Ep. 136 What We Learned From Our First Live Event in Two Years

Hey there, Mark Brown. We just had our first live event in two years. Now, we were doing Hybrid before Hybrid was Hybrid. We called it live and virtual. But we had an amazing experience. It was so cool to get back in the room, have our own event. And if you're running an event or if you're about to speak in hybrid or you have been speaking in hybrid, we learned a few things, good and bad, about what we did and how to make it better. So stay tuned and let's talk about what we learned from hosting our first live event in two years.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

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Ready for some powerful presentation, AHAs, let's dive right in.

All right, so, Mark, we. We had an awesome time. We had some fun and we learned some things along the way. So if you know Mark and me, you know that we're open, transparent, and we're just here to teach. We're opening the kimono. Here's some of the things we learned along the way. But first, like, what was the results? What did people who were there. So our event, game Changers, formerly Lady and the Champs, and this was our quote, unquote, first big event in a couple years. But first, we're just going to play a couple clips of what people said about the experience, and then we're going to tell you what we did right, what maybe we could have done better, and what I'm definitely changing for next year.

So telling better stories or how to make more money as a speaker, how to become paid as a speaker, how to market yourself better. Like, they covered everything you can imagine. And it is so much more than I could have expected.

Now I pay a lot of money to do a whole bunch of programs. This one got me across the threshold.

There's so much talent here, it's unbelievable. The talent is the world's best speakers and trainers anywhere. To hire them costs tens of thousands of doll. In this case, you have a whole panel, a whole room of them you have access to for two days. I don't know how you put a dollar figure on that. I mean, seriously, it's definitely a fantastic value.

It's well worth the money. I've got four pages of Takeaways already and we're only into the second day. We have a day to go.

My mind is just absolutely overblown at the moment with so much good information that I just absolutely had to join business mastery because I can't imagine not being part of.

I came here with a scattered everything in my brain. I didn't know what to do from where I learned so much. All those scattered ideas, I was able, thanks to game changers, I was able to fine tune it into one target. And now I know when I get out of here where I'm going.

Chris west, man, you have to attempt.

I was on the fence because I had some other obligations I had to clear out. I'm so glad that I did because there's so many people that bring to the table so many different aspects of the speaking business that maybe you haven't even thought about. I'm somebody who has been successful in the speaking business in the past and I'm getting so much, I think I have like 10 pages of notes just from yesterday.

I have so many takeaways and so many notes. And honestly the reason why I came is because I wanted to really close the gap between wanting to be a speaker and actually being a paid professional speaker. And so much content that I got today, I know is going to help me close that gap.

This is the most phenomenal experience there is. So much content, so many good tips and tricks and everything you need to start really being serious about your speaking career.

I have gotten so much good information.

And already I am mapping out my specific next steps.

The faculty, every one of them is top notch. It's all about investing in yourself so you can help others. And that's why I'm here. And if you're speaking serious about it, if it's not just a hobby, something you want to do professionally, you should be here as well.

Now that might have seemed a little self serving, but we're going to talk about what happened, what we learned and how did we get quote, unquote, that effect. And mark, right up front, you've never even seen that that was something we created. No, that's something we created yesterday. And if you're whether you're a keynote speaker, emerging speaker, running your own events, one of the most powerful tools is testimonials. So behind the cur, that was 27 minutes narrowed down to two and a half. So 27 minutes of video testimonials narrowed down to two and a half dot. And what I the mistake I made is I didn't get virtual Testimonials, duh. I got a few texts. Texts came in and we're going to cover what the favorite thing was that I heard from virtual people. But we'll get to that because that's like, bam. That was one of our huge ahas. Oh, nice job. And it came from feedback. We'll get to that cliffhanger. Stay tuned. So, Mark, what did you. What did you take from hearing those in terms of what we learned putting on this experience?

Well, one, I don't want to miss the chance to reinforce the principle. Whenever you present or an event or host an event, you need to get video testimonials on what you do. It's going to be gold. To go on your website, Quality promotional material, it is going to be gold. So by all means do that. Of course, on a very heart level, I'm just thrilled we got to be in the same room again for the first time since a couple of years.

I think they were too. I think they were too.

