Maximizing Engagement: Top Tips for a Successful Live Workshop Session.

You're managing a workshop session as part of a live in person event. Here's some tips on how to make your session work well.

On screen timer

On the main presentation screen the slide shows the topic for discussion, and of course the amount of time your groups have allocated to spend on it, but add a live countdown timer and you can have a clear visual reminder of how much time you have left.

As the timer gets closer to the end an audible or musical sting can be a formal, but light hearted way to draw the session to an end.

Flipchart

In the room your audience is split into tables of 7-10 people. Give each team a table top flip pad to jot their ideas on.

Much more flexible, neater, and less expensive than the old flip chart easel and pad.

Workshop session

Do you need a PA system?

When working in informal sessions, people often don't think they need to use a microphone when addressing the room, but that often doesn't work, even in small rooms. One reason is direction. In almost all meeting room set ups, people will talk towards the front of the room. Which means almost everyone behind them will struggle to hear.

Whilst professional speakers, stage actors and other performers used to projecting their voices can maintain a consistent volume that can be heard without microphones, most people delivering formal presentations will start strong, but quickly drift into more natural levels of speech, and that can get very difficult to hear without a degree of electronic help.

A properly set up PA system optimised for speech reinforcement should be almost unnoticeable in operation. You only realise it's not working when it gets turned off. Loudspeakers positioned around the room, spread the audio evenly around the audience, and help even the quieter voices to be audible.

Remote team working

Often with informal workshops, adding remote individuals or teams can expand the number of attendees who will benefit. Using MS-Teams or Zoom you can create a meeting and Join the call from a laptop. That laptop can then be connected to the main screen, which allows external participants to be seen and share their content.

A camera in the room should be connected to the laptop so external participants can see what's going on in the room.

Sound is important, and a PA system will be needed to amplify the audio from the call so you can hear the external participants.

Getting the sound from the room back into the call is slightly more challenging as you will need to connect your PA systems microphones to your laptop. For this you will need a soundcard with a Mix Minus capability, and if you don't know what that is, don't worry, your sound technician will be know exactly how to set this up.

One important consideration is questions from the audience. For those in the room it may not be necessary to use a microphone for an audience member to ask a question, but if you are connected to a conference call, no microphone means no sound, and no one on the call will be able to hear a thing. The solution is a wireless microphone which can be passed around the room, and as long as anyone asking a question is using it, everyone in the room, and on the call will be able to hear the questions clearly.

To discuss how we could support your next in person or hybrid workshop, get in touch hello@confidence-digital.com