Online Rehearsal

So you have your speakers ready, your audience waiting for tickets and your agenda set, now you need the rehearsal. This can be one of the most critical parts of the event.

Ideally it should be a week before the event, but if people are familiar with the technology it can be just a few days before. This is the chance for you to go through the entire meeting, check your timings and answer any questions the participants might have.

Start with your agenda and when you are going to open the meeting room. Are you going to have everyone waiting outside so you can let them in all at once, or would you rather the meeting fill up gradually.

At this point you should be taking notes on your running order and allocating tasks to hosts. If a host is struggling with a task then you can either add some more detailed notes or ask another person to assist.

Work out if you need any signals between speakers and hosts and if there are any points when you need to coordinate – e.g. Mute All and the hosts need to unmute themselves and the speakers while the host is talking.

Have everyone practice using the chat so that they are happy to keep an eye on it during the meeting. The main host can send messages to get people back on track or adjust timings.

Give the speakers a chance to load, start and share their presentations to see how long it takes. You will need to account for this time in case something goes wrong or they need help. It is always a good idea to let them practice there presentation in full. If they have detailed notes then you will know how long to expect. If they are speaking from brief notes and talking about material then find a way to notify them when they are running short on time e.g. one minute before they end. Depending on the speaker, the subject and the event it might be worth them having a stopwatch or expecting an interruption, or a user flagging them. Explain to them how you will handle it if they fail to notice and go over time.

Once you have heard everyone speak and identified any practice issues or training people need you can now finalise the running order.