TJ Walker examines President Obama's presentation and Q and A with House Republicans
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You should always test the quality of your microphones and speakers before giving a public presentation. But don't just test them from your own standpoint as a speaker; you need to judge the audio or video quality from the viewpoint of the audience-ALL of the audience.
It doesn't matter if you are speaking to 20 people at a local Rotary Club at the neighborhood YMCA or if you are in front of tens of thousands of people at Shea Stadium, audio blunders will occur, and, thus, ruin your presentation.
I was attending the U.S. Open Tennis tournament in Arthur Ashe Stadium right next to Shea Stadium in Queens New York. This a GRAND SLAM event for goodness sake. Before the men's singles final championship began, there was a hall of fame induction for John McEnroe, Margaret Court, and Jack Kramer----major tennis luminaries!
Everything about his event oozed big time money and class. Network TV was there, Major Corporate sponsors. Jack Nicholson mugging for the cameras. $14 dollar hot dog!
However, with the tens of millions of dollars floating around, one little detail was overlooked: the sound system. When tennis journalist/emcee Bud Collins introduced all of the inductees, no one could hear him speak beyond the lowest level of the massive tennis stadium. It was obvious that the lowest level could hear, because these people were laughing and applauding at all the right spots. The rest of the audience was left scratching its head-all 20,000 of us. All the tennis greats gave speechs, ending with McEnroe, who gave a very funny talk. Or at least I think it was a funny speech; the 5000 people in the best seats were laughing hysterically. I had no idea what he was saying.
The point of all of this is not to make you feel sorry for me for having to sit in the cheap seats at the US Open. The point is that whoever was in charge of setting up the audio system for the presentations at the US open should have done a simple test the morning of the event: Have one person speak into the microphone while another person goes to the worst seat at the top of the stadium and gives a thumbs up or down when asked, "can you hear me?"
Always test your audio equipment, or at lest make sure someone you trust checks the audio equipment before you make a presentation, no matter how large or small or fancy the venue is.
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