people say yes to an event, some will inevitably not turn up.
That would leave gaps in the audience.
So he personally removed around 20 chairs.
In the end, around 85 people arrived.
That meant he had to bring five chairs back.
And that actually looked great.
Suddenly, the event appeared oversubscribed.
It felt like standing room only.
And, most importantly, there were no empty gaps in the audience.
Create the Right Conditions Before You Speak
Do not leave audience management to chance.
Ideally, have somebody whose role is to control the situation.
It that isn’t possible, take charge yourself.
The same principle can been seen in sport.
The atmosphere at Edinburgh Rugby matches improved significantly when games moved to the Hive, with a capacity of around 7,800, rather than Murrayfield, which holds more than 67,000.
A smaller, fuller space creates energy.
The same applies to audience management in presentations.
Get people close to you.
Get them close to each other.
Manage the room before you speak and you make it much easier to create an atmosphere when you do.
Looking for more helpful presentation tips, why not check out the following article on why the number of key points matters less than what your audience can take on board.
