Planning a corporate event? These interactive trends could be the key to your best presentation ever.

Your interactive showdown is coming. So are the attendees. Their attention spans are short. Their expectations are high. Is your corporate event up to the challenge?

Breathe. A jolt of interaction is making its way through conferences. Keynote speakers are moving from behind their podiums and moving attendees. Corporate events are bursting with energy from unconferences and crowdsourcing. Story still rules presentations. But it is hooking attendees in its grasp like never before.

A knockout is yours to make. These punches from event planners can turn your next corporate event into an interactive showdown.

Turn your conference into a game show.

The blank stares from attendees at the end of presentations can trap many speakers. What’s your path to an interactive showdown? Turn your conference into a game show and revel as attendees race to answer your questions. BizQuizThing stumps attendees of corporate events with its 70-style game show replete with set, buzzers and host. Questions, which can be tailored to event planners’ tastes, have attendees buzzing in more ways than one. 

Conference vs. Unconference. Just do both.

You may bring the agenda to conferences. Attendees bring the energy. Unconferences like ProductCamp Atlanta and crowdsourcing initiatives like TEDActive put a new spin on audience participation. Attendees bring the ideas and energy to create participatory events that belong to them. Your affair does not have to be either or. Event planners behind the NCTechforGood Conference and Unconference present the best of both worlds—the authority of a scheduled event with the dynamism of free-flowing discussions.

Challenge your attendees… literally

When challenged to flex their creative muscles, artists never back down. Conferences are the perfect arenas to challenge attendees while using sponsors’ products or services as canvases. AFR Furnishings transformed its annual networking event into a battle with a design challenge. Designers used AFR Furnishings as weapons for a competition that mingled interaction with promotion. 

Spend big or fascinate.

“Either have the biggest budget… or be the most fascinating,” says Sally Hogshead. We are believers in the latter route to a knockout performance. Design and preparation eventually passes the baton to interaction. A presentation transforms into a dialogue that fascinates. Sally Hogshead condenses her fascination playbook into the following moves: Power, Passion, Mystique, Prestige, Alarm, Rebellion and Trust. Watch as she captivates her audiences within the first nine seconds of her speech (below).

The Oprah Magazine team is masterful about priming attendees for fascination. The twitterverse is still erupting from the news that Oprah is assembling her famous brain trust for O You!, an event to encourage attendees to live their best lives. Although Oprah super fans can purchase tickets for $125, they wait by computers, tablets and smartphones for the chance to win the one free ticket up for grabs. Your interactive showdown is waiting for you to deliver it. Present a corporate event that moves—and moves attendees. This knockout is yours to make. 

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Hello evangelists,

Would you like sticky doodles and blurbs from PixInk to post to your social network? 

This could be your best presentation ever. Here’s why: http://bit.ly/o4ZaEG  via @ayeshamathews

You may bring the agenda to conferences. Attendees bring the energy. http://bit.ly/o4ZaEG  via @ayeshamathews

When challenged to flex their creative muscles, artists rarely back down. http://bit.ly/o4ZaEG  via @ayeshamathews

Cheers,

PixInk