3 ways you could be driving your event attendees away, in droves

We don’t like to be negative, but every now and then, we feel we need to yell,

‘Whoa, please DON’T do that!’

When you see smartphones out and social media pages open or just blank long-distance stares at your event, you know it’s not going well. Your attendees are disengaged from your presenters and their content and may even disappear out the door during the break. And they’re unlikely to come back next year.

What have you done wrong? Well, here are the basic event mistakes we see that just make us want to cry into our coffees.

1. Allowing awful audio

No matter how great your staging, lighting, presenters, and content matter – if your audience can’t hear what’s going on, they won’t engage. Poor audio quality at a live event creates an invisible and unsurmountable barrier between your presenters and your attendees.

Broken or muffled sounds, lack of volume, and audio delays frustrate those who have paid or, at the very least, committed their valuable time to attending your event. Sometimes, your audience can quickly move from disappointed to angry, which is unnerving for even the most experienced speakers and performers.

What’s worse is that when poor audio quality means your audience struggles to hear what’s being said, your presenter’s credibility can fall by a staggering 19%.

Lesson to be learned here? Investing in professional audio is worth its weight in gold. It’s cheaper to include extra speakers and spend more time on sound checks than it is to overcome the damage done to your professional reputation. And it’s certainly less expensive and more effective than trying to attract unimpressed attendees back to your next event.

2. Being short-sighted

We’ve all been there, done that: Sat at a show and shuffled our weight from one buttock to the other in the vain hope we could see around the person in front of us and get a better view of the stage. If we were lucky, the event organiser also had big screens simultaneously live streaming the performance; if not, we often just made the most of it and grumbled.

Don’t expect your event audience to be so tolerant, though. If they struggle to see your speakers or their content, you can expect to hear about it - or, as with poor audio, they’ll switch off. Likewise, if the format, quality, and presentation of content is poor.

Some of the visual mistakes we caution event organisers against include:

Using portrait (vertical) photos or videos when presenting.

Why’s that a no-no? Most project devices and presentation software applications (like PowerPoint) are designed to work best with landscape (horizontal) formats. While portrait format may be great for Instagram or an art exhibition, a landscape format is more immersive and engaging for attendees at an event – especially when it’s long-form. Humans have horizontal binocular vision – and we naturally scan from side to side – so a wider image area sits more comfortably with us as it replicates what we see in real life.

Pro tip: Shoot landscape footage and use landscape presentation software options.

Using a poor-quality projector.

If you had to dust off your projector because it was hidden in your stationery cupboard, there is probably a very good reason why. Like poor audio, showing images via an old low-resolution projector makes it hard for your attendees to engage with your event, especially when even the most basic smartphones set such high expectations for what’s achievable in this digital age. Your audience will quickly switch off in the face of fuzzy images or graphics!

Take it from the experts: Pop the old projector in the technology recycling bin (if you can find one big enough) or send it to the museum, and invest in, hire, or turn to your friendly CCT Productions team to up your visual presentation game – considerably.

Failing to give your tech team enough time to prep.

Presenting your presentations to your AV/event team with five minutes to spare is a recipe for disaster. Even an hour isn’t enough. Your tech team needs to see the presentations in enough time to pick up on any issues that may look fine on a laptop but will turn into a disaster on the big screen – like colours that burn out, insufficient contrast between background and text, bad colour combinations, unreadable fonts or font sizes, transition and spelling errors, and more.

A timely reminder: Give your presentation to your tech team early, even in draft format. And to be quite specific, resist using CANVA, as it doesn’t translate well to the big screen.

3. Cutting cost corners

We get it; money can be tight. But when you fail to invest in making your event the best it can be, you’re not doing your business or reputation justice. You erode the confidence of your audience in your message. Unless you have significant internal expertise, experience, and up-to-the-minute technology, you will sell yourself short.

Cutting corners rarely yields a return on investment, and while an audience may be too polite to walk out on you, you can be sure they will be slow to attend follow-up events. Sponsors will be reluctant to invest their hard-earned money in a poorly run event; they’ve got their brand image to think of, and it’s more than likely enrolments for future events will go down.

 So, all the ground you gained in getting attendees to your event (not to mention all the hard work) will be swiftly eroded.

If it’s important to you that your event is effortlessly engaging, stylish and professional, then start off on the right foot. And not to skite (well, maybe a bit), but we’ve got such a good reputation for our events, that clients like The Huddle, SMBiT, and Banksia Orange would rather change the event date than do it without us at their side.

Our suggestion: Give us a call.