The quickest way to energise a conference audience after lunch is to get them out of passive listening mode. Movement, interaction and laughter can change the energy of a room very quickly. A short, well-run laughter session can do that without adding yet another presentation to an already crowded conference program.
You know the moment.
Lunch is over. Everyone has eaten slightly more than they intended.
They return to the conference room. Sit down. The lights dim.
Then somebody puts up slide number one of 47.
All those carbohydrates are hitting the bloodstream. The speaker’s voice is becoming a rather pleasant background noise.
I’ll just rest my eyes for a minute…
zzzzzzzzzz.
WHOA!
I’m getting sleepy just writing about it.
Why does conference energy drop after lunch?
Part of the problem is simply the structure of conferences.
People have been sitting, listening, processing information and behaving themselves for hours.
Adding more information isn’t necessarily what they need.
Sometimes they need a change of state.
Get them standing. Get them moving. Get them interacting with one another.
Better still, get them laughing.
Can laughter really change a large conference room?
I’ve seen how quickly it can.
One year at the Happiness & Its Causes conference, I was given exactly five minutes to re-energise an audience of around 2,500 people who had been sitting through a conference for two days.
I got the whole room up and laughing.
Admittedly, it took me five minutes and 30 seconds.
Nobody’s perfect.
But in five and a half minutes the feel of a room containing 2,500 people had completely changed.
What makes a good after-lunch energiser?
It should be easy to join, interactive and sufficiently different from what came before it.
It shouldn’t require complicated instructions or special equipment.
And preferably nobody should need to change into Lycra.
Laughter yoga works particularly well because there are no jokes to understand and nobody has to be funny. The facilitator uses simple laughter exercises, movement, interaction and breathing to get the room involved.
Yes, it can feel slightly odd for the first minute.
Most worthwhile things do when you describe them clinically enough.
How long does it need?
Not long.
I’ve run five-minute laughter breaks, 30-minute conference energisers and longer sessions combining laughter with presentations on wellbeing, resilience and workplace performance.
The right question isn’t:
How long should a laughter session be?
It’s:
What do you want the room to feel like afterwards?
If the answer is awake, connected and ready for the afternoon, don’t automatically put another speaker on stage.
Sometimes people need to stop listening and start laughing.
You look after the event. I’ll look after the audience.
