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Proper Conference Room Setup Makes Presenting Much Easier

The downside is true as well. Improper conference room setup can actually make you more nervous and make delivering the presentation more difficult.

This post has two parts. Part one is about The Different Conference Room Styles . In that section, I’ll give you different conference room setup options with pros and cons of each. Then, in Part Two, I’ll give you the Best Practices for How to Set Up a Conference Room and how to set up a meeting room. These best practices will help you avoid some of the big mistakes that presenters make when they set up the tables, chairs, and audiovisual for meetings.

Part One: The Pros and Cons of Different Conference Room Styles.

For instance, when I teach a leadership development class, I sometimes change the room set up at each break. This is helpful, because the purpose of the class is to increase the :comfort zone” of the participants. So, changing the way the chairs are set up or the way the tables are set up makes the participants have to move to a new seat each time.

When I teach the group how to remember names, a u-shaped room is ideal. That way, each person is able to view every other participant in the room. (They aren’t looking at the back of anybody’s head.)

However, when I cover a module on presentation skills, a chevron style classroom setup is better. This style allows the presenter to be the center of attention. It also lets every person in the audience have a great view of both the speaker and the speaker’s visual aids.

Then, in the same class on the afternoon of the first day, we cover meeting skills. In that session, I push two classroom tables together to make bigger meeting tables. And I put six to eight chairs around each table. This allows each table to operate as a separate group.

However, unless you are covering multiple topics in the same presentation, you shouldn’t need to do this, by the way. For example, when I teach a regular two-day public speaking class , I keep the same chevron-style class setting throughout the entire class.

The point is to alter the conference room set up to fit the needs of the audience. And when the needs change, alter the conference room set up as well.

List of Different Conference Room Styles:

• Theater/Auditorium

Boardroom Style: All the Participants Gather Around a Single Long and Skinny Boardroom Table.

One major advantage of the boardroom style is that almost every building has some type of conference room. Another is that the table is already set up in the room. Finally, this style is ideal if you want the participants to communicate with each other (from a seated position.) Everyone in the room can see each other face-to-face.

The major disadvantage, though is that the audio and visual components are often built into the room. So you lose a lot of flexibility with this room style. Also, when people design boardrooms, they often make the screen or display the center of attention. As a result, the presenter will often have to deliver the presentation from either side of the screen.

The other major disadvantage of this style is that if you have more than 12 people, the style doesn’t work very well. The room is too crowded and people have a hard time moving around to go to the restroom or get a coffee refill.

Still though, for a small group, a boardroom is often the best option.

U-Shaped Style: Tables Are Set in a Square Shape with One End Opened for the Presenter.

This room setup is also very easy. All you need is a minimum of three tables to set it up. The major advantage of the U-Shaped style is that the entire group can still see everyone in the room face-to-face. So, this setup is ideal for team meeting where you want the audience to communicate with each other and share ideas.

Just like with the boardroom style, though, the major disadvantage is the group size. As the group gets larger, you lose the major advantages. So, if you have 14 or 16 people, you get the same advantages of the boardroom even though the group is a little larger. However, at 18, 20, or 22 people, you begin to lose this advantage. It will be difficult and impractical to get all 22 people to participate in a discussion.

So, since you lose this value, as the group gets bigger, you may want to switch to a classroom setup.

Just as an FYI, there is an alternative style called the “open square” style. It is the same as U-Shaped, but the open end is closed off. Between you and I, I have never really found any value in this style. You lose a lot of the advantages of the U-Shaped style without adding ANY advantages.

Theater Style or Auditorium Style: Chairs Set Side-by-Side as in a Movie Theater.

The major advantage of the theater style is that you can comfortable seat a large number of people. The entire room will be able see and hear the main speaker (or speakers.) So, if you are organizing an annual meeting for hundreds (or thousands) of people, you might use this style for an opening introduction. Or, if you invite a keynote speaker or comedian to speak, this room style works well.

However, this style has a huge disadvantage. The audience has no place to write or take notes. So, if your audience has handouts or printed content, avoid this conference room style. (Use the classroom style instead.) The other major disadvantage of this room setup is that it will be very difficult to get the audience to interact each other or the speaker. So when organizing a big meeting, this conference style doesn’t have as many uses as other styles.

