Top 1o tips for working with production crews as a speaker
A colleague and I were recently talking about the bad habits we’ve seen from speakers at various conferences. This led to a deeper discussion on the importance of the production teams at these events. I think for many speakers the production teams are taken for granted. Many speakers that I’ve observed behave in ways that make it more difficult for production to do their job.
The Speaker’s Biggest Ally, Until You Screw it Up
As a former Front-of-House engineer, I have a special appreciation (as well as insight) into the world of the production crew. Any member of the production team that takes their job seriously will likely agree that the core value of their job is to make the talent look and sound their best. They are there to ensure the success of the event and that all begins with the talent. Whether it’s a speaker, a band, or actors in a play, we spend a lot of money on lights, audio reinforcement and staging to achieve this goal. Ultimately, even in the most hostile room, they are the ones that are on your side, unless you give them reason not to be.
This is why it is disturbing to me when I see speakers who behave in ways that frustrate or work against the production team’s efforts. I don’t think it’s typically because the speakers are jerks, they’re just unaware. Unfortunately, while no production staff will ever work against the speaker, if you refuse to work with them, there are things they’d like to do for you that they simply can’t. If you insist on doing things your way, that may break the methodology they follow and as a result, your presentation may suffer. So I hope sharing my perspectives from both production and speaking sides of this equation will be helpful.
1. Know your venue
One of the primary tips I always share with speakers is show up at your venue ahead of time, if possible the day before, and get a lay of the land. Check out where the stage is, how big it is, where projection is happening and how. Is it front projected, rear projected, and LED screen? Each of these can affect how you move and present from stage. Even if the event provides you a room/stage layout, it’s important to see it in person first.
As an example of why this is important, I’ll share a personal experience. I was recently speaking at a very large conference. Based on all the info I was provided before the event, I was expecting to be in a small breakout room with a single front-projected screen and a smaller stage. However, the day before my presentation, I stopped by the room and discovered the stage was fairly large, had a massive LED screen with multiple Picture-in-Picture frames that would have my presentation, lots of stage lighting, and great audio system. In short, it was the equivalent of keynote stage. As a result, I was able to work with the production crew to change the approach to my presentation a little so I could take full advantage of what was a very exciting stage.
2. Introduce Yourself to Production
Going along with the topic of knowing your venue, get to know the production team in advance. Find someone during a break between speakers and introduce yourself. Personally, my intro is usually something like this: “Hi I’m Alyssa and I’m speaking on this stage tomorrow, is there anything you think I should know?” This is a great way to not only introduce yourself but also show the production team that you are a killer professional and ready to work with them. You’ve now told them you’re open to their direction and ideas on how to make your talk a success.
Production teams very much appreciate a speaker who does this. Whether it’s a massive keynote stage or a small 50 person break-out, they know that venue better than you. They’ve watched speakers work in there and they know what mistakes or issues can come up. They’ll arm you with information that will help you be your best, so listen up and work cooperatively with them.
3. Prepare for What Can Go Wrong With Your Presentation
When you introduce yourself as I suggest, the smart production team will not only answer your question but ask you in return what you want them to know. Think proactively. Does your presentation have a video or audio? Make sure they know this and have a way to get that audio to their system. Do you have special needs for the layout of the stage? Now is the time to ask if any modifications can be made. Be ready to be told no. Sometimes there are just things that seem like they should be easy from your perspective but there may be logistical, safety, or even contractual reasons why they cannot accommodate your request.
Before you even go to your venue, be aware of what the technical challenges might be in your presentation. Production crews will do their best to work with you given the tools they have at hand, but they need to know what’s coming. This can pay dividends during your presentation. At a recent conference, I had a video that played as part of my presentation. All presentations were pre-loaded on their systems and videos had to be fired separate of the Power Point by the production team. I had a discussion with the production team about my video. As a result, they knew it was coming. This paid off because I ended up cueing them to run the video a slide too early. Instead of letting me stand there like a dork with no video running, they flexed, played the video, and let me play catchup with my slides. As a result it was very smooth and no one in the audience was any the wiser.
4. Use Your Microphone Properly
This is a pet peeve of mine and I think for most production team members. Speakers, you need to understand how different microphones are designed to work and use them appropriately. You also need to understand that the available equipment is what’s available. It’s not an insult to you if you don’t get the kind of microphone you want. Unless you’re booking a $20K speaking gig with a rider that specifies a specific microphone, get over it if you have to use a wired handheld instead of the wireless lavalier (Lav) that most speakers appreciate. So let’s break this down by microphone type.
