Panels have become lazy content. They are the place to stick your top customers, your sponsors, and your celebrity (or executive) moderator. You didn't curate them for the content.
What if you took a different approach and tried a new content format to help make the content more useful and engaging for your attendees?
A game show: Family Feud, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune... or just make up your own game! There are so many fun ways to incorporate a game show into your main stage to bring incredible people with incredible knowledge up on stage and truly engage your audience.
A fishbowl: Picture a room with a small circle of chairs in the middle and concentric circles around it. Your panel is in the center having a great conversation and the audience gets to surround them and listen in on the conversation.
An empty chair: It's like a panel, but you select someone from the audience to represent the audience point of view on the day of the event, rather than a fully-prepared panel who already knows how they're going to answer every question in advance.
A debate: Don't skimp on the actual differing perspectives. Bring in two people who have opposing viewpoints and host a REAL debate!
A podcast recording: Why is listening to a podcast so much more interesting than listening to a panel? Because it's a conversation. You can ask the same questions as a panel but get more authentic responses when a group of people are set up in a conversational setting. Whether you host it at a table on the main stage or in a living room set with standing mics, recording it for a podcast makes the conversation flow much more easily.
A news desk: Much like the podcast recording idea, this is a stage design solution to an engagement problem. When the stage is set to look like a news anchor as the host and they bring in experts (pundits, if you will) to be interviewed, the energy is fast-paced and it looks way more fun. I call this optimizing for a digital audience because it films well and looks great on screen for your remote audience!
Lightning talks: What if you took each of your four panelists and asked them each two questions for them to stand and answer in under 7 minutes? You'd get the same info, but in a fun, fast, presenter style that feels more like TED talks than a panel.
A talk show: This is another set design solution to make your content feel less boring. Even if you're asking the same questions, having your panelists sitting in a well-design talk show set (either with a news desk a la Jimmy Fallon or in a living room a la Kelly Clarkson), your content will be way more worth watching and have your audience less likely to be looking at their phones.
A variety show: And speaking of Jimmy Fallon, if you intersperse your main stage content with a variety of content options, you're much less likely to bore your audience than if you have keynote after panel after keynote. Try having a news desk, a monologue, a band, a game, and an interview and see how that feel to the audience!
An AMA: Try having a panel with no prepared questions and let the audience take the lead! If your panelists are the mind-blowing experts you know they are, the audience will be riveted to have the opportunity to pepper them with really great questions!
Are you ready to make your event more engaging than a cell phone? Try swapping out a panel or two with one of these at your next event!
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