Yeah. And seeing the enthusiasm that these attendees had and I realized when someone says, I had three pages of notes, I had 10 pages of notes, that reminds me that you never underestimate the value of what you do when you're hosting an event. There's so many moving parts involved. But when you put it all together and assemble people who you know are gonna give to an audience, when you're gonna give to your audience and they come back and tell you we got 3, 4, 5, 10 pages of notes, it's like a reinforcement of all the effort, all the struggles, all the ups and downs. And we won't even begin to go into all the technical issues we have with WI Fi and, you know, but knowing that the effort to put it in, reap that kind of reward was really exciting after all this time to come in and hear some of these wonderful comments from the people who were there, it's great. And to see them, Darren, to see them interacting person to person as well was. You do your best in virtual. But when you're live and see the people in the hallway, they're talking, they have lunch together and they're learning from each other and building each other, that to me, was a precious part of why I miss the live event so much. Yeah.

I think when you do it live and you have that person to person contact and they see you on stage and they see you standing there, I think you also get a lot more grace than you do when you're presenting. Virtually when you're virtual is a little more expectation and they get all these distractions going off just behind the camera in their home with the kids, the dog, the spouse. And so I think yes. Yeah, I think it's more challenging doing it right virtually. So we did hybrid and the enthusiasm that people had face to face, it was awesome. Like I just love hearing those and listening to that and say hey. Through prayer and hard work in assembling the right team, we did this and it was really, really kind of cool. And I think Mark, one of the number one things that we did right is we had the right people, world class presenters with the heart to help. With the heart to help. So we had Ford Sakes, Ed Tate, Jennifer, Joseph Lear, we had Chris west, we had Kevin Burke, we had Mike Davis hosting. Make no mistake, a host is important to the flow of the event. Mike Davis has been doing it for a long time. He was awesome. He keeps getting better. But make no mistake, if you're running a live event, the host matters and more maybe even so than some of the big presenters, the big name presenters, because you can have a great, awesome presenter. And if the host isn't keeping the flow going, you lose some of that quote unquote juice for helping people. Because now it's like eh, it's an experience. Mark.

Yeah, the host emcee really sets the stage and provides all transitions and fills in and really keeps things flowing very, very well. So I gotta agree with you. Having a good host there was definitely a plus. And being in the room was certainly a thrill. We had to remember we were also dealing with a hybrid situation with an audience that was virtual. And when you were involved, maybe you're gonna plan an event for yourself. Cause now these days people are saying, you know, we can do our own event, which is great. You where technically a lot gets involved that goes on behind the scenes that people don't normally see. I mean, Darren says, can I pull back the curtain so you can see what happens? You know, even in a smaller venue, we needed at least two people on a technical side to make sure everything goes right. Because here's truth, everything does not go right. And we learned one more time going back live, the pre planning that we had to put together and the technical expertise. Sometimes it meant buying a cable or two or buying a tv. I mean Darren, you bought like a flat screen TV for a monitor for us, an Apple tv. And I don't know all the technical parts of it, but just being aware, we learned when you come back to life, there are a lot of moving parts you have to make sure are in place. And the funny thing is, Darren, two years out, our technology also changed the last time we did that because you learned a couple of things technical on the technical side too that we didn't do two years ago that I think think were helpful. Having a team of a tech team to run that was also very, very critical.

