After several years of what has been termed The Great Recession, 
although I don’t know what was so great about it, the meetings industry is coming back. More meetings are being booked and more attendees are enjoying them. Of course now, a keener eye is focused on the bottom line and as a meeting planner, your job is to present the best possible meeting at the best possible cost. That is a formidable task at best and I do not envy the Herculean job you face with each planning session. I would, however, like to help you and make your job easier.
Meeting are remembered by the attendees for a) what they learn, b) the new contacts they make and the chance to reconnect with old friends, and c) the fun they had. Chances are, if an attendee has fun during the meeting, they will likely remember more of the important things they are there to learn, and will grasp more of what your keynote speakers have to say.
The element that can help you achieve these targets is the addition of a professional emcee. Notice that I used the phrase “professional” emcee. A professional emcee does not work for your organization, he or she does this for a living and knows how a meeting should flow.
A successful meeting runs on time, and keeps the audience engaged throughout. Have you ever had a meeting where the speaker before the coffee break was less than stellar, and after the break the audience was a bit smaller? That’s because the people who left were not kept engaged in the meeting. They weren’t having fun..
A successful meeting is one where attendees reconnect, share stories, and have a good laugh or two. A professional emcee can help here too. On one incentive trip to Greece, the attendees were given a treasure hunt list of photos to take to qualify for a prize. If, however, they got a picture with the emcee (me) in it they got an extra point. I helped a lot of people connect on that trip and everybody had more fun.
And speaking of fun, a successful meeting should have it in ample supply. You’ll have parties, and dinners, and off-site trips and those are all fun, but how can you make the meetings themselves more fun?
Once again, a professional emcee is the answer. Your emcee should be well versed in both comedy and improvisation, tools to handle any situation.
They also need to know what to do in the case of an emergency. I have had to deal with a total power outage, a fire drill, and a heart attack occurring in the audience, all while I was on stage. Fortunately not all of this happened at the same meeting.
When something not expected happens, the audience looks to the emcee for guidance. So the essential job of a professional emcee is to plan for the best and be prepared for the worst.
As The Professional Summarizer, I not only emcee a meeting but I listen carefully to every word uttered on the stage. Then, at the end of the day, I summarize the meeting in the form of a comedy monologue written on the spot. That’s how I, as a professional emcee, add more fun to the meeting.
I hope you see how a professional emcee can make your job easier, and if you have any questions or suggestions, please drop me a line or give me a call.
Dale
(630) 852-7695
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