I pitied the keynote speaker at an awards banquet last night.  Not only was he competing with the American Idol final results show, but he was put in a dreadful situation from the get-go:

1)  As he started his speech, the salad was being served.  How rude!  This is just bad timing on the meeting planner’s part.  There is no reason why the spinach salad could not have been pre-set on the table for the hungry diners to eat something to absorb the alcohol from the open bar.  Or have him speak after dinner!  To insult to injury, after he finished his speech (and dinner, complete with dessert had been served during his entire speech), they took a 20 minute break to mingle.  This schedule made no sense to me and I was severely disappointed as I came to hear the speaker.  (No, I didn’t get an award, either!).

2)  Oh, and we couldn’t hear the speaker.  He had a laveliere clipped on to his shirt – not the optimal solution, especially since he likes to walk around alot.  To keep this from happening, I use a Samson SE50 omnidirectional headset that has four interchangeable connections that match just about any belt pack.  But that wasn’t the biggest issue…the room was actually two separate rooms with the dividing wall removed.  The acoustics were terrible.  Even the sound guy wasn’t able to mix it so that we could hear what he was saying at the back of the room.

The end result?  He had to work much harder to engage the audience.  Sitting in the back, I missed about 25% of his speech.  I’m sure it was good.  I just felt sorry for him.