Yeah, and I'm going to mention some of the specific pieces of equipment we use, but they are not the only ones and they're not necessarily the best ones for your situation with your equipment. But I just want to be specific. Specificity builds credibility. We at Ford had to actually run out and buy an extension cord. I mean, how basic is that? We had some but not a great number of prongs. And so you've got to again, having Ford was so powerful not just for his content, but his behind the scenes. And the fact that you and him, that you guys were all in to help the experience. You need the right people, all of them. You get one speaker with an ego who thinks they're deserving more than somebody else and that creates an issue. But we use just a few specifics. So one of the big lessons, Mark, I learned and the reason we had to go buy that Apple tv, which I have changed our strategy for next time, but what we learned is an HDMI cord is awesome until it hits 50ft. When it hits 50ft, it worked. So we had two 50 foot HDMIS. It worked with the third camera, the audience camera, but it didn't work with the projector 50ft out. And so that's why we had to get the Apple TV last minute, you know, run into Target. Mark, I ran to Target, we ran to Target, they were out of them. I had to run to Walmart. I got the last Apple TV when I went to return it because it just didn't work the way we had anticipated. When I went to return it, I went to Target to return it and I went to the counter and I held up the receipt and the lady's like that says Walmart. Anyway, so the equipment, one of the mistakes I made is I love the Huddle Cam hds. We used to use the older version for our events and so I got the newer version, the Huddle Cam HD. These are 4K, better quality. Then I learned that the ATM Mini, the switcher that we use can only handle 1080. And if I'm, if I'm losing you on technicality stuff, then don't even worry about it, don't even try to figure it out. That's why you have av team. That's why you have specialists. And that was fine. But what I didn't realize is The Huddle Cam HDs were designed for boardroom or your office as a webcam. So what they didn't do was focus far away. So it worked. I'm glad we had the ATEM Mini. And we could switch live between camera 1, 2, 3. So one camera was where the monitor was. So when we were talking to the online people, we could be looking at the camera while we're seeing the online people from the stage. We also had a camera in the center and then we had a camera behind us, which got the audience shot. And just with the flick of the button, we talked about using OBS or whatever the other software is. And when I talked to my AV team, the people that I hired to run this, they said, nope, we're using the ATEM Mini. We need the hardwire. You can't worry about software and something like this that there's any glitch. Now if you use OBS or one of those things. Ecamm. Hey, you make your decision. I hired some people and I had to go with what they said. And we already had the ATM mini, so we chose to go that route. So, Mark, I got back and I was like, okay, how do other places get an HDMI cord to get to the projector? So I researched online. I asked people from my church who do that. I said, how do you get from here to there? And I called B and H, by the way, B and H Audio. Love them. If you have any technical questions, don't call me, don't call Mark, call B and H. They had the answers, they had the equipment. So I called them up and I was like, how do we do this? And he said, well, what you need is a Cat 5 cable. Cat 5 cable. And you need an HDMI adapter at one end and an HDMI adapter at the other end. And that way it will get the signal strength there at the power it needs. So we tested it here. I bought a 75 foot one. So we're good for when we move to a bigger room. And it worked great. It worked fine. But you got to have the right equipment in order to give the right experience. So that was a lesson learned. One of the things that somebody commented on virtually, Mark, is we had monitors so the speaker on the stage could see the people in the audience. And then people in the audience, there was a projector and we were projecting the zoom so they could see the slides when we were talking to the Audience, they could see the audience. So we really made this from the stage. You had the slides next to you and the Zoom next to you as well as in front of you with a camera sitting right on top of it so you could talk to the people in the audience and you weren't doing and you weren't looking to the side. So. Yeah, and they're seeing like your head, but they're not seeing your lips move. So it was big. And what I also heard was it was amazing online. They said it was amazing that you called people by name who are in the audience and everybody. Well, that's because we have name tents. So we have big name tents, first name only, that faces the speaker and it's cardstock folded over the back. We put a little audience there and have all the different types of people who will be in your audience as a reminder that when you create product, when you're speaking, you have the new person, you have the person who needs the analytics, you need the empath. So we have that reminder that faces them. What faces the audience is the name. So it's easy for us from the stage, big huge letters to call out their name. Mark.

Yeah. And the cool thing is we also had for the Hybrid attendees, we had somebody in the room with them, like a host in the virtual room. I mean, they were with us, but we had at least three different laptops that were in the Zoom Room with the virtual audience. One of those, Cheryl, was like a moderator. She would know, she would tell us when we had questions coming. We would hear when they had. When you had somebody had a point to make, we were able to literally bring them on so they could speak. Well, we had audio for them. And having two other laptops in the physical room that were logged into the Zoom room also allowed us to interact as a presenter. I may have done a 5 minute bit or a 10 minute piece. I go back to my laptop and I'm also engaging in the chat with them while they're there. So the people who are hybrid who were virtual didn't just feel they were virtual with one person who was acting as their co host moderator. They're actually able to interact with Ford, Sakes and me at different times in the chat. And Darren, there was one brilliant call you made. I'm gonna let share about the speaker breakouts.