Classroom Style: A Series of Six foot by One Foot Tables Set Up in Rows.

The advantages are that you can comfortably fit more people using this style and everyone in the room can see the presenter. Also, every audience member has his or her own space. And no one has to sit with their back to the stage. Another huge advantage is that the speaker has more control and authority in the room. It is easier to get and keep the attention of the audience.

The only real disadvantage to this style is that you’ll have difficulty getting groups to interact in teams. If you want to create small groups to discuss items from the meeting, you may need to get a row to turn around. When you do this, you’d need to leave the stage to give instructions.

Still though, this is the conference room style that I use most often when I set up meeting rooms.

Banquet Style: Six to Ten People Gather Around Big Round Tables.

Each audience member styles gets adequate space. They also get to see the people at their table face-to-face as with the boardroom style. So, this conference room style is kind of a hybrid between classroom style and boardroom style.

A major disadvantage, though, is that this style takes up a lot of space. So, it is more expensive if you are renting space from a hotel or convention center. The other major disadvantage is that some people at the table with have limited view of the stage. They often have to turn their chairs when speakers are talking. So, they lose the advantage of having the personal space.

Still, though, this style has works well if you want a big group of people to interact with each other. It allows you to have tables discuss items with each other and brainstorm solutions to challenges.

Part Two: Best Practices for Proper Conference Room Set Up for Presentations (How to Set Up a Meeting Room.)

For instance, if you cram 20 people into a boardroom, they will be uncomfortable. You may be presenting well, but the facial expressions from the audience may be less-than-cordial. If multiple people in the room are giving you negative facial expressions, you might begin to feel a little more self-conscious.

Basically, the way you set up the conference room can either make presenting easier or make it harder. Improper room setup can cause challenges that you just don’t want or need when you present.

Below are some of my favorite ways to set up a conference room for a presentation. These are the “best practices” that I have discovered over 20 years of presenting.

1) Present from the Short-Side of the Conference Room.

In the podcast that I did about eye-contact, I gave an example of how this can cause challenges. The analogy that I used there was to think about sitting in a movie theater with only three rows of seats. If you happen to be on either end, your view isn’t great. If you are the speaker, it is even worse. It is difficult for you to keep eye contact with the people on either side of the room.

To fix this, just present from the “short” side of the room. If you are presenting in a rectangular room, you will have two short walls and two long walls. Present from the short wall that is farthest away from the main door to the room.

By the way, a good A/V person can make presenting on the long-side of the room better. They will often set up big screens on both sides of the stage. This allows the audience to be closer to the speaker and still see the visual aids. Still though, this is just fixing a symptom caused by another problem.

2) Make Yourself the Center of Attention, Not the Visual Aid.

When presenters violate this room setup tip, it can cause some major problems with delivery. For instance, the speaker will often move to the side of the room and look at the visual aid screen as he or she speaks. Obviously, the audience will look at the screen as well. Now that the visual aid is the center of attention, the speaker will often move behind the audience to continue to speak. Instead of being an interesting dialogue between the speaker and the audience, the presentation will become a monologue.

This room setup for a presentation can lead to the click… talk… click… talk method of delivery. (This is really boring.) So, move your screen to the side.

3) Get Rid of the Lectern.

If you feel like you need to have notes to deliver your presentation, make sure to read How to Memorize Your Speech . This post gives a number of tips that will allow you to deliver your entire presentation without notes.

Just so you know, standing behind a lectern is a technique that presenters sometimes use to feel more comfortable. In reality, though, it often makes people more nervous. Any time we feel threatened, we want to put something between us and the potential threat. In martial arts, students are taught to put their hands (fists) between themselves and the threat. For presenters, we put a lectern between us and the threat. A good example of how the demeanor of a presentation changes with a lectern is political debates. Candidates who feel like they have an advantage connecting with voters on a personal level always favor “town hall” style debates. (Just as an FYI, audiences do too.)

4) Place Whiteboard or Flipchart to the Proper Side When You Set Up Your Room for a Presentation.

If I forget and place the board on the wrong side of the room, I will have to cross in front of the board and stand on the opposite side to write. I makes for an awkward transition in the speech.

