Learning to Organize a Conference

I met Deborah Shadovitz at a Mixergy event. When she told me about all the conferences that she worked on and that she organized MacGathering and MacDayLA, I asked her to get a call with me and teach me some of the basics.

My biggest takeaway from the call is that organizers need to prep their presenters. I was at a conference recently where the panelists weren’t prepped at all. One of them told a bad joke about Hillary Clinton and got a little laugh from the audience. He assumed that meant we all wanted to hear more of his humor, so he kept going. The other panelists couldn’t compete, so they clammed up.

It was a complete waste of everyone’s time. And it didn’t have to happen. If the panelists knew what they were going to say ahead of time, it would have kept them focused. They would have come across better and we in the audience would have gotten more value out our time.

Deborah told me how she prepped her speakers. We also talked about how she sells tickets, finds her venue and puts her events together.