How to Keep Attendees Focused and Engaged During Your Event

It doesn’t matter if you’re hosting your event live or online – it is not always easy to keep your attendees focused and engaged from beginning to end. However, with the help of a few simple dramaturgical tricks, you can change that.

Create a dramaturgy that reminds people of a rock concert. Concerts often start with one of the most popular songs from the artist, the goal being to have something that the audience recognizes to get the energy up and get everyone excited. As the concert goes on, the artist will play a mixture of new and old songs that have different energy levels and feels. Towards the end of the concert, the artist will play their greatest hits, making sure that they go out with a bang – by using the same method for your event, you will get your attendees to go home feeling energized from a great event experience.

How do you want your attendees to feel when they leave your event? How are you structuring your agenda to reach your goals?

1. WHY – Make the meeting and topics urgent and important to your attendees.

The meeting should start with the “why” – why is the meeting taking place? What are your challenges? A good method to use is digital rhetorical interactivity – a way to help your attendees understand the urgency and purpose of your event by having them answer questions about what the consequences might be if you don’t address the challenges at hand.

2. Present WHAT needs to change for you to reach your goals and take on your challenges

Present a plan of what needs to be done to reach your goals and solve your problems. Use rhetorical and exploratory digital interactivity to make sure that your attendees understand and remember your action plan. By using these techniques, you as an organizer get a better overview of your attendee's understanding of and reactions to your plan.

3. Involve your attendees in the HOW

Don’t just give your attendees your answer to the problem. Instead, use idea generating interactivity to allow your attendees to come up with their own ideas on what you can do to implement the action plan. This is a great technique to really make sure that your attendees know what needs to be done, and you get great input and new ideas for solutions you might not have thought of yourself.