We surveyed the talented team of event coordinators at both our function centres and they have passed on the following insider tips to make your event seamless and stress free.
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Bring your presentation on a USB stick (and load it into your Dropbox account)
Laptop won’t fire up?
Data projector won’t link up?
Forgot your laptop power pack?
Having a back up copy makes it easily transferable to any number of other devices so the show can go on. Firstly, and most simply, back your presentation up on a USB memory stick. If you have equipment failure on the day at least you have a copy of your presentation that you can work with, be on someone else’s device or just to print out some notes for yourself, all is not lost.
If you are really, really smart, save an additional copy of your training handouts or seminar slides over to your Dropbox account (or any other cloud storage application) so you can access it anywhere there is an internet connection.
With new versions of programs being released all the time, a newer version of a tried and trusted slide building program may skew the font or stretch your pictures.
Sign up for a free Dropbox account here
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Arrive early for your event
Leave yourself plenty of time to get to your venue and get settled in. If you are unfamiliar with the venue, schedule a site inspection beforehand and time how long it takes you to get there from home or your office. If you cannot visit the site beforehand, call the venue for a room layout, map and ask about the best place to park.
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Find out the screen dimensions (aspect ratio)
4:3 or 16:9 ? Sounds like a small finicky detail but it may make the difference between a powerful presentation and a visual that is squashed up or stretched across the screen. If your original slide design is 4:3 when it is projected it may not fill the whole screen. If you stretch your slides, all your images will be out of proportion (people get a lot shorter and a lot fatter)
Click Here to read more about aspect ratios for presentations and videos
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Don’t be afraid to use the gong
Timing is so crucial to a successful event. If you have multiple speakers throughout the day, ensure each one knows and more importantly, sticks to the set time limit for presentations. Your whole schedule will be thrown out if speakers run over time. It will push back catering times and you may even have to cut short breaks, question times or networking activities to make up the time. We have used coloured cards, bells, gongs and lights to show the presenter when they are close to time and to wrap it up. Something highly visual backed up with an audio cue, no need to be subtle here. Bells to indicate the end of meal breaks also helps to usher your audience quickly back to their seats.
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