11.3. Selecting Speakers
Don’t you think that speakers are necessary for every event? Even a small birthday event likely has someone giving a toast! That person is a speaker (someone who gives a speech), and they should be chosen carefully. Who would you want to say a few words if it was your birthday being celebrated at the office?
Types of Speakers
The real focus of this chapter, however, will be larger events – where the goal is either Education or Energy (remember a few chapters ago when we were talking about themes?). For those larger types of events, the planning team will need to consider a variety of speaker types:
- Keynote – the person who gives the most important speech. Sometimes, an event is large enough to have two keynote speakers, one to open the conference and one to close it.
- Workshop/Session leaders – these folks are often considered experts in the field and have knowledge to share with the attendees.
- Panel members – a panel is a group of folks often sitting on a stage and engaging in a question-and-answer period about a specific topic that is moderated by a respected person in the field.
Some of the key components to consider, according to Vayner Speakers (2025,) when choosing who will be the honoured keynote speaker are:
- Expertise and Relevance: Do they have the respect of your audience? Is their expected talk topic relevant to the event’s theme?
- Engagement Style: Watch videos of their previous speaking engagements to determine if their style matches your audience’s needs and attention span.
- Availability and Fee: Keynote speakers generally do not talk for free. Understanding how much you have budgeted for speaker fees will help narrow down the list of speakers that you recommend to the team. Also – check with their agent to ensure they’re available during your event.
While it is expected that you will be paying an honorarium to the Keynote Speaker, Workshop/Session Leaders and Panelists are often attending the conference as knowledge seekers as well as being speakers, so the team could consider waiving their registration fee in exchange for their service.
Crowdsourcing
Another great tool for choosing speakers is the feedback form you give to event attendees. An open-ended question could be: “Do you have recommendations for speakers for next year’s conference? If so, please share their names (and social media handle if you know it) here:”
When you are reviewing the responses from the feedback surveys to compile them for the debriefing session, you can start a spreadsheet for the next conference with a “Suggested Speakers” tab. Share that file with the members of the team so that they can review it and begin to fill in the information and get planning for the following year.
