The Savvy Emcee: How to be a Dynamic Master of Ceremonies

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Introduction

Meetings, get-togethers and events are happening every day somewhere near you. And probably right now as you are reading this.

Many will be organized and run effectively. Others will leave audience members saying Well, that was a waste of time! Poor organization and a lack of leadership can prevent an organization from achieving its purpose.

Meetings are expensive. From the actual cost of running the event, paying employees to attend and incidental costs such as travel, meals and accommodation all add up.

An experienced, master of ceremonies can ensure an event is run smoothly from start to finish.

There is a need for experienced, self-confident speaking professionals to meet the events and meetings industry requirements.

This book is written to fast-track anyone who wants to learn how to emcee events.

Welcome to The Savvy Emcee: How to Be a Dynamic Master of Ceremonies.

The content of this book is derived from my previous book E=Emcee Squared: Tips & Techniques to Becoming a Dynamic Master of Ceremonies published in 2014.

This expanded edition will be helpful to those of you who have been thrust into the position of having to emcee an event with short notice and without experience as well as those who are more experienced and are thinking about earning income and perhaps turning their emceeing into a side-hustle or a full-time business.

Later on in the book I delve into public speaking skills development as it is one of the basic skills required to serve as a Master of Ceremonies. You will notice I use the terms master of ceremonies, MC and emcee interchangeably throughout the book.

Before we get started with all the exciting tips and techniques, let me share with you why I created this book in the first place.

My professional career has been as a Registered Nurse working predominantly in mental health and psychiatry. I can’t recall there being many if any opportunities to practice my craft of emceeing while working in that capacity. In fact, being an Emcee hasn’t even featured on my bucket list of things I need to accomplish before I pass on to the afterlife.

You might have noticed I called emceeing a craft in the previous paragraph. I truly believe it is. For me, becoming a proficient master of ceremonies developed incrementally while participating in hundreds, if not thousands of weekly Toastmasters meetings.

I joined Toastmasters to develop my public speaking skills. Before joining, I was terrified of standing and speaking before a group, public speaking as it is commonly referred to.

I quickly learned public speaking and leadership went hand-in-hand. To be an effective leader, you need to be a good communicator. To be an effective speaker, you need to be a good leader.

The Toastmasters program provided me ample opportunities to develop my emceeing skills in their weekly meetings as well as outside of the club environment. The weekly club meeting and program provides as many speaking opportunities for its members as can be packed into the amount of time allotted. The different roles, while providing speaking opportunities, also provide varying levels of leadership skill building. The basic leadership skills you learn are readily usable for the more challenging roles you take on.

My journey to becoming an accomplished Toastmaster has included many leadership roles and positions. Each has brought its own challenges and lessons learned. In my early years in Toastmasters I recall being volunteered to introduce an Area Governor at a speech contest gathering that was being hosted locally. The Area Governor’s role was to officiate at the speech contest, that is, emcee the event.

I recall being terrified having to go up onto the stage, with everyone staring at me while I introduced the Area Governor. The very next year… I was the Area Governor!

A lot can happen in a year. I found I actually liked standing on the stage, with all the audience’s eyes on me.

Since then I have taken on ever-increasingly challenging leadership roles in Toastmasters such as Division Governor, Lieutenant Governor of Education & Training (LGET), District Governor and Past District Governor.

Outside of Toastmasters I have taken on leadership roles as a Director, then the Chair of a local entrepreneur’s society. In that capacity I organized 30 or so Townhall meetings which were panel discussions with local, experienced entrepreneurs discussing issues of importance to those interested in the topic of the meeting.

My role included subject development, speaker recruitment, speaker coaching, marketing and promoting the event, selling registrations, developing the agenda/timeline, moderating the event and providing post event follow-up.

Many of those activities could arguably be described as being an event planner’s duties. As an Emcee, I take a proactive approach and don’t leave anything to chance.

Throughout this book I provide you with tips and techniques I have learned along the way in becoming an effective Master of Ceremonies and turning it into a business venture. As Mr. Emcee (my business name) I provide master of ceremonies and event organizing services in my local market.

The task of emceeing is very much like the proverbial tip of an iceberg i.e. much of what takes place is behind the scenes where the public doesn’t see. Far too many people have the view anyone can walk onto a stage, announce a bunch of names, crack a few jokes and be effective.

Nothing could be further from the truth! As you will see, I share with you the "behind the scenes" details needed to be a dynamic Master of Ceremonies.

Throughout this book you will notice I use a conversational style of writing. Sure, you don’t get to speak back to me but it might be helpful to read the book as if I was coaching you.

This book is written from the perspective that you the reader has a basic concept of what is involved in being a Master of Ceremonies but would like to learn more, so you can do it yourself. An Emceeing for Dummies, if you will. Not that you are a dummy of course…

As in other articles and books I have written, I utilize what I call an "onion" approach. In exploring a topic, we peel layer after layer away, so we get to the essence of the subject. Much like peeling back the layers of an onion but hopefully, without all the tears that often accompany doing so. I hope you find this appealing! Okay, that’s the only pun I will be using… maybe.

In my first edition of this book, I leveraged Albert Einstein’s name recognition with E=MC [squared] and applied it to our topic.