We're going to hold that to the end because. Okay, all right. That's the big aha that we got. And people said that that was more value than the whole event. However, have we not had the whole event that wouldn't have been there anyway. And what Cheryl had. So Cheryl was sitting next to the AV team on her laptop. She had a microphone so she could ask questions. Now, we had it set up that the people who were online could talk to the people in the audience so we could hear them. But there's a time when you need to keep it flowing that doesn't go as quickly as you'd like because people forget to unmute and it can be a little clunky. So at times we did let them chat. They get their keepers. We got the keepers from the people online, the keepers from the people in the room. But when there was a quick question, they would type it in the chat. Cheryl would raise her hand and then the speaker could clearly see Cheryl raising her hand. When they took their next breath or had that opportunity, they would stop and answer the question online. So the speaker online isn't watching the chat. Cheryl's doing that for them. And I really think that kept the flow going. We also had something that we learned from Ford. We had the catch box. I love the catch box. If you don't know what catch box is, it's a cube that you actually put a microphone into and the audience throws it to each other. And it's padded. It's padded. Full bag. It's got antiviral stuff on it. But it made it funner. And you can go to catchbox.com they're not cheap. It was like 500 bucks to get a branded one. But I really think it added to the fun and just watching people throw it. And some people are nervous of throwing. Some people review. Like, yeah.

Had a good time with that. Yeah, yeah. And I want to make sure we're clear that when Cheryl, who was our in house host on the Zoom call, there were specific times when she would use a microphone. People got to interact as they normally would have, but it was specific times. And you have to know when you can do that. And that's where Darren, like a run of show comes in handy. Your run of show, your, you know, Q to Q as in Q here, Q here Q or Q to Q. If you're in a business, the runoff show really tells you minute by minute what's up next. And you can plan and determine. We can open the room here. We can do a quick run through here. And it really helps you stay on track. And Darren, you know this with the best of intention. Even with the perfect run of show, there are times events get thrown way off. But we learned that even after two years, if we stick to the runoff show and everyone goes all in and does their part well, we can actually finish on time, which is really, really cool as well, you know.

And for that, you might have heard this. I know in the Toastmasters world, they call it minute by minute at a lot of conventions and conferences, a lot of them do. But I used online software that churches and it's called Planning center, so you could look it up if you're interested. It took me a little while to learn it. I had to get trained in it. But I'll tell you, I spent a couple days just creating the slides for the event, meaning the slides in between the speakers, and used Planning center to do the minute by minute. What was cool is if I added a couple minutes to this speaker, it would push the whole day down. And I didn't have to, like, do it manually by a spreadsheet, which I used to do. And somebody's like, like, you know the software for that?

I did not.

I did not. Because every time I change one in the middle of the day, I had to go back and calculate, well, this does it for you. And it was really cool. And like you said, we got that plan minute by minute. I know exactly how many minutes, and I also know that it's not going to be perfect. However, if you plan it, it allows you, when it's important to the audience and to the experience, to change the schedule. But then we gotta get us back on track. The people who are alive, they needed 75 minutes to go to lunch because of physically going to the other places, getting served and coming back. So that's why it wasn't just an hour, it was 75 minutes. Now, virtually, that's more than enough time, but we had to kind of serve both. But I will tell you, Planning center and taking the time to not just have this speaker for 60 minutes, you got to plan the announcements. We had little Zoe wisdom videos were just kind of buffers to bring a little humor, but at the same time plant a seed of some true business wisdom that we needed. But every single minute was counted. And then I adjusted it to it. I think we had version five by the time it was showtime. But planning ahead that event, I'm telling you, it's a lot of work. If this was not a passion of mine to give the experience, it would never have happened and it would affect the event. So have the right people who are all, all in for the experience of the audience. Now, here was the big one a couple years ago when we did A virtual, full virtual event. Same event during COVID Elaine Long gave us some great feedback and what we did in the moment, we had this idea, hey, during breakout sessions you have all these world class speakers who speak once on one day and once on another and do a panel session at the end of each day. But the rest of the time you get these brilliant people just sitting there. And if it's like Mark or Ford, like you can't sit still, you gotta do something. So how can we do that? So what we did last year is we put each of the speakers in their own breakout room for the breaks so the virtual people could talk to them. And it was, Elaine had said it was probably the most value because now she got to sit and talk to the presenter like it was in a hallway, although it was virtual. The challenge that we had on the hosting side, Barbara would say, I want to be in with Ford. And then so we get all these messages, I want to be in this room. I want to be in this room. I want to be in this room. So that the problem for the end user was it was not only a lot of work, but it was time consuming. I think we had 60 or so people online last year, so getting everybody into the right room. So he said, okay, what's the principle? How can we use it this year? And what we came up with, which was the best decision we probably made was we had Mark's computer set up that we put everyone online into one breakout so they would not necessarily be heard in the room. And the muddle of the room wouldn't be heard in the breakout room. And we had the speaker. So if Mark just finished his keynote, Mark would then sit at his computer with headphones and a microphone and he would have that conversation and answer questions. Right after he spoke, he would go to the breakout room. Now the people online get a chance to talk directly to Mark and people online said it was awesome. And we also had comments on like you were saying, Mark, we had you and Jennifer, Leonie and Ford and Henry in those rooms interacting via chat while the event was going on. So it really, I think there was really that connection. And I think people walked away knowing we cared. We had the experience, we wanted to help, but that was probably our best decision. Mark, your thoughts on that?