The Handheld Mic
We all know the hand held mic. Whether corded or wireless, these are easily recognizable. However, for many speakers, myself included, they can be inhibitive to our speaking style. However, sometimes that’s just want you have and as a stage performer (yes that is what you are as a speaker) you must be flexible and adapt.
The key thing with handheld mics, whether wired or a wireless transmitter, is that they’re designed to be held close to your mouth. Like really close. Not so close that your lips touch them (that’s just gross) but if you hold it down at your chest level, you’re fighting against the audio engineer. It’s now impossible for them to make you heard without running into feedback problems. So hold the mic close to your mouth if it’s a hand held. Be cognizant that if you take the mic away from your mouth to gesture, no one can hear you anymore. So yeah, you’ve got to keep that mic hand in a pretty static position.
The Lavalier (Lapel or LAV Mic)
Most speaker’s favorite is the lavalier mic. This is that little clip on mic that allows you to have your hands completely free to do anything else. However, you’ve got to be aware as a speaker how these wonderful little inventions work. Unlike the handheld, these are not designed to be held close to your mouth, in fact they’re not designed to be held at all, so don’t! Work with the production crew to place the mic in an appropriate place and just leave it there. I’ve seen speakers who want to hold it in their fingers and talk directly into it. This makes your audio engineer’s life hell and causes you peak or clip, which sounds bad and can actually damage the audio system.
Also be aware of your gestures when wearing a lavalier mic. They’re placed on your clothes in a strategic place by or at the recommendation of your audio crew. However, if you bump or catch the mic while gesturing you can knock it loose which can affect your volume level, create large transient sounds that can damage the audio system, or you can even damage the microphone itself. So while it’s great to be completely hands free, you still need to be aware of where that microphone is and function accordingly.
The Headset Boom
Growing in popularity, especially with some speakers, is the the headset boom. These are those mics that hang from one or both ears, or maybe an overhead strap, and place the mic nice and close to your mouth. Look at images from large keynote addresses and you’ll see these in use a lot. The big advantage of this design is that there is far less chance of you knocking the mic or having your clothes move in a way that affects it’s positioning.
These mics are obviously designed to be very close to your mouth. However, they operate from the side of your mouth in many cases and are not designed for direct input. In other words, they should not be handheld and spoken into directly as this will again cause issues with peak levels and a very frustrated audio engineer. Once your production person has helped you place the mic, again leave it alone. Don’t adjust it or move it around. They put it where it will work best, trust in their abilities or ask them if you think it needs to be moved for your comfort. Finally, sometimes these mics can be challenging in that if they’re not well secured (sometimes with tape) they can move around. This is especially true if you are very animated and moving about. So work with the production team, particularly if you’re a big mover, to make sure the mic is secure and stable.
For mics of any Type
As the title of this blog says, do not, under any circumstances, tap, hit, or blow into the mic. These actions can damage the delicate pickup in the microphone and can cause destructive audio transients that are harmful to the rest of the downstream audio equipment. If you want to see if a mic is hot, speak into it. If you feel self-conscious about speaking into it (you are a speaker, right?) then simply click your tongue or make another audible noise. In my somewhat humble opinion, nothing says amateur quite like a speaker who abuses a microphone to check if it is hot. As a former audio engineer, nothing was more irritating than this behavior. No audio engineer wants to watch their expensive equipment being abused. Don’t even get me started with the idiotic idea of “drop the mic”. If you don’t have thousands of dollars to replace it, treat it like what it is, someone else’s property that you’re borrowing.
5. Trust Your Volume To the Audio Engineer
I see this one way to often with unskilled speakers. They grab a handheld mic, hold it properly (close to their mouths) begin speaking and freak out about how loud it sounds. They then immediately hold it at chest level and now the audio engineer has to chase their levels the rest of the way just to make them barely audible to the audience. The moral of this story, use proper mic technique and let the audio engineer adjust the volume at their end. Sometimes what seems too loud to you is actually perfect for the audience to hear you. If it’s too loud, the engineer will adjust the levels, that’s their job. But don’t make their job harder by changing the input level and not giving them enough to work with. If there’s feedback, count on them to fix that too. Do the little things like not walking in front of the speakers, but otherwise leave it up to them to fix the feedback. It’s likely not a volume but rather an Equalizer problem anyway.
6. Plan Your Wardrobe
This is one of those items that speakers often get wrong. When we think about stage wardrobe, most speakers think in terms of dressing for impact. That’s great. You need to look good for your audience and you want to wear something that fits with the setting and will make you memorable. However, there is a production component that needs to be considered as well. Plan your wardrobe to make the production team’s job of positioning your microphone easy.