Also, since I’m left-handed, I pay attention to moving the whiteboard for each presenter. Just before I introduce the next speaker, I will move the stand over for a right-handed person. Obviously, if you are the meeting leader and every speaker is right-handed, this is much easier. But you’ll be surprised at how many speakers are left-handed. So, pay attention.

5) Chevron Style Room Set Up Is My Favorite Conference Room Setup Style.

Basically, you set up your room classroom style. This is rows of six-foot tables straight across. However, put an isle in the middle of the room that is maybe six-foot or so wide. Then, move the edge of the table that is on the isle back about three feet, so that the tables now angle toward the front-center of the room. Instead of the rows being straight across, now, they will be slightly “V” shaped.

When you set up your room for a presentation this way, you are creating a stage to present from. Basically, you can now walk into your isle to be closer to the audience. However, when you do, the folks on the front row don’t have to crank their necks to follow you. They will be looking directly at you.

Best Practices for Room Set Up for a Presentation in a Boardroom

If you are presenting in a boardroom, many of the tips still work. You still want to present from the short-side of the room. If the room has a dropdown screen that is in the center of the room or on the long-side of the room, you can always just project onto a whiteboard. (I do this a lot when I use boardrooms.) It allows me to be able to write on my slides as well, so it is really helpful.

The biggest suggestion I can make about presenting in a boardroom is to stand up when you speak. If everyone is seated in the boardroom (including you) when you start your presentation, just stand up to call attention to your visual aid. (Then don’t ever sit back down.)

Never, ever, ever sit on one side of a boardroom table and use visual aids on the opposite side of the table. This is the HUGE mistake that amateur presenters make that will cause your presentation to be so boring, you will put your audience to sleep. Avoid it at all costs. Stand up and use your visual aid to add to your verbal presentation — not replace it.

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530 Best Room-Themed Templates for PowerPoint & Google Slides

With over 6 million presentation templates available for you to choose from, crystalgraphics is the award-winning provider of the world’s largest collection of templates for powerpoint and google slides. so, take your time and look around. you’ll like what you see whether you want 1 great template or an ongoing subscription, we've got affordable purchasing options and 24/7 download access to fit your needs. thanks to our unbeatable combination of quality, selection and unique customization options, crystalgraphics is the company you can count on for your presentation enhancement needs. just ask any of our thousands of satisfied customers from virtually every leading company around the world. they love our products. we think you will, too" id="category_description">crystalgraphics creates templates designed to make even average presentations look incredible. below you’ll see thumbnail sized previews of the title slides of a few of our 530 best room templates for powerpoint and google slides. the text you’ll see in in those slides is just example text. the room-related image or video you’ll see in the background of each title slide is designed to help you set the stage for your room-related topics and it is included with that template. in addition to the title slides, each of our templates comes with 17 additional slide layouts that you can use to create an unlimited number of presentation slides with your own added text and images. and every template is available in both widescreen and standard formats. with over 6 million presentation templates available for you to choose from, crystalgraphics is the award-winning provider of the world’s largest collection of templates for powerpoint and google slides. so, take your time and look around. you’ll like what you see whether you want 1 great template or an ongoing subscription, we've got affordable purchasing options and 24/7 download access to fit your needs. thanks to our unbeatable combination of quality, selection and unique customization options, crystalgraphics is the company you can count on for your presentation enhancement needs. just ask any of our thousands of satisfied customers from virtually every leading company around the world. they love our products. we think you will, too.

Widescreen (16:9) Presentation Templates. Change size...

Doctors during surgery in operation room in hospital on a blue background

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Board room conference table with paper and pens, expenses, losses, earnings, profits arrows

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Three male kids sitting and smiling in a class room setting

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Newborn baby being examined in delivery room

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Slide set consisting of high angle view of nurses performing crp on dummy patient while doctor standing by in hospital room

Lots of people in a conference room having a business meeting

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Slides consisting of three iv's hand on a stand in a hospital room backdrop

Slide deck having midsection of nurse performing crp on dummy patient in hospital room

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Smiling nurse with stethoscope around neck pulls curtain to patient room aside

Beautiful room with open window leading to sunflower field and cloudy?sky?

