How to Energize Your Audience
and Eliminate Disruptions

Have you seen this at a training session? Attendees avoid the empty seats at the front of the room. Instead, they sit in the back row. The poor speaker looks out at an empty gulf at the front of the room. Meanwhile, other attendees scatter across the room like dots in an ocean.

Even great speakers can not build energy in a sparsely filled room. It makes it too tough to connect with your audience. You want people sitting together so their energy cascades into enthusiasm. You need a crowd at the front of the room.

How do you get people to sit together at the front of the room? Ideally, there are just enough seats for the number of attendees. But, what if you have no control over the number of attendees? For example, volunteer training or trade show presentations could attract any number of participants.

Here is the solution: tape off the back rows of seats with masking tape and a sign that says, "Reserved." Then, people have to sit together near the front. Once the front rows are filled, remove the "Reserved" sign and let the last arrivals sit at the back.

This room layout has a second benefit. Have you ever seen a speaker pause while a late arrival walks all the way to the front of the room to find an empty seat? Everyone gets distracted and the message gets lost. Filling the room from front to back ensures late arrivals find an empty seat - near the back - without disrupting your group. So, you keep the audience's full attention.

Use this simple technique to pack your room with increased energy and avoid the disruption of late attendees.