16 Audience Engagement Strategies for Memorable Events

Your next event could be one your attendees talk about for years to come. 

But how do you make it memorable? The key is intentional, engaging event design.

We’ve taken a look at the audience engagement strategies used by  our top event organisersand distilled them here for your benefit. From innovative technology to a surprising touch of humour, you have a wide variety of tools at your disposal. Read on to learn how to make your event something attendees will remember for years to come.

1. Capture your attendees’ attention

The traditional presentation format isn’t the most exciting. You can encourage the speakers at your events to ditch the slide deck and curate a hands-on session designed to make attendees more present. .

Set up your event with spaces for people to sit, stand, chat, or even stretch out, and you may notice they’re more engaged, participate more, and feel more involved overall.

When Brighton Yoga Festival organised the Brighton Yoga Festival 2024, they made sure it wouldn’t just be speakers and Q&As. Appropriately, there would be plenty of yoga workshops, sound baths and classes for attendees to get involved in.

Keeping your audience focused can be even more challenging if you’re hosting a virtual event. In fact, 61% of event professionals surveyed said virtual attendee engagement is their biggest challenge.

For virtual audiences, short and sweet is often the way forward  — keep each section or breakout brief, and keep things moving along. Your audience will feel the difference.

2. Prepare speakers to engage the audience

Even the most experienced speakers get nervous about public speaking sometimes and can have a hard time connecting with the audience. 

That’s why it’s so important to prepare your speakers with built-in audience participation activities. 

These issues can be magnified during a virtual event, where the audience is already physically removed from the speaker. To bridge the distance between the speaker and the audience, it helps to make your speaker as comfortable as possible. 

Ensure that your speaker is familiar with any tools and technology involved in the presentation. If they have tools they can use for audience interaction, speakers need to feel confident using them. Even better, do a quick run-through before the event, which can double as a check of your tech equipment.

For hybrid events, gently remind your speaker to engage virtually as well as with your live attendees. It’s a good idea to allow people to send questions before as well as during the event, so virtual attendees can have their questions answered as well.

3. Use icebreakers to make the audience more comfortable 

When you’re kicking off your event, you want to engage your audience right away. There are a variety of tried-and-tested methods to break the ice.

• The show of hands: Have your speakers prepare a question or two to ask right off the bat. This is a classic for drawing in the audience.
• The voluntary share: Ask for volunteers to share why they’re here and what they hope to get out of the talk.
• The group exercise: Depending on the size of the crowd and how much time a speaker has, a quick group exercise is another great way to get people involved.

Virtual formats have their own techniques for connecting speakers with the audience. Consider incorporating custom polls, the Zoom “hand raise”, and breakout rooms — but be careful these don’t interrupt the flow of your presentations.

4. Use tech tools to create conversations

Technology is one way to include audience members who are shy about raising their hands to speak up. It can also create new layers of engagement aside from verbal conversation.

Certain apps allow presenters to conduct live polling of their audience. Presenters ask a question, and participants answer via their mobile devices or through a streaming service, such as Zoom, if your event includes a virtual component. You then display the results in real-time on a screen (on stage or virtually).

You can bring that capability into the rest of your event as well. Whether it’s vendors surveying attendees on what demos they want to see ahead of time or a musical act learning what songs the audience wants to hear, live polling can be a great way for everyone’s voice to be heard.

Live polling lets speakers know that their audience is on the same page. At the same time, it helps encourage everyone to pay attention.

Alternatively, you can curate Q&As where the audience members type in their questions. Speakers choose the best ones to answer live — a digital equivalent to a “fireside chat.” It might be a good idea to prepare some Q’s for your Q&A beforehand so if the audience is shy, you are ready to get the session going right away.

5. Come up with prompts that inspire audience participation

Looking directly at a random audience member and asking them a direct question might backfire. Ask questions people want to answer without making them feel like they’re on the spot. Ask questions that spark stories, like “Has anyone had a bad experience with social media they’d like to share?”

Sometimes, a question can be so general that it’s actually rhetorical: “Who remembers their first day of secondary school?” Even if you don’t expect a response, questions like this get the audience to reflect, which draws them in. Or reward participants with freebies like t-shirts or coffee gift cards and watch the questions pour in. Consider giving your audience prompts prior to the event to allow them to process their response — when it’s time for questions, they’ll be primed to share.