The MC (Emcee) portion should be fairly obvious. But what about the E portion of the formula? Drawing from the field of public speaking and leadership, E can have multiple meanings (all of which you should be):

Entertaining

Educational

Enthusiastic

Endearing

Encouraging

Effortless

Economic [of time]

Efficient

Early

Engaging

I could likely pull out my dictionary and overwhelm you with a plethora of words that start with E, so I will stop here.

You will see Albert Einstein throughout this book as I have put him to work in introducing sage advice in our Tips From the Pros sections.

One last comment before we get started. While this book provides a systematic approach to serving as a dynamic Emcee, your self-confidence, poise, courage, public speaking skills and courage to take on a role many others would avoid at all costs, will go a long way in ensuring your success.

Those are all factors that are beyond the scope of this book. However, if I can do it… you can too!

Rae Stonehouse a.k.a. Mr. Emcee

Part I

Logistics

2 Take Charge: The success of your event depends upon you!

Yes, the success of any event falls onto the shoulders of everyone who is organizing it. The challenge can be in identifying who actually is in charge? An event, or even a smaller scale meeting can have several key players.

There may be a Meeting Planner/Organizer involved.

Likely, the event would have to be larger in scale for them to gain revenue from the venture, however many volunteer their time and expertise to worthy causes. Their role is to oversee the logistics of the entire event.

A larger event can be broken down to smaller mini events. They may engage you to take on the role of emceeing a specific portion of the larger scale event. This can provide challenges for you. More about this later.

You can also have a client or event sponsor taking on an active leadership role. While they have a vested interest in the success of the event, after all they are paying for it, they may not have the organizational skills and everything else you bring as a Master of Ceremonies. Their involvement may not be helpful.

Taking charge does not mean acting as a military general where only you know the battle plan. It isn’t about issuing orders that must be followed. It is helpful to think of your role as being that of an orchestra conductor.

While strategy is necessary, the event goes much smoother if everyone is working from the same page. I don’t have a musical background, but I do know the conductor leads the musicians to play from the same page, together and adding to each other’s sound. When that doesn’t happen… I guess that’s what they call Jazz!

A helpful tip is to insist on the client designating a single person to be the go-to-person to solve problems. Quite often there can be last-minute changes to the agenda or on-the-spot input that can change the agenda. Simply insist all changes to the agenda and announcements come from the designated client representative. That way the client is in control of the meeting and you look good in their eyes.

An Emcee should have the ability to ACE an event.

The three A’s:

Awake - make them laugh and they will pay attention.

Alert - look forward to your next quip.

Alive - even if the speaker you introduce bores them, they will anticipate your return, expecting more fun.

The three C’s:

Current - talk about today’s news events or this event.

Clever - intellectually funny, not silly.

Concise - say it quickly, make your point, get off.

Should the client request a serious set of introductions then you employ...

The three E’s:

Excitement - about the person or company.

Enthusiasm - about what they do.

Energy - to keep attention even if the subject is dry.

The right Emcee can make or break your event. It is important to position yourself as the right person.

Source: Unknown

3 Get Organized

Event organizing can be a lot like cat juggling.

As the Emcee your role is to create order from chaos. Quite often your client has an idea about the way they want their event to flow but they really don’t know how to make it happen. That’s where you come in. I liken emceeing to cat juggling. Metaphorically of course!

Okay, so they may actually be dogs in the picture above, but I think you get the idea… [I thought they were cats for the longest time.]

Sometimes the cats fly where you want to and sometimes, they have a mind of their own and go where they want to.

Cats are like ideas. Your client likely has lots of them and they are flying all over the place. Your role as Emcee is to get those cats flying in formation i.e. to get all of those ideas to make sense and work together.

4 Getting Organized: Think Logistically

Consider all aspects of your event.

The Five Ws and an H provide the framework for writing any good story. They also serve well to perform a strategic analysis of any event you are organizing. We will break them down to logistical questions you should ask as the first step in organizing an event.

Who:

Who is the client? Contact info?

Who do you report to?

Who do you approach during the event if there is a problem?

Who will be participating or speaking in the program? Examples: keynote speakers, VIPs, dignitaries (Note: we talk about introducing speakers later and the information you will need to collect from them.)

Who will be in the audience?

What:

What is the nature of the event?

Is the event intended to be educational, informative, entertaining, thought provoking, to provide recognition? Any of the above, or all?

What does the planned program look like i.e. structure, elements?

When:

What is the date and time of the event?

Will you have any duties to perform before or after the actual speaking portion of the event? Example: Meeting & greeting at a pre-meeting reception or post event get-together. Corralling guests from a reception to the main room.

Are there any plans in place for rescheduling the event if unforeseen and insurmountable challenges occur?

Where:

What is the location of the event i.e. the street address?

What specific room will the event be held in at the location?

Where will you be emceeing from i.e. is there a stage, head table etc.

Are there any environmental concerns? Example: If your event is outside could weather have an effect on the program i.e. wind, rain, snow etc.

Why:

What is the purpose of this event? What does the hosting organization hope to achieve? Are there any hidden agendas?

How:

How will the hosting organization determine whether this event is a success or not?

How will the hosting organization determine if your participation in the event is a success or not?

Think Logistically: What do you need to know that you don’t know but you really should know?

Thinking logistically is very much