Preparing the environment

Pre-recognition of the room and sound check

Familiarity with the physical space drastically reduces uncertainty and thus stage fright.

A professional speaker never arrives at the event at the same time as the audience; they arrive early enough (ideally one hour or during pre-breaks) to conduct a reconnaissance of the venue.

This survey includes walking the stage to detect shadow areas, obstacles or creaks in the stage, and performing a thorough sound check.

It is not enough to just say "hello" into the microphone; you must speak at the actual volume and loudness that will be used, asking the technicians to adjust the equalization to avoid metallic or overly bass sounds.

Space and audience management

Knowing the dimensions of the room allows you to plan the power needed. If the venue is huge but attendance is sparse, energy will dissipate into the void, making the presentation feel cold.

In these cases, an effective tactic is to proactively ask attendees to move to the front rows, compacting the group.

This action of "clustering" the audience improves acoustics, facilitates eye contact and creates an atmosphere of greater intimacy and emotional density, which benefits both the speaker and the listeners.

Having control over the physical layout of the environment is the first step to having control over the dynamics of communication.

Summary

Recognizing the physical space beforehand