Bad speaking situations and lessons learned.
As a speaker and entertainer with over 30 years experience, I've had my share of nightmare speaking and performing conditions. The best thing that can come from a bad situation is that we learn something which will prevent it from happening again! Let me share some of my worst memories...and what I learned.
The Nightmare: Booked to perform 30 minutes of comedy at a New Years Eve Party, I was introduced at 11 pm, one hour before the stroke of midnight. To accommodate my portion of the entertainment, they stopped the dancing. The 300 people at the party were not happy. Then I discovered that the sound system was horrible. Only the people in the first two rows could hear me well. The people in the middle could hear me a little. The people in the back couldn't hear me at all. So the ones in the back of the room started talking amongst themselves! The chatter from the back of the room resulted in the middle of the room not hearing anything I was saying, so they also started talking. You get the picture: A tsunami of indifference was sweeping toward the front of the room. Soon only the front row could hear small portions of my program. Disaster. When it was over, I didn't hang around to meet the audience. And I almost swore I'd never perform again. Almost.