Grey conference room in an office building with chairs for meeting on team communication

Conference room with microphones and empty wooden chairs

A number of laptops in an office meeting room

Afro-American mother playing with her two sons and room

PPT theme enhanced with beautiful decorations for baby shower party in room

3D team of technical support persons in communication room

Presentation design featuring exhausted nurse on duty in the emergency room of a clinic with coronavirus and covid-19 pandemic

A number of people in a meeting room with a table

More room templates for powerpoint and google slides:.

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How to Optimize Room Setup for Training and Presentations

If your audience seating arrangement and overall room setup isn’t aligned with the design of your session, you are starting from a position of weakness.

In this article, we describe the core principles that factor into your room setup choices. We then offer an in-depth view of several popular options, and point out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Finally, we end with tips you can use to optimize the room for your audience and set yourself up for success.

Core Principles for Choosing a Seating Setup

Before we dig into the many seating styles available, let’s first review the high-level audience-centric principles which will guide your choices.

• Comfort  — Are audience members able to participate fully while facing forward? Or do they need to constantly twist around? Is there enough room for them to get to their seat easily? Will they be bumping into one another constantly? If they are comfortable, they can focus on listening to you.
• Sight lines — Can audience members see the presenter? The slides? Each other? Clear sight lines allow your audience to absorb the visual component of your message, whether it be slides, body language, or anything else.
• Utility  — Is a surface provided for using a laptop, taking notes, practice exercises, eating, or drinking? You want your audience members to be active learners, so give them space to do it.
• Proximity  — Are audience members relatively close to the screen, the presenter, and each other? Or is it sparse seating? Too far apart drains energy from the room, but too close can be uncomfortable.
• Compatibility — Is the layout of the room and the seating arrangement optimal for the style of presentation/training being offered? Does it support slide content? Large-group discussions? Small-group exercises?

These five principles will be our focus as we tour many popular seating styles available for your room.

Theater Style Seating Setup

Theater style seating is a series of chairs arranged in parallel rows, all facing forward to the front of the room. No tables are provided. Most large lecture theaters and movie theaters are arranged this way.

• Allows high-density seating; that is, for a given room size, theater style seating maximizes the potential audience size.
• Because audience members are close to each other and the speaker, this arrangement tends to maximize the energy in the room.

Disadvantages

• No surface on which to place laptops, writing pads, food, or any other items.
• Poor sight lines for people sitting near the front corners and, in very large rooms, people sitting toward the back and along the sides.
• Angle of seats may require some audience members to “twist” their body to face the speaker or screen.
• May be cumbersome to get to seats, depending on locations of walking aisles.
• Less overall comfort (i.e. hot, stuffy) due to high density.
• Audience members have essentially zero eye contact with each other, making discussions inconvenient and unlikely.

Best for…

• Presentations for large audiences where the information flow is one-way (from speaker to audience) and there is no requirement for taking notes or using laptops.

Classroom Style Seating Setup

Classroom style seating is a series of tables (or desks) and chairs arranged in parallel rows, all facing toward the front of the room.

• Tables (or desks) provide space for laptops, note-taking, and food.
• Highest density of any seating arrangement involving tables or desks.
• Poor sight lines for people sitting near the front corners.
• Angle of seats and tables requires some audience members to twist their body to face the speaker or screen.
• Training sessions where most audience members are taking notes or using laptops, and where most of the information flows from the speaker to the audience.

Boardroom Style Seating Setup

Boardroom style seating is a single large table (or several smaller tables butting up against one another) surrounded by chairs on both sides. The most common shape is rectangular (as shown in the diagram), but variations include both circular or square tables.

• Lots of eye contact between audience members promotes discussion.
• Tables allow for laptops, note-taking, and food.
• Terrible sight lines to view slides for many audience members, particularly those at the “far end”.
• Even worse sight lines from audience members to see the presenter, who must either stand to the side (not good) or sit (worse).
• Multi-tasking (e.g. using a laptop while viewing slides or the presenter) requires lots of body twisting.
• Depending on length (and shape) of table(s), audience members at the extreme ends can feel isolated. Tables which are circular or square can mitigate this.
• Small groups focused on discussion and making decisions where there’s no primary presenter and little reliance on slides.