When Sam and Kaz Keller created their ChatGPT workshop, they knew they’d want to make it interactive. That’s why they built in some fun activities that would inspire responses from their audience, like telling them to prompt ChatGPT to tell a joke. Then, the audience members could share their experiences with smiles on their faces.

6. Plan for all possible responses

When you ask for audience participation, there’s always a risk you’ll hear answers you didn’t count on. Or, worse, no one will volunteer to raise their hand or share.

Coach your speakers to react quickly when they don’t get the response they expected. Having a ready answer for questions that might stump the audience can be effective. Likewise, a simple, self-effacing joke works wonders, relaxing the audience and revealing an appealing self-confidence at the same time.

This is especially true when you build your event around audience participation and questions. For example, when the Asentiv Ireland Team planned their Winning New Clients Q&A, they needed to make sure they were ready for any possible questions that could come their way. 

7. Get attendees’ feedback

Real-time polling apps have another purpose: to get event feedback while it’s still fresh in people’s minds. You can also use an email survey app like SurveyMonkey to ask participants for feedback shortly after it concludes.

To make it super easy, you can import guest lists into your email with Eventbrite’s SurveyMonkey extension.

With a combination of strategic planning and in-the-moment action, you can avoid a one-sided event.

Appropriately, Adventures in Apparel’s Pitch Development Workshop incorporated plenty of opportunities for audience feedback. From breakout and group discussions to written responses to the workshop, their audience was actively engaged.

8. Help attendees connect

Creating networking opportunities within your event can spark meaningful connections among attendees. Incorporate structured networking sessions into your event schedule, such as speed networking rounds, which allow individuals to meet several others quickly. 

For virtual events, consider utilising a “breakout rooms” feature on platforms like Zoom to foster small group discussions. Additionally, you can design dedicated “networking zones” in physical events or create virtual “networking lounges” for online attendees.

An event-specific mobile app or online platform can also facilitate connections by enabling attendees to chat, schedule meetings, or share contact information. Lastly, consider hosting social activities such as cocktail hours or themed parties as a part of the event, which provides a more casual atmosphere for attendees to mingle and connect. 

9. Consider the ambience

Believe it or not, the environment of your venue plays a part in how much audience members are willing to participate. Make sure the room is warm (but not so warm people fall asleep) and that snacks and water are readily available. Once they’re comfortable, people are more likely to relax and open up.

For virtual events, the concerns have less to do with the physical ambience but a lot to do with the online environment. You can greet everyone to make them feel comfortable and start with some casual conversation to encourage audience participation early on.

While it is impractical to include all audience members in an online presentation, it does emphasise how important it can be to engage your virtual audience as much as possible since the format inherently creates some distance.

It helps if you build your event around the ambience. GONG’s sound bath events are always in relaxed, comfortable environments like yoga studios. Of course, the use of powerfully relaxing sounds also helps!

10. Address all learning styles

Learning styles refer to the ways individuals process information, often influencing how they learn best. The most commonly recognised learning styles include:

• Visual: learning through seeing
• Auditory: learning through listening
• Kinesthetic: learning through movement or hands-on experiences
• Reading/writing: learning through written words
• Logical: learning using rational ordered methods
• Social: learning through collaboration and communication
• Solitary: learning independently
• Naturalistic: learning through hands-on experience in the natural world

Addressing different learning styles in an event setting can significantly enhance attendee engagement. Not everyone absorbs information in the same way. Incorporating diverse methods of information delivery — such as visual displays, spoken presentations, hands-on workshops, and reading materials — caters to the different learning styles, increasing the likelihood that all attendees will grasp and retain the information conveyed.

This approach fosters an inclusive event environment, ensuring that every attendee has the opportunity to fully participate and gain value from the event, thereby improving their overall experience.

11. Create bite-sized takeaways

Engaging an audience doesn’t end with the event itself — it’s a continuous process, and bite-sized takeaways can play a crucial role. These are small, easily understandable pieces of information or insights that attendees can quickly grasp and remember. They have the power to reinforce the concepts discussed during the event, making the learning experience more effective and enjoyable.

