TEDx Organiser Crash Course (Phase 3)
Once you are done with making arrangements for speakers and designing their experience, you can move on to designing the audience experience. This is an extremely important process because it defines the kind of interactions that your audience will be having at the event. In case you have missed out on Phase 1 and 2, here are quick links:
Phase 1: https://medium.com/bookaworkshop/tedx-organiser-crash-course-phase-1-cae0412da610
Phase 2: https://medium.com/bookaworkshop/tedx-organiser-crash-course-phase-2-f8c4df14cf48
I like to broadly define designing audience experience into three sections:
- Pre-event experience
- Event experience
- Post-event experience
Pre-event Experience
The experience and excitement that you create for the audience before the event will help you reach out to more people, spread the word and intrigue your audience for the event. A TEDx event is usually looked at as one only for the intellectuals. That is not true, it is actually an event for everyone to have great conversations and learn new things. Keeping that in mind, you will have to create a pre-event ‘buzz’ that speaks to all kinds of audience. We are able to do that using the following ways:
- Social Media Platforms: Get the conversation going. Use social medias like facebook, Instagram, twitter to engage people with your speakers, the event, what the event stands for, all the exciting activities that are available at the event, etc. Put up polls, ask for the audience’s opinion, ask them questions, create quizzes, sky is the limit! You can follow TEDxSereneMeadows on facebook and Instagram to stay in touch what we are up to.
- Soirée: This is an evening party that we arrange for our speakers to meet with our patrons, VIP guests and a few selected guests from the city. It’s usually a wine and dine event where the guests get to meet the speakers one day prior to the event. This helps the speakers understand their audience for the D-day. It also helps with networking and getting our guests excited about the final event. We usually keep some interesting, thought-provoking activities for the guests and the speakers to set the tone for the final event and to get the conversations started!
- Adventure: A TEDx adventure is a hands-on activity that’s designed to engage and create interactions within the local community to get them excited about TEDx. This could happen either before or after the event. We usually do it before the event to engage with college students and working professionals. We create epicentres within the city where we create various kind of activities according to that year’s theme to create awareness about TEDx and to get people to sign up for it. An adventure could be as simple as a presentation or talk arranged at a college campus or in a company or as structured as an installation.
Event Experience
Your theme plays a major role while you are designing this experience. Start from the way your tickets look to how people are booking them to what the entrance to the event looks like. Once they enter, what kind of activities can you create for them that helps them relate to the theme better or understand the speakers well? Everything can be turned into an experience if you want it to. To simplify this, I usually think of the audience touch points.
Here’s a standard checklist that we use to design the experience:
- Tickets and ticketing: A ticket is the first point of contact that you officially establish with your audience, make it a good one. From the design of the ticket to how it feels, everything could be turned into an experience. You could also put some quotes or a riddle or plug in a challenge in the ticket itself, making it exciting and intriguing.
- Soirée Invites: These are printed invitation that are sent a few days before the Soirée to make the guests feel special. We usually try to create a postcard-like design so that they can always keep it as a token from TEDx.
- Entrance: The entrance usually is designed keeping the theme in mind. For the year 2020, we went with an open theme and hence put up banners with ‘hello’ or ‘welcome’ written in various languages. Having photo-ops helps promote the event when people upload those photos on their social media pages.
- Entry process: The entry process needs to be as simple as it can be. The time it takes for a participant to enter the event, really defines their mood and perception of the event.
- Seating: In 2019, we went with a theatre-style seating approach whereas in 2020, we decided to use a crescent-style round table seating. We found that this facilitated better discussions and had more space available for people to keep their things and take notes, if they wanted. I would really recommend this style of seating but it also depends on the venue that you choose and how much space it can offer.
- Breaks (Food & Beverage): If you are hosting an event of 6 hours or more, two-three breaks are recommended. People usually tend to lose patience and concentration if made to stay in one place for longer. Also, a major part of organising a TEDx is facilitating conversations. It’s ideal to introduce a break after every 3–5 talks. Selection of the right food and beverages gets very important. You need to make sure that the food you are selecting is not too heavy on the stomach so that people can go back to the event and pay attention. Having hot beverages like coffee and tea will keep the audience caffeinated and hence, attentive. You can get creative with your layout, food selection, presentation and can also curate it according to your theme. You can also get some food items customised for the event like the picture of the small cakes given below.
- Activities during breaks: These activities are a great way to connect your audience with your sponsors. Instead of just putting up standees or promotional material, try creating some interesting activities for your sponsor at the venue.
- Stage Decor: This is a very important design element because it is showcased in all the TEDx videos you record. Make sure that your decor is not too loud but also has certain aspects of your theme, making it stand out.
- Audience goodie bags: These are again, a great opportunity to interact with your audience and push out products or samplers from your sponsors. Try to create and give out tokens that your audience can remember you by!
- Installations: I personally believe that art plays a very important role in shaping the society and how it thinks. We at TEDxSereneMeadows always try to inculcate some form of art or installations into the event to have an impact on our audience.
Post-event Experience
After the event, TEDx requires you to send your audience a compulsory feedback form. That acts a great source of inspiration for you to make a better event next year. Here are a couple of ways to keep the TEDx spirit alive within your audience.
- Social Media Platform: Use your social media handles to share pictures and videos from the event. Once your talks are uploaded and approved from TED, start sharing those to get your audience to start watching the TEDx videos.
- TEDx Salon: These are smaller events that can be hosted weekly or monthly to keep your audience engaged with TEDx
There is so much more to do and to know when it comes to organising a TEDx event and a lot of the information is available on: https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event
In this series, I wanted to share some personal notes, experiences and ideas that might help you build a better experience. It has been a fabulous learning experience for me and I will continue to keep learning and sharing. Please feel free to reach out to me at info@tedxserenemeadows.com in case you have any queries that you think I can help you with.
I will be writing about my experience of organising India’s first TEDx to be hosted on a Virtual Reality Interactions platform soon. Stay tuned to www.tedxserenemeadows.com for updates! Here’s a glimpse for you:
