You’re hosting a live event… how do you keep it on time and on schedule, make sure things don’t get too out of hand, too long, or how do you prevent your event from running short? That’s what we’re going to look at today.
My name is Sam Pearce. I work with Canada’s top brands to create incredible experiences that people enjoy from the comfort of their couches.
How do we do it? Well, starting out, we get an idea of what the client wants at first. We get all those key points from the clients, get an approximate time of how long each of those segments are going to be. This is in the early planning stages. Later on, those times are firmed up.
We take that list of the key points from our clients and combine them with the elements we’re going to add to the show. We inject magic, comedy, games, all throughout the event. So we take all those elements, and the first thing we do is compile them onto a set list, simply a figuring of the order of when we want each event to happen. So for this last one I hosted a couple of days ago, we started that with me coming on screen, giving a quick introduction and a welcome, doing a magic trick to keep everybody engaged.
Then I introduced their president to give a short speech. This was a pre-recorded video we already had on file, so we knew the timing of that. We simply had to press play. And then we had a live trivia segment that we know the approximate timing of from doing so many events. We know that’s approximately five or six minutes, so that’s what we scheduled for that. And then we had an award segment. Followed by that, another trivia segment, then another award segment, then another trivia segment. So you see there’s lots of in and outs. Our shows are very fast-paced.
This set list is from a program that ran one hour. It was a awards gala for a medical company. So there’s lots of variety. It’s very fast-paced, just like an engaging television show you might watch. So lots of things happening, in and outs. The question is, with all these things going on, how do you make sure you nail that one hour time we promise our clients, or we give them an approximation of how long the shows are going to be? More often than not, we nail that 60 minute time within a minute or two. We’re normally a little bit longer because we like to provide our clients lots of value, but whenever possible, we try to end the broadcast right on that 60 minute mark.
Now, how does that happen? Let me show you the planning sheet we use to coordinate everything ahead of time. This is a document we’re using. This is just in Google Sheets. You’ll see everything that we have on our set list is over here on the left. I’ll even bring up the size of this so you can see it better. There we go, look at that. All right. This is everything that we have going on. Before the show, we have their logo rolling. So when they log into the live broadcast, they can see it is indeed alive. They see their logo up on the screen. They can adjust their screen, their speakers, make sure everything looks and sounds great before the broadcast even begins.
Then again, just before the show, we have a little pre-show explainer. So before the show starts, pre-show we have a video that pops up. Tells them that they can stream the video to their smart TV, they can watch it on multiple devices. Explains them how to use the closed caption feature if they want to take advantage of the live closed captions. Then, as I discussed before, we have the snazzy intro, the introduction to their president, and then some trivia, some awards, some trivia, and then awards again. Lots of variety. The way that we time everything out, as you see, this is all on a linear timeline.
This actually starts five minutes before the show, but here’s the start time of the show itself. So we time out all of our events minute by minute. Minute one of the show is when we go live. I jump on screen. We do the welcome message, a magic trick, and then we introduce their executive. This takes about three minutes. We just know that by experience. I’ve done it so many times, I know it’s three minutes. And then we had that video from their president. That’s just one minute, so we throw that in there. You see that brings us up to four minutes.
If that was longer, we could extend that and then scooch over our timeline just a little bit. But in this case, it was just one minute. Then we have our trivia segments come in there, and then we jump over to the awards. So as you see, this is all put in a linear timeline, and this method allows us to adjust things as we go, as we’re planning out the show. Some segments are longer, some are shorter. This allows us to really drag things around and shuffle things till we get things timed out just right.
This is all done ahead of time, so when the show itself comes up, we know exactly what is going to happen, minute by minute. We find this is the best way to keep everything organized. You see at the 60 minute mark, we actually go a little bit beyond that one hour. And if we scroll back to here, we can see that’s our credit roll. So any additional things that aren’t really essential to the broadcast, for instance, the credit roll and some music that we play after the show, that’s not included in the 60 minute timeline, that actually goes over the time.
Now the question is with all these different elements, how do you actually ensure they’re going to take that specific amount of time? Especially when you’re hosting your first event, if you haven’t done a ton of these, it might be up in the air how long each of these segments are going to be. That’s why you give yourself a little bit of flexibility. So be ready to add in extra things. If you’re worried about running short, if you’re worried your program is going to be a little under that one hour that you’ve promised your guests, simply have some things that you can throw in that aren’t essential to the program, but are still a very engaging and high value that you want to share with your guests.
The way I facilitate this, my training, I guess, is I’ve been a magician for 20 years now, so I’ve got lots of tricks up my sleeves, pardon the pun. And so how I would fill in this extra time is, if I find out, for instance, in the middle of the show, if I reference our timeline, and I think, “Oh no, we’re going to run a little short towards the end of the show,” I will put in a couple of extra magic tracks in the middle of the show, or whenever I realize that we’re going to be running a little short. Simply, all I do is I reach over to my table here and I pick up… this isn’t a magic trick, but I pick up some props and do some magic tricks that are very flexible.
In fact, I have several magic tricks sitting just off screen here that I can grab. Some of them are just one minute tricks, some are five minute tricks. And having this flexibility, having this extra really valuable and engaging content that you can throw in at a moment’s notice, is perfect. That allows you to hit that time exactly head on, or nail on the head, head on the nail. You get the point. Allows you to nail that timing, and vice versa is true.
If you’re worried about running too long, be prepared to cut some stuff. Have some things in your program, in your set list, that are not crucial to the success of the event. For example, I have an extra magic trick down here at the end. If the show was running too long, I would simply cut out that magic trick. It would not affect the success of the performance at all, and it would allow us to get that timing right on.
