I am going to be giving an in person talk after a long time (at New Crafts, more info ), and I was feeling a bit anxious. If I am feeling like that, how do people that never attended one must feel?
My advice
Bring
- Comfortable footwear. You’ll be standing and walking for a lot longer than you planned 👟
- Water and snacks. Especially water. There is food and drink in the conference but not always when you need it 🚰 🥜 🍏
- Plasters and something for headaches. Especially the plasters can be life savers (for those of you that didn’t bring comfy shoes) 🩹 💊
- Some questions you can ask random people so that you have an excuse to meet them 👋
Don’t bring
- Work ( don’t try to do your normal work as you are in the conference, you kind of do neither well) 🏢 🛑
Outsourced tips
I reached out for advice and got a lot of helpful ideas that are beneficial for both first-time attendees and speakers. Since the information is spread across a few sources, I figured it would be convenient to gather it all here.
- 🕰️ Take breaks. Go outside the venue for coffee. Find some quiet. Go to a park if there is one nearby. Go to your hotel room and stretch out for a while. Einar W. Høst
- 📇 (This is more for commercial conferences but the sentiment applies) You’re going to meet a lot of people. If you’re handed business cards - once the person is away - use the empty space on the card to write a small note on who the person is, and if you were meant to act on it somehow (write them an e-mail, etc). Manuel Correia
These are speaker specific
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🐈 Ideally bring a friend, someone you can use as an anchor between sessions. If you’re a speaker, have a friendly face aka a nodder on the first row. Einar W. Høst
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🇦If possible, check your own slides in the room you are going to speak, perhaps in a lunch break. Plug in and go sit on the back row. Does it look good? While you’re doing the talk is not the right time to find out that you chose the wrong font size. Einar W. Høst
- 🔥 Warm up, get into a rhythm of speaking 30 minutes before you start… to avoid a cold start. Your best enthusiasm and ideas will come 5-10 mins anyway, so give yourself a running start Adam Murray
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😸 Tell a story and include something funny. Maybe the story fits with the conference theme, the track in which you are speaking, or your talk alone. If you aren’t sure that your punch line will be funny, be sure to have a follow-up that will make it funny. If you get a laugh with the first, the second will also work. It will relax you and draw your audience into your topic, giving you confidence. Most tech people love savvy humor, and the story will help people remember your talk and your light personality. Vaughn Vernon
- Doing something to relieve tension and nervous energy before speaking might also be good. I tend to stretch a bit and walk around the room, talking a bit to myself like a madman. I have many times thought that sounding a barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world is what I really should be doing before a talk, but I haven’t gone there yet. Einar W. Høst