GoRemote’s Virtual Stage Managers are highly experienced in virtual and hybrid event management. With GoRemote, our VSM’s have supported thousands of speakers from large international congresses to small, exclusive VIP events.
Here they share their top tips on speaker support so that you can maintain control and professionalism during your next hybrid event.
- Run speaker checks with your virtual speakers – if you can’t check them all, focus on the chairs, and arrange a webinar to brief the rest in one go. Then make this on-demand for those that couldn’t make it.
- Provide clear, concise information to all speakers in one set of documents, instead of many emails with information scattered throughout.
- Set up WhatsApp groups between the speakers so they can communicate ‘offline’ both before and during the event.
- Advise that chairs, and maybe speakers, to have a call before the event to talk about how they want to run the session.
- Send each speaker a calendar invite, so they arrive on time for the session, especially if you have speakers in different time zones. Advise the speakers all to arrive within good time before the start of the session so they can have final briefings and checks.
- Choose an interactive solution that is simple and works for everyone. It needs to work for your audience – onsite and online and all your speakers – virtual and physical. We’d recommend tools like Sli.do which work well for both physical and virtual audiences and speakers.
- Be prepared for speakers to change last minute from onsite to virtual; you may need to adapt and get them set up online quickly.
- Choose a video conferencing platform people are aware of and can easily access. Make their lives easy so that they can focus on the event, and you don’t need as much technical support.
- If speakers are giving PowerPoint presentations, play these back locally for the best quality and give the speakers ‘control’ to forward the slides.
- Always have at least one chair onsite to help manage the session, or to take over if there are issues with a virtual chair.
- Ensure that you give the virtual speakers a view of the ‘room’ so they have context; this can be via a wide camera shot somewhere on the feed of the virtual conference call.
- Finally, ensure all virtual speakers have a proper onboarding process, including checks and briefings, so they know what to expect when they step ‘onstage’.
At GoRemote, we provide world-class remote speaker management services for virtual and hybrid events. Our team of Virtual Stage Managers brief, check and guide your speakers, ensuring that each one reaches their virtual stage feeling confident, fully prepared, and without technical issues. Giving you greater control, oversight and confidence over your production so that you can deliver the highest quality event experience. Talk to us at info@goremote.team to discuss how we can support your next event.
