#loveevents

As I swipe my right hand across my shirt, I feel what would have been a slight dribble. Oh man, guess I missed half of the ‘kick ass’ fun time. As the next not so amazing contestant takes the stage to answer the question: ‘are you holding on to anything you should let go?’, that left eye of mine is attempting to laze of into a quick nap.

Stay awake, don’t do this. You can’t keep embarrassing me like this’, Now trying to appease the better nature of myself.

You know when you’re dreaming, and in that dream, you’re trying to slap yourself awake. Well, I now know it wasn’t a dream when I could see the lady sitting on my right, stroking my back. Then continued to hold my hand. She gave me that look of: are you sure you’re alright, nothing troubling you at all?

Damn, she should just have minded her business. I think. All the while I’m telling me: you are really something. So what, the event was like watching paint dry. But must you always embarrass me? That’s the last outing you’ll have, behaving as such. I can’t take you anywhere. Tut. Tut. Really Ije, really.

To be honest, you can’t really blame me for my visit to the land of nod. And if you don’t want people like ‘me, myself, and I’ dozing off, then you may want to re-think your event.

You probably may want to avoid planning your event similar to Toasmaster’s.

Downfall of the event:

Too long

The host’s voice was mono-tone, and had no energy

The participants were not funny, witty, nor were they exciting or excited even.

The attendees had no opportunity to comment, or interact.

No outline of the day’s proceedings

Nothing to do but just listening

But you may however want to plan your event like this:

Ensure the host is funny, witty or engaging

Structure the event to not seem long..

The host should outline the event programme. This way participants know if they want to stay for a bit or a little bit, or the whole event

Mix up length of each talk. Make some super fast 3minuses, and some 15mins and maybe a longer 30mins talk

Engage the audience by asking question or asking a task to take place via social media

Have long breaks like 25minutes. Or have two 15mitues break. This way attendee can meet and talk with each other. And they can discuss interesting points raised. The more people connect, they better of a time they’ll feel they had

These are just super easy to do tips.

Stay tuned on theeventcritic.tumblr.com to find out more tips on how to plan a smooth event…