Finding the perfect venue for your event is only the beginning. All corporate functions benefit from having an engaging programme of speakers. Peter Komornik gives his top tips for keeping your audience captivated

Our event programme is the heart of your event and it has a major impact on the engagement level of your audience. Events can naturally be exhausting, as people need to pay attention for many hours, so using different session formats can help to re-engage the audience and re-energise them throughout the day.

Morning programme
When composing your agenda, be considerate of the mood and habits of your audience. People are sleepy when they arrive in the morning, so be sure to dedicate enough time for their morning coffee or tea.

Keep it creative by incorporating a morning stretch into your opening session. For example: “Thanks for coming, we know you are going to be sitting most of the day so everybody stand up for a quick stretch.”

Afternoon programme
After lunch, delegates naturally need some time to digest. Starting your afternoon session with an activity such as seat swapping may be a good way to get the blood pumping again. Tell your delegates to move to a new seat in order to meet more people.

Also try to avoid having more than eight speakers in one day, presentation after presentation. People are simply not able to passively sit and listen for eight hours at a time.

You could try including other types of interactive sessions in your agenda, such as the ones below.

Fishbowl panel
A fishbowl panel discussion is derived from the popular open fishbowl conversation format.

In a fishbowl panel, two or three chairs are filled with guest panellists and one chair is left empty for audience members. The moderator introduces the topic and the panellists start discussing the topic. Any member of the audience can, at any time, occupy the empty chair and join the fishbowl panel.

When this happens, an existing member of the fishbowl must voluntarily leave the fishbowl and free a chair. The discussion continues with participants frequently entering and leaving the fishbowl panel until the time is up. Then the moderator summarises the discussion.

Case studies
People love seeing successful and tangible examples alongside motivational talks. Organise a 40 to 60-minute session where different speakers are each given five minutes to present their case studies, one after another. No long introductions or biographies, just straight to the point.

Audience debate
Everyone loves a little controversy at events. Organising an audience debate is one way to fuel full audience engagement. Start the debate on a singular topic with two options. Run a poll for the general opinion and once the results are collected, create an open debate on the topic. For example, “Which channel is more viable for your social marketing – Facebook or Twitter?”

After the poll, ask audience members to explain their reasoning for choosing either side and create an open debate with the audience. After a 15-minute discussion, run the same poll again for a final vote and decision.

Bonus tip
A moderator could also run a live barometer, which means that people physically move to the left or right side of the room based whether they are for or against the argument. On each side, the distance from the centre expresses how much they agree or disagree with the given statement. As the debate progresses, a moderator asks participants if their opinion has changed. They can stay at the same spot, move closer to the centre or completely switch sides.

The most important thing to remember is that events don’t have to mean hundreds of slides delivered in the same way – encourage your speakers to get creative.

Peter Komornik is CEO of sli.do, creator of interactive tools for all kinds of events. Find out more at sli.do