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How to Host an Educational Dinner

08.02.12 01:20 AM By Randall Mauldin
Company dinners often involve speakers or lectures. For example, an employee dinner may coincide with an educational training seminar. Having educational dinners is a great way to reward your clients, potential clients and employees while still providing them with valuable information. These dinners, however, often pose a bit of a challenge for the speaker. If the lecturer is simply standing on the stage while everyone is eating, theres a good chance that no one is going to pay attention to him. Visual aids, however, increase the chances of your audience listening to what you have to say. Rental projectors offer you an opportunity to add a visual aspect to your lecture. Picking a Projector Projectors are not all made the same. They all come with different lumen settings and features. While this may sound like Greek to you, you have to take the lumen strength into account when selecting your rental projector. Generally, for a large gathering, you need a projector with at least 5,000 lumens, and you should opt for an HD projector. HD projectors have a 1920 by 1080 resolution that makes the images on the screen easier to see than lower resolution projectors, especially in difficult lighting situations. One of the main problems that presenters run into is that the rooms are never dark enough for the audience to see the images on the screen. The higher lumens and HD feature will combat this problem. Create Your Presentation People sitting at an educational dinner are never going to give you their full attention, so keep your presentation simple. The slides on the screen should have as few words as possible and should be image heavy. Also, dont pack too many slides into the lecture. You will probably only have the full attention of half the audience at any one time. The rest will be paying attention to their food or possibly chatting with their neighbors. Avoid the temptation to cycle too quickly through slides. You are probably going to have all of your data burned on to a DVD that automatically progresses through the presentation. So, talk out your speech beforehand. Time how long it takes you to cycle through each section of the talk, and then add a few additional sections on to that total. Then use this as the time between slides. You usually have custom and preset settings in slideshow programs. The settings determine for how many seconds or minutes an image stays on the screen. Dont use the presets; use the custom time settings so that the slides match up with the length of each section of your talk. Setting Up Get to the place where youll be giving the presentation early. Set up the projector and screen, and test to see if the images are large enough for people in the back of the room to see them. Then tape down any cables, and ensure that the projector is in a spot where no one will trip over it. Always respect your participants time by starting and ending on time. Good luck and enjoy your event! If you choose a slide show for your next educational dinner or after-hours gathering, be sure to rent a projector from the industry leaders: Projector123.com. a href=http://Projector123.comClick here to learn more./a