In the pre-event marketing phase, these takeaways can be shared via social media, newsletters, or event apps to pique interest and give potential attendees a glimpse into the value they can expect from the event. This could be in the form of event highlights, speaker quotes, or infographics that encapsulate key insights.

During the event, these small nuggets of knowledge can be distributed as part of the presentation, as handouts or digital downloads, shared via live tweets, event app notifications, or in a follow-up email after the event. They act as reinforcement tools, aiding attendees in assimilating and recalling the information presented to them.

13. Make them laugh

Just adding a little humour to your event can make all the difference. Why? Laughter is not just the best medicine but also a remarkable tool to keep that wandering audience’s focus right on target. 

In the words of Professor Jennifer Aaker, “Showing your sense of humour can make your peers and your friends attribute more perceptions of confidence and status to us while also cultivating a sense of trust.”

To incorporate a little more humour in a presentation, start with something relatable, maybe a funny anecdote or a hilarious work mishap. Keep it light and relevant, and please, no inside jokes — you don’t want to be the only one laughing! Remember, the goal is to make your audience chuckle, not to audition for a Netflix stand-up special. 

13. Boost social media engagement

Social media engagement is another great way to keep your audience engaged. Posting timely updates, live tweeting sessions, and even inviting audience members to contribute their own questions or topics of discussion are all ways to keep the conversation going.

By advertising your event on social media with tools like the Eventbrite marketing suite, you can build audience engagement online as well as in person. By using social media for events, your attendees can even keep the conversation going afterwards!

Make sure to incorporate a dedicated hashtag and encourage interaction with your X account. That way, people can stay connected to the event before, during, and after.

14. Signpost the event

Signposting an event aids in maintaining audience engagement by providing a clear roadmap of the event structure. This makes it easier for attendees to navigate the various sessions or activities. It allows them to anticipate what’s coming up next, manage their time effectively, and plan their participation accordingly.

Signposts, such as a detailed agenda or an event programme, also set expectations upfront, minimising potential confusion or disappointment and enhancing the overall attendee experience. They also foster a sense of excitement and anticipation toward the event’s upcoming segments or high-profile speakers.

Signposting contributes to a more engaging and satisfactory event experience by enabling attendees to fully understand and appreciate the flow of the event. For instance, the Singapore Red Cross’s humanitarian conference was advertised with an exact agenda and detailed information on every item. That kept the audience engaged and excited for what was next.

15. Incentivise engagement

Incentivising engagement with prizes and swag can work wonders to keep the attendees active and invested. Start by integrating competitions or games into your event schedule, with prizes awarded to the winners. 

These could be trivia quizzes, scavenger hunts, or social media engagement contests such as “best tweet” or “most creative Instagram post” for the event. The prizes can range from branded merchandise and discount vouchers to more valuable gifts like tech gadgets or tickets to future events.

Additionally, offer goody bags as a token of appreciation for attendees’ participation. These can be filled with practical items like branded stationery, water bottles, or t-shirts, or even virtual swag for online events, such as e-books, digital wallpapers, or discount codes for online courses. This incentivises engagement and extends the event experience beyond its timeline as attendees continue to use and appreciate these items.

The key is to make your incentives relevant and appealing to your audience. 

16. Make your theme coherent

Having a coherent event theme is a strategic approach to captivating your attendees and keeping them engaged. A well-chosen theme provides a unified narrative that ties all the aspects of your event together, creating a seamless and exciting experience for the attendees.

From the visual aesthetics and promotional materials to the content of presentations or workshops, a consistent theme brings harmonisation and facilitates understanding. It helps set the tone of the event, guide the expectations of the attendees, and give them a ready-made topic to connect over. 

Moreover, a strong theme can evoke emotions and create a memorable impression, leaving attendees with a lasting connection to your event.

How to include audience feedback before the event begins

Audience engagement is an art that combines multiple strategies, from leveraging technology to acknowledging learning styles to incentivising participation and maintaining a consistent theme. When used effectively, these methods create an immersive and memorable experience for attendees and nurture a lasting connection with your event.Engaging your audience becomes much easier when you’ve invited the perfect target audience. That’s why Eventbrite Ads are so useful: you can reach people who are already using Eventbrite to find events like yours.