It has only recently dawned on me that I am much closer to the end of my career than I am to its start. I am losing my hair, often called ‘sir’ by younger people, regularly offered a seat on public transport and increasingly regarded in what feels like an age appropriate manner. Keeping these supposed trappings of achievement from allowing me any sense of wisdom or accomplishment are my two preteen children who repeatedly inform me that I am not sigma, have no rizz and am too old to reap the benefits of mewing. If these terms mean nothing to you, welcome to my world. Notwithstanding this level 100 feedback, I believe that after working for almost thirty years in the same job, I have amassed a wealth of experience in the niche area of what it takes to transform a presentation performance from idea to reality.
Prompted by a series of unfortunate situations that were outside of my control yet completely avoidable, I’ve taken inspiration from Seth Godin, the American author and speaker, and made an attempt to prevent similar problems from occurring again. To help those engaging my services to plan better, I have codified all the practical, technical and theatrical requirements that I find helpful, if not essential, into my rider; a list of the practical and logistical criteria, that when met, allow me to work at my best.
Clearly this is a practice that can be abused; and among the more bizarre examples is a story from the 1980’s about the rock group Van Halen who famously required their dressing rooms to be prepared with bowls of M&M’s from which the brown ones had been removed. As seemingly over-privileged and divaesque as this request was, they wanted to check that promoters and venues were paying close attention to the complex technical stage set up and specifications for their concerts. While not comparing myself to one of the biggest selling rock bands of all time, I am quite happy to state that my performances are as important to me as theirs were to them, and so turning up to a venue to find that the quality of my performance is to be undermined by a broken cable that nobody thought to check beforehand – especially when I could have brought a spare if asked – is incredibly frustrating.
Part of what allows me to do my job well is the confidence that comes from knowing how my tech and performance space will be set up. So this is my rider and what follows below are some of the outcomes it aims to achieve.
- I have long disagreed with the convention that says the slides are the presentation (I don’t agree; the slides are just one of the many types of visual aids that can support a presenter), and so when acting as a subcontractor I will continue to challenge those who approach presenting as simply a matter of “speaking to the slides” and expect me to do so. This, along with the assertion that content can be revised and rewritten right up to the point of delivery is at best a recipe for an unusual improv double act, but that’s probably not what you are paying me for nor what the audience is expecting. I understand the desire to endlessly refine and improve, but you cannot construct something until the blueprints are finished and signed off. At some point you have to stop writing so that I can start preparing and rehearsing.
- If I am using visual aids to support a performance of one of my workshops or presentations, I will have spent an inordinate amount of time preparing them. I sit in airport lounges, hotel bars, waiting rooms and my sofa at home adjusting and fine tuning content, images, fonts, graphics and all manner of timed animations and effects. I enjoy it, I’d probably do it even if I didn’t have a job to prepare for and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction. It’s also part of my delivery style that they make little to no sense unless viewed alongside my performance, and so it’s really important that they work as I intend. It is for these reasons that I insist on my slides being played only from my computer and will not share them for use on another for fear that the coding could develop bugs as a result of the transfer process. A typical slide deck for one of my three hour workshops is usually upwards of 750 MB, so it’s probably just as well.
- My slide decks almost always include video and audio, and I often use background and ambient music so a reasonably decent audio facility is really important to have. Watching a beautiful video with a tinny soundtrack or voiceover can rather spoil the mood, which is precisely why the character of Darth Vader was never going to be voiced by the actor who played him. Most bluetooth speakers have a power-saving feature that puts them to sleep when not detecting any sound for a period of time, so I try to avoid these, but if that is all that is available I can manage. With my slide transitions and builds often being timed to the second, this will involve a degree of familiarisation and last minute rehearsal, as I will need to choreograph priming the system some thirty seconds in advance of a cue so that playback can be instant as intended.
- I have learned that flexing my vocal energy is an important part of creating different moods in a presentation and a workshop that is at times meant to be bold, intimate, light-hearted or considered. Creating vocal variety can support such moods, and this can help engagement. (If you consider this too fussy, the next time you want to tell your partner that you love them – try shouting it at them and see how they respond.) If I can fill a space without a microphone, I will always do so and rely on a thorough warm up and plentiful supply of water to support me in the task. If I need to use a microphone because the space is too big, I’m happy to do so – but amplification, which often comes with complex technical gadgets like compressors and gates, has a tendency to smooth or normalise the output it produces and that interferes with my ability to create vocal nuance. If I have to use a microphone, then I prefer to use a tie-clip one which allows me to retain the use of my hands, and I will avoid using hand-held mics as much as possible.
- I am only as good as my last performance, and so continual development is essential. It’s easy to get complacent and cut corners, familiarity does indeed breed contempt and I have always felt the need to practise what I preach. The only way to improve, mend bad habits, develop new ones and raise my game is through feedback and appraisal. Although I am fortunate to receive much from those I work with, it always comes rinsed through the lens of a perspective. The only way to get the raw data is through video which shows exactly what the audience sees stripped of personal bias and interpretation. They aren’t the most enjoyable things to watch, but you can track quite precise changes over longer periods of time, which is all but impossible to do any other way.
- Time is something we all have an individual relationship with, and so perhaps my need to be in a space and familiarise myself with it before a performance is a personal thing. I know what it’s like to experience travel issues that force me to turn up, plug in and go on in the space of thirty seconds, and this has taught me how important it is to avoid. It’s about inhabiting a space, knowing what the sight lines are and how to avoid the blind spots. Hearing how sound behaves in the space and knowing how much voice I will need to use matters, as does deciding on where to position myself so that I can direct the audience between myself, the screen and each other with clarity. It’s also incredibly important to find out where the creaks in the floor are, and there’s one or two superstitious practises that I like to carry out before the curtain goes up.
- I find barriers of any kind a hindrance to my ability to relate to other people in conversations, and the same is true when presenting. I like to be mobile and free to move around the room, and I don’t like being on an elevated stage unless the seating for the audience is raked. I think podiums are strange inventions with their only purpose being to make a performer feel more powerful by elevating their status above that of the audience, and so I won’t stand behind one. As for the large and often immovable lecterns commonly found in lecture theatres, the only thing I find them good for is as a surface on which to put my water bottle.
My job is to practise what I preach and model a way of presenting, so while a workshop has certain requirements in terms of space and layout, I’ll give a speech or lecture wherever you want me to. I’ve spoken in pubs, function rooms, theatres, exhibition halls, forest clearings, hotel bars, football grounds, gazebos, alongside swimming pools, breweries, palaces, factory shop floors, aircraft, high street shops, ships, coaches, beaches, car parks, restaurants, fields and plenty more. I revel in being flexible, creative, surprising and accomplishing the usual, unusual and unlikely with equal good humour.
I don’t mind people turning up late, leaving early, having their phones on, challenging me or voicing displeasure. Whoever they are and wherever they are, it is my job to be in their service.
