In large venues, such as ballrooms, make sure the line of sight to the screen is unobstructed, and that the image is large and bright enough for people all the way in the back to see. Arrange seating carefully. Where seating is not fixed, flexibility improves. This will reduce the amount of people the space will hold by about 60 percent, but the comfort of your audience will be greatly enhanced. And, for smaller groups, interaction is increased when more people face one another, as they do in U-shaped arrangements.
Most presenters ignore the importance of the room in which they are presenting.
They take what they get when they arrive, and then, when the presentation fails, they wonder why. Tom Mucciolo is president of MediaNet Inc., a presentation skills company in New York. Originally published in the August 1998 issue of Presentations magazine.