If you’re a meeting planner, want to know how to help your presenters get their message across better?

Put them against a better background. Just as the subject of a picture will always look better in an attractive setting, people will give presenters more respect if the stage set looks professional.

Why so?

Audiences start judging an event from the moment they walk into the room. They think: what does this room environment remind me of?

Brown-o-rama!

If they walk into the room and see a tripod screen and a plastic banner, it’s going to remind them of school, or university lectures. They have flashbacks to long, eye-wateringly dull speeches from crusty headmasters in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches.

They’re already a little dozy by the time the presenters start, even if they turn out to have no elbow patches at all.

On the other hand, if they walk in to a room with a professional-looking stage backdrop, lighting and music, it reminds them of theatre or TV shows.

Their subconscious minds think: Looks like we’re in for something interesting.

This sense of authority is why TV networks spend a fortune on sets. Can you picture your favorite news anchor sitting behind a hotel fold-up table on a stage, with the network logo on a plastic banner? You wouldn’t watch, would you?

A set gives your presenters a head start, because they don’t have to work as hard to overcome the expectation of dullness.

Sets for events can be really elaborate, but they don’t have to be. The main purpose is just to break free of the standard brown hotel wall or black draping, and add some lightness and colour.  Your staging people can create looks with stretch fabric and lights that really lift the mood. It also creates much stronger corporate branding.

As a bonus, presenters in this environment feel more important, so they rise to the occasion with a more enthusiastic, energetic speech.

And everyone’s happy.