Yeah, really definitely. Because what happened was we had our breaks live and certainly were in the hallways having testimonials, interacting. It was wonderful seeing people building relationships, exchanging contact information. We had individuals there who chose to collaborate as a result of being live with us. This week, this weekend. But it was really cool that after every main presentation, 15 minutes or so, this presenter was in that breakout room with the hybrid audience. And in a sense, the hybrid audience got guaranteed time with every main stage presenter over the two day period. And you think about that. It was truly a master stroke to do that. And I know the reactions. I got, oh, wow. We got Ford, we got Henry, we got Chris west, we got Mark, we got Jennifer. They got to speak with all of the individual presenters, ask their questions, give their comments. And you mentioned briefly, Jennifer Leone, for those who didn't catch that. Jennifer Leone is one of the faculty members of stagetime. She's based in Australia and she was up in the morning, she was in the hybrid audience, and she was in the breakout rooms dispensing her wisdom, giving her comments and instruction as well. So those who were hybrid not only got to experience the presenters who were live in Las Vegas, but they were also having at least one of the coaching faculty in that room with them for the entire experience. That was, pardon my pun, that was a game changer as well. For the experience that we gave to our attendees this time around. It was wonderful.

All right, so Mark, quick recap. We got your equipment matters, but knowing how to use it matters. Have the right AV team, that was critical. Having Cheryl. Let's just. Mark will make up a new name, the chat master. The person who is the go between between what was going on in the chat and in the room. But she had a microphone so she could speak up for them. To me, a lot of the value came from just having the right people with the right heart. World class presenters, definitely, who had that heart to help me out. Running the event and knowing I couldn't do everything and knowing like Mark, I love when you just jumped in on one of the computers when I was on stage to be able to make sure the right people were highlighted and things like that. So having the right people.

Yes. Highlighting. Yeah.

The catch box, that's just one of my favorites.

That's.

That's just fun. Having the right speakers, the monitors for the speaker that they can see what's going on without having to turn to their back. Learning the HDMI lesson, having the name tags for the people. Live. Whoops. Live. Mark Brown, what's your final thought?

My final thought is one. I am so thrilled we got to be live for the first time to do our stagetime Live event. We were all in. It was a great experience. I encourage you as you hear this podcast, look at what we do at our Game Changers event. It truly is life transforming. We encourage you continue to do everything you can to learn, to grow and to find ways to maybe elevate yourself as a presenter. The best way to do it is to join us at Stagetown University and listen, don't forget, don't become good, don't become great. We want you to be unforgettable and we will see you next week. Week. Until then, have fun, speak and change the world, man. Go all in. I'm losing it today. I love it.

You, you've lost it. And at the same time, when you're speaking at a hybrid event, remember the event planners, the people producing it, the AV team, they got a lot of things that they need to care about to help make you look good. So give them grace. Tell your friends about this podcast. We'll see you next week.

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