Guide to Making a Pecha Kucha Presentation: The Big Event

Try not to drink before you talk. This may seem self-evident, but try to avoid drinking (too much) prior to your talk. By all means, order a stiff drink afterwards... but try to hold off as much as you can, beforehand.

One drink can easily lead to a few drinks, particularly when you just want to "settle your nerves." Consider this: how terrible would it be for you to slur your words on stage? All your hard work and prep, undone by a few too many drinks prior to.

I say this as a big fan of the sauce: save the boozing for afterwards. It'll taste that much sweeter.

Volunteer to go early. For me, until I finished my talk... I was a ball of nervousness. If possible, check with the event organizer and see about getting an early slot. There are many good reasons for speaking early, but the major reason to me is that you can get your talk completed... and spend the rest of the time basking in your great performance, and enjoying the other speakers on the bill.

The crowd is on your side. Intensity and passion are things that can be felt by the audience. The crowds at Pecha Kucha are there to cheer you on, and everyone's there to get excited, to get inspired together.

Remember that this isn't you getting in front of a class, giving a report on Lincoln's presidency. You're talking about what interests you, what you're passionate about. You're sharing that with the crowd, and they're eager to hear what you have to say. You came here willingly and the crowd came here, willingly. It's not a you-versus-them thing, it's a together thing.

Slow and steady. As you start your talk, recognize you're nervous and that there's probably a lot of adrenalin in your system. Try to consciously slow things down. Try to make sure you're speaking clearly and that you're not just zooming through your slides.

If you finish a particular slide a bit ahead of schedule, it's ok to pause in wait for the next slide to appear. Consider using the pause to look around and make eye contact (see below).

Try to make eye contact. Hopefully this doesn't throw you off your game too much. And hopefully you practiced looking around a bit, when you were doing your dry runs.

A big part of speaking is engaging the audience, and scanning the room making eye contact with people helps tremendously in this regard. If you're too nervous, don't worry about locking eyes with individuals... but try looking to different areas of the room as you talk.

This is a particularly tricky thing, especially if you haven't tried it out beforehand. I'd definitely recommend adding this to your practice runs so that you'll be a bit more comfortable with this, prior to the event.

Bring business cards. People from the audience will likely come up to talk with you after your presentation (particularly if you did a good job). In addition to the well-wishers and pats on the back, many folks may be interested in setting up meetings with you or exchanging information.

Make sure to have some contact info or business cards handy. Anything, so long as it has your phone number, email, or URL on it. At the very least, have some paper and a pencil on hand.