Public speaking… with a comedic twist





This is a great month for creative inspiration with the Sydney Festival taking place until end of January. Here at Presentation Studio we are particularly excited about seeing the Bright Club sessions at The Famous Spiegeltent.

Hosted by comedian and public speaker, James O’Loghlin and showing late on Wednesday nights, the Bright Club presents an impressive line-up of lecturers and researchers from the University of Sydney as they turn their academic minds to comedy. Each speaker has just 8-minutes to present their area of academic speciality in a comedy stand-up routine.

Most of us have had to present at some point in our lives, many of us do it every day but just imagine how nerve wracking it must be when your main aim is to make your audience laugh.

However as with any type of presentation, preparation is the key to help conquering those nerves. So if you are taking the plunge into stand-up comedy or just need to present at the next board meeting, keep these top presentation tips in mind:

Engage your Audience
Stand-up comedy routines actively engage the audience. Comedians interact with the crowd and ask them questions which help to set up their next joke. In business presentations, rather than having your audience sit for an hour whilst you present your PowerPoint slides, make time in your presentation to interact with them. This can be as simple as asking for a ‘show of hands’ to a question or if you have a larger group you could use live sms polling or voting technologies.

Stick to Time
The speakers at Bright Club have only 8-minutes to present their routine. Whatever your timings make sure that your structure your presentation with a clear flow: beginning, middle and end and when rehearsing your timings allow for unexpected interruptions such as questions (or heckling!) so that you won’t feel flustered if they arise.

A fantastic tip from Nancy Duarte is to prepare two possible natural endings to your presentation, so if you do find yourself running out of time you can relax knowing that you have a safety net and your audience won’t know the difference!

Bright Club is showing at The Spiegeltent for only three weeks and kicks off tonight, Wednesday 11th January.

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Posted by Presentation Studio