My last big MC assignment was in Cape Town, South Africa. With the World Cup about to start it was only appropriate to run a mini event. Our delegates formed teams and invited township kids to participate. The sponsor kindly kicked in with uniforms, gear and a soccer kit for everyone. I bet the township kids are still wearing them! A huge success.

Having provided Corporate Trivia services for the last decade, it’s always pleasing when event planners see past the mindset that  Trivia = Evening Entertainment and start exploring other possibilities.

To get your minds going, here are three ways to use the engaging fun and interactive nature of a Trivia event to provide more ROI.

1/ Product Information Nights
Short presentations on Products and Services are followed up by a fun Trivia segment that quizes Buyers / Dealers / Suppliers on the details.

2/ Conference Learning Reinforcement
Key points from the Conference / Sales Training are refered to during the evening entertainment. This anchors the message that amongst the fun, food and drinking there was a point to the conference. What was the sales target that the CEO mentioned in his Keynote?

3/ Teambuilding
A Trivia Event can be a great Teambuilding experience for a number of reasons if you design it correctly. Allocating teams busts people out of their normal silos. A shared challenge is a great for getting people working on a different level than normal. There are also a number of different strategies that we use that I’d be happy to discus with you if interested. (Like mixing the teams a second time half way through the event.)

Having produced Trivia Events with a reason for KFC, Pizza Hut, Autodesk, Danfoss and most of the major banks, I would be happy to discus ideas with you, either on here or direct.

Direct link to our Trivia services here  http://www.trivia.com.au

or main MC / Facilitation site here     http://www.TimothyHyde.com

Im often asked by people if there are any good books on the Art of being an MC at a Corporate Event

This is the book that I always recommend – Up Front In Control.

Full Details about what is in the book and how you can get hold of a copy.

http://tinyurl.com/m8geg7

It’s always a thrill to connect with a part of Australia’s Sporting History.

Last weekend I was the MC at a large Conference in the Hunter Valley and I had the pleasure of meeting Steven Bradbury, the winner of Australia’s first Gold Medal at an Winter Olympic event, where he famously was the “Last Man Standing” in the 1000 meter event.

Steven does a great and motivating presentation that clearly shows the long journey and enormous work that went into getting him to that point.

As I mentioned in my onstage thank-you to him ” a great example of Luck being the moment when Preparation and Opportunity collide.”

I snapped this quick shot of his Gold Medal as it sat on my lectern before the presentation.

It was very heavy, solid silver plated with gold!

Generating new Ideas for Conferences year after year can be difficult.

You can attend trade shows, read magazines and talk to colleagues.

But what about generating them yourself?

The Classic technique of Brainstorming is known by evryone, but interestingly very few people use the technique correctly! There’s a whole lot more to it than ordering in pizza and some beer and tossing ideas around the committee.

We have a free guide to this classic technique available on our resource site.

Use it to MULTIPLY the number of great ideas you generate at your next session!

http://www.timothyhyde.com/resources.html

Seven Successful Strategies
to make your next Conference Job easier!

An Ideas Paper for -
Professional Conference Organisers
Meeting Planners
Association Executives
Conference Committees

by

Timothy Hyde Corporate MC

Copyright © 2009 Timothy Hyde / Achieving the Impossible

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a recent survey of PCO and Meeting Planners, several key concerns kept emerging right across the board.

• How do we keep our Conference and Convention Sponsors happy?
• How do we boost delegate attendance?
• How do we generate Fresh Ideas for the program?

As a professional Corporate MC specialising in Multi Day Events, I get to work at a wide range of different Conferences and I see the different approaches PCO’s & Meeting Planners take to tackling these 3 common challenges.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that some PCO’s and Association Executives are leveraging my skills to make their job much easier, where as others completely fail to even see that that opportunity exists.

So, I thought I’d share a number of case studies and ideas for each of these three common challenges which you might employ if you fall into the latter category.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can download the full report via

http://www.timothyhyde.com/resources.html

Well, here’s the jacket they were all talking about last week.

For full details of my MC Services

After working in the Corporate Sector in Australia for nearly 30 years, as you can imagine I’ve seen a lot of singers and bands that come on during or after dinner at conferences to entertain the crowd.

It takes a special sort of band and singer to do this. For one thing you have to do a show. It can’t just be a series of songs. You have to be adaptable, pick up on the mood of the crowd and adapt to the energy. And it has to be fairly interactive.

Well I have a new entry in my Top 5 Australian Corporate Entertainers and I only saw them last week when I was MC at Coolum.

Lisa Hunt and her band rocks!

It fabulous fun combination of Soul, Mowtown, R&B and Disco that absolutely tore the house down with the 400 or so convention delegates who I suspect have seen as many singers as I have.

My highest recommendation.  http://www.foreversoul.com

So, who do you rank as the top 5 Australian Conference venues?

I’m just back from 5 nights at the Hyatt Coolum Resort on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

I was MC at a large conference for AustBrokers and IBNA. Conference MC engagements now make up about 50% of my work.

It’s intense complicated work, long hours on the job, lots of preparation work, but usually very rewarding.
Here’s a link to my MC Business

Doing this job gets me to some of the best venues in the country. I would have to rate the Hyatt Coolum as definitely in the Top 10, if not in the Top 5 conference venues in the country.

Great facilities, great location, but above all, the Staff are brilliant, especially the Banquet / Functions Staff and go out of their way to make you delighted.

What are your Top 5 venues?

Continuing our series of our popular Modules for Team Building events.

Kick Start your Creativity!

This Module is a very popular one and often requested for Kick Off events at the beginning of a Year or at the beginning of a Conference.

Highly interactive and entertaining, we explore several different Creative Thinking Techniques.
These become the participants Toolbox, that they can use later to Solve Problems, Tackle Challenges and Make the most of Opportunities!

For instance, one element is an exploration of Brainstorming. Everyone knows about it, but very few groups actually do it properly and make the most of the powerful tool. You will after this session.

As a follow up to the Session, all participants also get a Resource Bundle of books, valued at $40 each! These add extra techniques and reinforce what we went through together. In fact, with some groups, the value of the book bundle often exceeds our fee for the session.

Full details on our Corporate TeamBuilding Events HERE.