Details for getting the most out of a speech featuring Nirvana
Over the 20 plus years, I’ve given more than 1000 presentations to groups as small as six and as large as 3000. During that time, I’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve also discovered that more than half the time, the technical team on-site had no idea whatsoever what was needed. Hence this handy note…
To get the most out of your event and to keep me from living on the seventh level of Dante’s Inferno as I experience the same pitfalls over and over, I’ve put together this list of requirements and suggestions. I ask that the person responsible for the event actively confirm that you’ll make these things happen. Here it is, in the third person, for your team:
- Nirvana needs a wireless lavalier microphone. To be specific, a clip-on dress microphone, not an earpiece, with a belt pack. she’s not able to do a good job with a wired microphone, a handheld microphone or a podium microphone.
- Nirvana will not sit on a “directors chair” or a stool. She wears mostly dresses and, thus stools and directors chairs are not very photo friendly.
- For any group more than 25 people, she needs a microphone. Please be sure that you’ve tested it on all areas of the stage for volume and for feedback.
- Some large audiences are best served using iMag, which projects an image of the speaker on several large screens.
- Nirvana does not do “death by powerpoint” , this means she will not present with slides.
- TIP: In groups of more than fifty, Q&A is tempting but not usually an effective way to end the presentation. Instead, Nirvana recommends asking selected audience members to submit questions to a moderator in advance. Then, when the talk is over, you can have one person firing questions— ending the meeting on an up, not with, “okay, so there’s no more questions, time to go.” The other alternative is a great deal of Q&A, at least fifteen minutes.
- If your booking involves an overnight stay, please be sure to find a hotel that’s either at the venue or closer to the airport than the venue itself.
- TIP: Whenever possible, make the room at the event too small, not too big. This is often overlooked and it makes a huge difference. It’s also a good idea to dispense with round tables and pack people in together—at least for the speech itself.
- Feel free to take as many flash photos as you’d like before Nirvana’s talk, but please, no flash during the presentation.
- Nirvana’s slides are not available for download, because she doesn’t have any.
- If you’d like to interact with Nirvana before the event, email is actually quicker and more effective than a conference call. She can be reached at niv@nirvanafarhadi.com or through her assistant diana@nirvanafarhadi.com
You can download a PDF version of this rider here.