Event Planning Trends: Staging for Audience Engagement

One of the most critical factors in corporate event planning is audience engagement. We've moved beyond the old days of audiences who sat still in their chairs in mute appreciation (or dazed incomprehension) of the events unfolding around them. If you want to make a real impact at your next corporate event, you must reach out to audience members, encourage them to interact, and let their reactions help mold the action.

Sometimes full communication between presenters and audience members never quite takes place because of the fear factor -- the hesitation to speak one's mind about what's being presented. So the first thing you want to do is to open those communication lines and make the audience feel that is has permission to speak (and think) freely. The theatrical world has always known this. Playwrights have used onstage characters as a kind of audience proxy for centuries. It's a distancing mechanism that says, in effect, "Here is a safe environment where we can talk about what's really going on out in the world, or in our hearts." When you stage a conversation to make it less personal, you're building a "safe zone" for true interaction.

You have an unlimited number of staging options to achieve this environment. We've done events where we "polled" audience members to get their honest reactions. You can do skits, commercial spoofs, or wisecracking Q&A sessions with your audience to loosen things up. Ever see puppets give a presentation? We do it all the time through one of our partner companies, Corporate Sidekicks. Corporate Sidekicks employs a team of puppets to say all those unsaid things like, "Cut the crap. What is this new production line going to cost us?"

Remember, all the world's a stage -- so stage your next presentation accordingly!