Of course the first presenter of the day was at that site. Fortunately we had prepared instructors' kits for each site. These kits included all presentations, speakers notes, handouts, disks, and CDs for every session, as well as the opening video tape. In short, all the materials needed to conduct the workshops were on-site just in case. This allowed an instructor at one of the other sites to present the first session.
Participants can then ask their questions.
We learned to wait about 10 seconds to be sure no one was responding before moving on. This was compounded by having multiple sites. This process took time that we learned to allow for in scheduling. An unexpected gotcha, was lack of audience feedback at the College Station studio. There were no participants at the College Station location, only instructors.