Impact of audience size on presentation style

How you present should change depending on audience size. On November 21, 2017 I blogged about Is a large audience on where a speaker needs a microphone? Is a small audience one where everyone can see a flipchart? As shown above, presenting to 16 people in a board room can and should be way less formal than presenting to 128 people in a university lecture hall (with a stage, lectern, and microphone). Small hand gestures will be visible in a board room.   

At The Illinois Model on April 19, 2019 Lou Hayes, jr. had an article titled Presentation Hack: Impact of Audience Size. Lou described how a usually impressive presenter tried to keep the same style he had used for an auditorium with 500 people in a class with 40 students. It did not work well.

Then he discussed how you can engage more with smaller audiences. He noted you also can change room layouts to other seating types like ‘town hall’ or 'horseshoe' (like a conference room minus the center table), as shown above.