Visibility Impaired: Make it easy for the audience to see and listen to the speaker

How many times a day are you sitting listening to someone?

My guess is way too many. Generally speaking, the meetings we attend, we are held responsible for our actions. Meaning, we need to keep ourselves awake and interested. I believe this is the responsibility of the planner and the speaker to capture the audience and guide them through, not force, the meeting. However, I am the minority in this line of thinking.

The other day, I attended a good breakfast meeting. However, a few distractions hampered me from giving my full attention. When you are planning a meeting, you want to do everything possible to make it easy for the audience to pay attention.

In this following picture, there is a talk show type interview setting on a riser. Great looking set- up. It sets the scene for a one-on-one, intimate, inside the mind of your speaker similar to the show 20/20. The audience sat at three round banquet tables with 10 people at each table (or was it four with 8?) I don’t have complaints about this meeting. I am simply pointing out a few simple ideas to make the speaker look better and to make sure the audience can gain all the value from the speaker.

Distractions: Low visibility of the speaker

Back Light

The light was brighter than Seattle’s dark and cloudy reputation. This cast unflattering shadows on the interviewer and the speaker. We could not see her expressions very well. As a speaker, your body language helps you build rapport with your audience. Now this is lost. My vantage point was around 14ft, yet visibility was low and it wasn’t the clouds. As an audience member, I was less connected with the speaker, even though we are close in distance. I could not make out her facial expressions, only her overall body movements. The lighting also causes problems for those who want to take pictures. A professional photographer can adjust and deal with the bright light in the back, but how often is it you that you have a professional photographer at your meeting? These days we want to share pictures, videos and capture the essence of our experiences. Well, bummer! This lighting makes it tough, particularly for a videographer.

• Suggestion: Lose the curtains, draw the drapes, take out the distractions. The dilemma planners may run into is the gorgeous view out the window, particularly at the top of this skyscraping beauty. As the planner and the speaker, you want the audience to pay attention to the speaker, not the airplanes or birdies fluttering by. If these windows are the only good views, then have the shades open before and after the event. You would probably rather have them say, ”Great meeting, but I wasn’t able to daydream out the windows” instead of, “I have no idea what the speaker was talking about, but I had a great meditation session.” If there are no window coverings, another option is to reposition your stage against a wall with the windows at your audience’s back.

Stage Risers

The speaker’s head is at the height of 4′ or so (she is petite) as she sits on the comfy chair. It is difficult to have a good sight line to the speaker. As an audience member, I needed to maneuver in mychair in order to see past the others heads to see the speaker.

• Suggestion: If you want this interview setting, the stage riser needs to elevate the speaker to at least the same height as if she were standing. If you have a large audience, of course, you would want the stage to be higher. I stand at a towering  five foot one.  I would need to have 12″ to 18″ stage so people can see where the voice is coming from. A bar stool is a great option for visibility, however it lends itself to more of a casual interview.
  

  Chairs

  The interviewer and speaker are primarly facing each other at a slight angle. This translates into the back of the speaker’s head for a handful of audience members. The speaker did a good job of craning her neck around so she could face the audience. However, as a planner, we want our speaker to be comfortable and not have to get a kink in their neck. As a speaker, we want to be comfortable on the platform. As the audience, we want to be able to see the speaker talking.

  • Suggestion: The chairs can be angled at the audience, slightly angled toward each other and closer in proximity to each other. In this case, the interviewer’s purpose was to guide the speaker and for the speaker to address the question to the audience.
    

  Microphone

  The microphone was set up in front of the stage by her chair, but not in front of her mouth. We have 2 problems here. From my vantage point, the microphone stand was blocking her face (highly distracting). The second issue is we can’t hear her very well because she isn’t close enough to the microphone.

  • Suggestion: With the chair repositioned, the mic stand can be directly in front of the speaker set to her mouth position. Currently, it is too high and blocking her face. The coordinator of the meeting should have had a brief talk with the speaker ahead of time requesting the importance of using the microphone, event if they didn’t want to use one.  The best solution is to take the mic off the stand and hand it to the speaker.   The speaker may not need one, but the audience needs to hear. Think of the person in the back of the room or slightly hard of hearing or others who want to hear the the range of tones of their words. It is easier on everyone to use the microphone. The speaker can save their voice if they have a long program or they can use their voice for emphasis.
    
  • Always have the speaker use a microphone. It’s more professional, official, but most of all, it makes it easy for the audience to hear the presentation. The speaker can utilize their range of voice diversity if she doesn’t have to worry about people being able to hear her. I was leaning to the left so my short self could see her short self. However, the mic stand, being unused, was blocking her face. Yes, I learned American Sign Language, but I didn’t learn lip reading.  I concentrated on what she was saying.  Forget about eating anything crunchy, which would drown her out. Many times, I was going to move the mic stand and give her the microphone. I couldn’t be the only one working so hard to hear her. However, I was not in charge, one my colleagues was, and I didn’t want to interrupt or make my colleague uncomfortable, or throw off the speaker. I should have.
    
  • Look at the improvement with this picture with shades down. We can even take pictures successfully with a Canon Powershot. Small changes can have a big impact. Your audience is number one, do what you can to accommodate them.
    

  

  Your audience is the most important element. Do everything you can do accommodate them.

http://www.themeetingmaximizer.com/category/distractions

• Jolene Jang, The Meeting Maximizer

  President, NSA Northwest, National Speakers Association