For instance, will you be using a lavalier mic? If so, plan for where that mic go. The goal is to get the lav mic as close to center under you chin as possible. Wearing a v-neck or button down shirt makes this really easy. Even crew necks on t-shirts or sweaters work pretty well. Avoid shirts or blouses that have ruffles or other loose material around the neckline. Don’t plan to hang a lav mic on the lanyard from your even badge. Honestly you shouldn’t be wearing a badge while you’re up speaking anyway.
Also be aware of your jewelry. If you’re using a lav mic, having a dangling necklace that with make noise and contact the microphone is problematic. Dangling earrings can be of particular issue if you’re using a headset mic. Finally, be aware that with wireless headset and lav mics, you also need a place for the transmitter pack to go. This can be particularly problematic when wearing a dress. Without pockets or a waist band, I’ve seen women have to clip the pack to the back of their neckline. Trust me, that is not comfortable when you’re speaking. So think strategically about what you wear in terms of accommodating production needs in addition to your visual impact goals.
7. Don’t Lie in Your Sound Check
A common joke among audio engineers is that everyone lies in sound check. The audio engineer asks the talent to speak so they can get levels adjusted and the speaker comes out with a very timid and quiet voice. Then the speaker walks on stage and opens the talk with a boisterous, energetic greeting. Now the engineer is scrambling to re-adjust the levels to keep your mic from clipping or worse yet damaging their gear.
We don’t always get the opportunity to sound check as speakers. Smaller breakout stages might not afford us this opportunity. But when you do find that situation where you have a moment to help the engineer prepare audio levels, try to tell the truth. Get yourself in character for a moment and work to replicate the level of volume and energy that you typically use on stage. This makes their job easier and now you look (or more importantly, sound) your very best.
8. Early is On-time, On-Time is Late
Save your production crew, and yourself, some stress and anxiety (we all have enough of that) and be early to your presentation. Coming in two minutes before your start time is a terrible way to start or build the relationship with your production team. If they’re sweating whether the next speaker is going to arrive for their slot, they won’t be in the best of moods when you finally come strutting in. If they’re not in good moods, and if you’re scrambling at the last minute, that’s an equation for a terrible speaking experience. These are professionals you’re dealing with but they’re also human.
They have a job to keep things on time as well. So when a speaker walks in for their 2:00PM session at 1:59PM, that creates problems. It’s almost a guarantee you will not be able to get your computer hooked up, video working, get mic’ed up, get announced, and start on time at 2:00PM. They can pull out a lot of stops but they are not miracle workers. You need to do your part as a professional to help the event you’re representing create a good experience for the attendees. Remember them? They’re the ones paying to support the event, they’re the ones that expect to get something out of the experience. In short they’re the ones that matter the most! No one, not even the most world renowned keynote speaker, is bigger than the event itself. Don’t fall into that line of narcissistic thinking.
9. Know Your Rig
Unless you’re a largely sought after keynote speaker, you’re likely using your own computer for a lot of your speaking engagements. Spend some time getting to know how it functions technically. Know how to separate the audio from the HDMI output. Most situations have a separate aux cable for audio. Know how to leverage duplicated displays versus extended displays. Be aware of what video and audio outputs you computer has and get a collection of the necessary adapters to cover other options. Don’t count on the AV team to have these for you.
Ultimately, the production crew are highly skilled individuals who know audio, lighting, and a whole host of other elements that go into producing an event. More often than not however, they are not computer or projector experts. They’ll do everything they can to help you out, but the more knowledge you have of your own hardware and software, and how to configure it when things go wrong, the better chance you’ll have of being successful.
10. Be Respectful
I feel like this should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway. The production team can be your very best friends on your speaking engagement. They want to ensure your success but they do have jobs to do. Be mindful. If it’s a big production team and they’re wearing headsets, there are conversations going on in their ears all the time. They may have to interrupt you to respond to someone who is calling them, unaware that they are talking to you. Additionally, trying to have a conversation with the audio engineer while there is someone active on stage is a high risk activity. They may ask you to come back during a break as they need to focus on that speaker. Understand that especially in breakout rooms where you may only have one production person, they’re being asked to fill a lot of roles at once (audio, visual, stage manager, etc.).
In that vein, try to have some empathy for these folks that see hundreds of speakers a month. Things that highly urgent to you are probably pretty routine to them. It doesn’t mean they have a right to treat you poorly, but when they don’t react with the same level of urgency you’re expecting, understand that may be why. I might simply be they’ve got a plan to address the problem and it truly isn’t as big an issue as it seems.
So be a team player. Remember the production team is there to ensure your success and thereby the overall success of the event. If you work against them, you’ll all have a bad day. However, if you’re cooperative and professional in your approach, they’ll help ensure you look like the superstar that you are!!
