Why a Virtual Professional Emcee is important for your online event
Phone Virtual Emcee Conor Cunneen – IrishmanSpeaks: 630 661 1220
What is the role of a Professional Virtual Emcee ?
A good onsite or virtual emcee is like the oil in your car which facilitates the productive movement of the moving parts.
At a virtual or onsite conference, the speakers and presenters are the moving parts. Your role as virtual professional host or moderator is to provide the appropriate level of oil to ensure the event moves smoothly. In doing this, you will warm up the audience, introduce speakers, offer interesting insights or commentary on speaker content and do an appropriate wrap up possibly by summarizing the overall event.
What preparation is required to be a successful Professional Virtual Presenter or Emcee?
Bottom line. A lot! In fact, much more than prepping for a keynote engagement. A good virtual emcee will have a prepared script to work to – often provided / contributed to by the client. Once the script is written, the virtual moderator must then become comfortable with it. Are there words / phrases that are difficult to articulate? Do some of the presenters / speakers have challenging or unusual names?
So is it just a matter of reading a script?
Far from it. The script is the roadmap. It keeps you on track and on time. As an emcee, I don’t follow the script word for word. Indeed, a lot of times, I simply write down bullet points as my roadmap but I rehearse and articulate out loud what it is I am going to say.
Do you have to be good at quips / ad libs to be a Funny Virtual Professional emcee?
Well, it sure does help but no need to get despondent here. In preparing for my master of ceremonies work and to ensure I satisfy the client brief to be a virtual professional emcee, I will research the client / speakers in some detail. My goal is to have a good idea of their topic and content which often allows me to write my “spontaneous” quips and ad libs days before the event!
What research should a Professional virtual master of ceremonies do?
As a virtual professional emcee or moderator, the more I know about the moving parts, the better I can – as the oil commercials say – ensure a superior performance.
My core preparation as on online emcee involves:
Detailed conversation with client to understand the purpose of the event.
Getting the introduction for each speaker which I hope will be concise. There have been a few occasions when I have encouraged the speaker to edit their intro so it doesn’t seem like War and Peace!
Online research about the speakers. I will Google them and check their social media. The idea is to find a little interesting nugget that I can use to enhance the audience experience. Unless, it is a roast, that little nugget will never be embarrassing.
If the speaker is an author, I may read Amazon reviews about their publication.
For me, as a professional who takes pride in doing a really good job as a virtual emcee / master of ceremonies, research and preparation are critical. Until I have done my research, I don’t know what I don’t know.
IrishmanSpeaks Conor Cunneen is an acclaimed virtual professional emcee and moderator whose mission is to leave his client with smile on the face, a spring in the step and the knowledge they picked a truly professional virtual emcee / master of ceremonies and host.
SEE: 10 Tips for professional Zoom Virtual Emcee
Phone Virtual Emcee Conor Cunneen – IrishmanSpeaks: 630 661 1220
Phone Chicago-based Virtual Emcee Conor Cunneen – IrishmanSpeaks: 630 661 1220
Testimonials for Virtual Professional Emcee / Moderator IrishmanSpeaks – Conor Cunneen
Conor,
Thanks again for your fabulous MC skills! I was very happy with the program and am so thankful and appreciative of your skills and attention to the details as well. And – thank you for the balance of humor you added to the program. I hope you enjoyed yourself and our people!
Accertify, Inc., an American Express company
Conor:
Thank you so much for the great job you did emceeing our recent awards gala. We take great pride in our program, so it was wonderful to be able to relax and know the program was in excellent hands.
Not only did you keep what was a very lengthy program moving along with pace and great humor, it was obvious that you had done your own research separate to the script provided.
Your combination of the gift of gab, great humor and professionalism shone through and genuinely contributed to a wonderful evening.”
Executive Director, Illinois State Crime Commission
“Serving as the emcee of an awards banquet is not easy, but Conor was able to liven up the crowd, get everyone to laugh, told great stories, and kept it professional to honor the award winners. We would recommend Conor with full confidence! “
Executive Director, Snow & Ice Management Association, Inc.