Have you ever had one of those Sundays where a guest’s slide show or video just didn’t work right?
Let’s say you have a guest speaker who comes in ten minutes before the service starts and hands you a slide show. You take it off to the media booth for the tech team.
Then, when it’s time for the presentation, everything goes wrong…
Let’s rewind and ask a couple of questions.
Do you have the necessary software to run his presentation?
Can you import his presentation into your software to display it properly?
If he has a video file, is it a codec (video file type) that your software can run?
Does the presentation have audio?
Will the speaker advance his own slides or is the presentation timed?
If he uses his computer, what kind of video connections does it have?
Is your system compatible with his video connections?
Does he want to use his laptop on the platform?
If so does his laptop need audio connected at the platform?
It often surprises me how unprepared churches are for this even though this speaker has been on the calendar for months. Instead, we give the tech team 10-15 minutes to hopefully figure out how to make it work. Worse, often they don’t have the right tools to make this work properly. We’ve set them up for failure and it’s frustrating for everyone involved.
So what can we do?
1. Communicate. Include your tech team in an email with the visiting speaker about their presentation needs. Maybe they can even make suggestions ahead of time about what can be done to make sure the presentation works.
2. Plan ahead. See if you can get a copy of the presentation ahead of time and test it to make sure everything works. That way you’re not scrambling right before the service.
3. Evaluate your video system. Maybe it’s time to invest in a better computer, updated equipment or better software to make things easy to use.
Guest presentations are not rare events, so let’s be ready. Instead of being a frustrating part of your Sunday, they won’t be a big deal at all. It just takes a little planning and the right equipment.
