Coordinating and presenting a meeting can be pretty stressful stuff, but it doesn’t have to be if you get some great tips from the pros!

Bring along a small box or bag with paper clips, tape, stapler, anything you might need while facilitating your event.  Sure, you’ve seen every episode of MacGyver and no one doubts your ability to build a helicopter out of a stick of chewing gum, a broken umbrella, and a soggy potato chip but why take the chance?

A creative hash tag will help you to stand out in the bird-eat-bird world of Twitter. Hosting an event to teach people about sustainable business practices? Consider using #ThisIsNotADonut as your hashtag. Ok, ok, it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with sustainability or business but it generates interest and has NEVER been used on Twitter which means that you can create a new conversation with your event as the focus.

Reserved seating is also the best way to tackle your attendee’s fears of the front row.  Put “Reserved” signs in the BACK row to encourage guests to sit closer to the front so that you can interact with attendees. They’ll get more out of the event and you can assuage any feelings of paranoia you had about your bad breath or body odor (just to be on the safe side, though, this may be a good time to use that stick of chewing gum you were going to use to build that helicopter).

While, the average attention span of an adult is between 15 and 20 minutes, some research actually estimates that number to be even lower now, at around 5 minutes. Thanks to the introduction of social media we seem to be racing to compete with the goldfish – who has a 9 second attention span. It won’t matter that you’ve planned a riveting hour-long PowerPoint on the 127 uses of gray water, you’ll need to give your attendees breaks or build in time for group activities if you want them to retain the information you’re delivering. Have them break into small groups, encourage Q & A sessions, or hire a Zumba instructor to get the room re-focused.

You’ve done the prep work and now it’s time to trust and believe that everything will go according to plan!  One of the benefits when using a professional venue is the detailer assigned to you event will help you to make sure it goes off without a hitch!  Consider great Western Mass Venues like The Log Cabin, MassMutual Center, Eastern States Exposition or any number of great hotel venues listed right here on ExploreWesternMass.com!