Ideas for Putting on Lively Presentations That Audience Members Love

Keeping an audience entertained for a length of time can be one of the biggest challenges for any presenter. Especially today, there are plenty of speakers who have caught audience members scrolling through their phone, typing on a laptop, or even sleeping during their presentation. Let’s face it, humans have incredibly short attention spans and now, more than ever, it is more challenging to keep people engaged. For today’s modern audience, an hour long PowerPoint presentation just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Today’s presentations need to be creative, interactive, unique, and entertaining. This means presenters need to find new ways to deliver presentations that get the audience involved while still being informative. Sound tricky? Not to worry! We have compiled a list of interactive presentation ideas that are sure to liven up any presentation.

Break the Ice

Every person sitting in the audience is in a different mood and a simple icebreaker can get everyone on the same page and eager to listen to your presentation. Give your audience members a simple exercise to reset their minds and invigorate their senses. For example, each person could turn to the person on their right and tell them three things about themselves. Or perhaps you could ask a thoughtful question and encourage the audience to share their answers. By starting with an icebreaker, you are immediately making the audience aware that your presentation will be interactive and requires their participation. 

Tell a Story

Everyone loves a good story and this is one of the most universal ways to captivate an audience’s attention. As soon as you begin with a narrative, people immediately tune it to find out what happens. That’s because stories are far more engaging than facts and figures. 

Ask the Audience Questions

Most people sit down in a presentation expecting to simply listen. Why not shake things up by asking them provocative questions? Consider something like a “What would you do if…†question or “Have you ever seen…†question. These are more interesting than questions regarding facts and figures and they will leave the audience pondering how it relates to the topic. By asking interesting questions, you will hook the audience and get them to listen. 

Conduct a Poll

Polls are a great way to get your audience thinking about their answers instead of just choosing from a multiple choice option. They are also fun and engaging and they make the audience feel like they are part of creating the experience. The simplest way to conduct a poll is by simply asking for a show of hands, but there are also some great apps that make polling more interactive and allow you to post the results on your screen. This is a fantastic way to gather information without putting anyone on the spot. 

Add Visuals and Audio Effects

Just as one would imaging, visuals and audio make your presentation not so boring. These added effects will immediately perk up the audience and enhance their emotion and engagement. 

Use Social Media

Social media is here to stay so why not embrace it and use it to your advantage. Twitter, for example, can be a great tool to use in a presentation to get the audience to connect. Introduce a hashtag and encourage people to share their thoughts and ideas throughout the presentation. These hashtags can even lead to some interesting and more dynamic discussions after the presentation. Also, be sure to take a crowd photo and include it with your hashtag to share on Twitter at the conclusion of the presentation. 

Use Props

You don’t have to be doing a demonstration to use props. Props are an effective presentation tool that allows the audience to visually see what you are talking about. You can use the prop to explain a point and you can even refer to it throughout the presentation to highlight certain points. 

Infuse Some Humor

Finally, laughter truly is the best medicine and it’s a great way to captivate an audience. It’s also a great way to showcase your personality and lighten the mood in order to build a better rapport with the audience. Audiences are far more likely to remember you if you made them laugh.