S**t! The Speaker's Overran!

We've all been there - watched and listened to a speaker talking for longer than they should.  Sometimes they are politely stopped by the Chair or MC, on occasion, forcibly ( and fun to watch) while other times you simply can't interrupt.

Sometime, speakers over running can save lives such as the case I heard of 30 years ago about an Army troop due to catch a ferry but first had to sit through a presentation. The speaker, a very high ranking senior officer, over ran, causing just over 300 troops to miss the Ferry.  There is no possible way to stop such a Speaker of this type in mid flow due to their seniority and, as they were not a professional speaker, but merely someone thinking they were 'rallying the troops', they had no concept of the length of their speech and just ploughed on regardless. This presentation was being held in Belgium and the ferry everyone was due to catch: the MS Herald of Free Enterprise. At the time, it was a logistical nightmare for events organiser because of people rushing around scrambling for cars and kit the moment the speech ended,  all trying to get off base at the same time. It's only in hindsight that you realise the impact of how costly that particular event's running over could have turned out.

But while most events won't ever have as a dramatic hindsight bonus for a speaker over running most are never the less left with the issues it causes:

• Audienced stressed for missing travel connections, or prearranged meetings or food
• The Venue's kitchen juggling the timing of the food or trying to keep it hot without spoiling
• Another speaker or speakers having to cut their presentation time down or even step aside
• Quietly trying to admonish the guilty speaker while they feel like they've delivered more value by over running and that you should be grateful to them!

Speakers who over run their allocated time simply are not thinking about you nor the event nor your audience.  Members of the audience do plan things around your event or the speaker they've solely come to see and while the speaker demands respect for the audience not to leave during their presentation, so then must it be a two way street and the speaker must respect the audience's time.

To prevent this, make sure your process:

1. Clearly states what time you want the speaker to go on the stage and to leave by and what they are to do there when on the stage.
2. Make is clear to the speaker what you are going to do as a count down timer incase they do forget about timing or their own stop watch has stopped working
3. Make it clear to the speaker what will happen when they have reached the end of their time - how you will be asking them to leave the stage
4. Tell the audience during, 'House Rules', what will be happening about the speaker's timing notices so they know also what to expect should a speaker over run
5. Do not be afraid to brief even the highest senior ranking official, CEO or celebrity about the timing procedure as most will appreciate knowing they've only got 5 minutes left and will happily wrap things up.

Your process should have the timings in the contract and agreed to before they even get to your event.  But if you are relying on simply email exchange for them to be a speaker at your event, then it will be the little thing of one speaker over running who will ruin your day. 

Don't let speakers who continually over run damage your event and upset your audience: we don't like it and that's why we built iwantaspeaker.com