Last week I had the fabulous opportunity of attending the opening night of  Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibition.  It was your typical VIP red carpet event with celebrities, free food, alcohol and of course speeches …four speeches to be precise. 

The audience started off very respectful of the speech givers.  The first speech was from Ted Baillieu the Premier of Victoria.  His speech was quite good, short and relevant to the exhibition.  He acknowledged the previous Government that brought the event to Melbourne and resisted any temptation to bring in politics …so far so good.  Three other speakers followed, with each one being introduced by MC of events, Jennifer Keyte.

The speeches themselves were not that bad but as the speeches continued, the background noise of people talking and drinking started to increase.  At one point my husband commented that people were not very respectful of the presenters and my immediate thought was to not agree or disagree with him but to ask ‘should the presenters also be more respectful of their audience?’

I think the answer to my own question is that there probably needs to be a happy medium of respect and it definitely needs to go both ways.

When someone stands up to give a speech, they are probably nervous or excited or a mixture of both and the audience should respect that.  Especially at a VIP event where you are receiving star treatment.  At Tutankhamun we were among the first people in Australia to see this exhibition, which will never tour again,  being provided beautiful food and quality alcohol and did not have to pay a cent to be there.  I think the bare minimum you can do is be respectful to the speakers, which most people were.  Even the Bachelor of the year contender in his gold hot pants…which by the way is never a good a look unless you are Kylie Minogue.  Just my personal opinion!

On the other hand as a speaker you need to also be respectful of your audience.  Now regardless of whether you are presenting at a VIP red carpet event or not, this rule of thumb applies.  You need to ask yourself four questions.

1.  Why is your audience there? 

2.  What does the audience want or need to know from the speakers? 

3.  What do you think their attention span is going to be?   and

4.  Will you be competing against anything?

So lets answer those questions from the point of view of the vast majority of people attending this particular VIP event. 

Why is your audience there?  The audience was there to be among the first people in Australia to see the Tutankhamun exhibition for free and without having to queue with thousands of other people for that privilege …priceless.   

What does the audience want or need to know from the speakers? Probably very little but they may be interested in some information about the event – where it has been and where it is going to.  They may be interested in knowing how and why Melbourne was chosen to host the event or other interesting relevant facts. 

What is their attention span?  Considering the above and that everyone is standing, it is probably about 10 to 15 minutes and that includes the entire 4 speeches not each speech .  This short attention span is explained by the answer to the question below.

Are the speakers competing with anything?  Going to see the actual exhibition, free alcohol, free food, talking to other guests or hosts and celebrity spotting …not necessarily in that order but probably.  These are powerful forces to be competing against.

We were once invited to speak at an organisation’s Christmas lunch.  Big mistake on our part because we did not consider the above four questions.  Well we probably did but answered the first one incorrectly.  No one was there to hear about organisational storytelling.  They were there for the big Christmas lunch  …the big social event of the year and the only one which was a full sit down lunch with alcohol provided.  A lesson learnt the tough way.

Presenters need to be aware of these four questions to avoid all temptation to talk longer than necessary.  To make their speeches short, relevant and hopefully interesting or funny.  It is worth noting that the only time a hush came over the progressively chatty crowd was when Dr Patrick Greene told a story about being part of a queue that snaked around the block outside the British Museum on a cold and rainy night to see another Tutankhamun exhibition 37 years ago and here he was opening the Melbourne exhibition as a very proud CEO of Museum Victoria.

If presenters are more respectful of the audience and aware of the environment they are speaking in, then 99% of the time that respect will be returned.

Lets us know what you think by leaving a comment below.