U-Shaped Style Seating Setup

U-shaped style seating is a series of tables forming three sides of a square or rectangle, with seating arranged around the outside. In this arrangement, all seats face the middle of the “U” shape.

• Clear sight lines (both audience-to-presenter and audience-to-audience) fosters large group discussions.
• Presenter can walk into open space within the “U”; this creates a unique dynamic because they are “immersed” within the audience.
• Tends to lead to very low density seating, and thus requires a larger room for the same size audience.
• Audience members at the “bottom” of the “U” are seated a large distance from screen, leading to several bad results: [a] readability of slides or flip charts is reduced, [b] participants are more easily distracted, and [c] participants are more likely to lose focus.
• Audience members in the “corners” can feel relatively isolated.
• Training sessions which are designed to emphasize large group interactions, with less emphasis on slide content.

Banquet Style Seating Setup

Banquet style seating is when a number of tables are scattered throughout the room, with seating arranged entirely around each table. Tables are often circular, but can be other shapes as well.

• Tables create focal points which promote small-group discussions.
• Small group settings create feelings of inclusiveness, and counteract the isolated feeling or anonymity that individual participants may feel within a large group.
• Many people are naturally facing away from screen, and must turn away from table to see slides or presenter.
• Tables can promote side chatter among groups unrelated to event goals.
• Table space can be limited, depending how many people are seated at each table. (i.e. there is less individual space compared to classroom, boardroom, or U-shaped style seating)
• Moving to/from seats can be cumbersome, depending on overall room size and walking aisles.
• Training sessions which are designed to emphasize small-group exercises, with less emphasis on slide content.

Cabaret Style Seating Setup

Cabaret style seating is when a number of tables are scattered throughout the room, with seating arranged only partly around each table. This avoids anyone sitting with their back to the front of the room where the speaker or screen are located.

• Most people are facing screen and presenter with limited twisting.
• Lower density compared with Banquet style seating. More tables and a larger room are required for the same number of people.
• Training sessions which are designed to emphasize a balance between small-group exercises and slide content.

Chevron Style Seating Setup

Chevron style seating (or V-shaped seating) is when tables are arranged in a series of angular patterns relative to one another, with seating on one side so that every chair is oriented optimally to face the screen or speaker. In narrow rooms, tables might be arranged in true “V”-shapes (as shown in the diagram); in wider rooms, tables might be arranged with a central “wing” connecting the two ends of the “V”, like this: \_/ .

• Everyone faces the screen and presenter, so nobody has to twist their chair. Note-taking or using a laptop is thus comfortable for everyone.
• Many audience members are now able to make full or partial eye contact with each other, promoting group discussion.
• Relatively high density (similar to Classroom seating).
• Individual tables support small-group exercises.
• While some large group discussion is supported, it isn’t ideal because some people are still looking at the backs of other people’s heads.
• Training sessions which are designed to emphasize slide content, but also want to incorporate some small-group exercises and some large-group discussion.

What is the Best Seating Arrangement?

It depends! There’s no single seating arrangement that works best for all speakers and all settings. I have had productive sessions (both as the speaker and as an audience member) in all of the above arrangements, and I’ve also been in many rooms which were not set up properly to support the goals of the session.

A trainer who trained me several times usually adopts U-shaped style seating, because her courses rely heavily on large-group discussion, and she feels very comfortable sitting in the middle of the “U”.

On the other hand, I generally prefer chevron style seating for the courses that I teach, because I feel it offers the best blend of comfort and flexibility to support the slide content, large-group discussions, and small-group exercises which I design into my courses.

Tips for Optimizing the Room for Your Audience

Regardless of the seating arrangement that you choose for your event, be thoughtful and action-oriented when it comes to setting up your room for success. Every style above can be modified and enhanced to further support your goals.

• Be proactive. Plan for success. The overall success of the presentation or training session reflects on you. Ask questions about what is possible. Think about the seating arrangement that will best support your format, and make it happen.
• Show up early and roll up your sleeves. If the room isn’t set up as you requested (and if the furniture isn’t all bolted to the floor), then go ahead and move it. Several times, I’ve asked for chevron-style seating with tables, and discovered that the tables were stacked at the back of the room. Moving them was a small effort to invest in the success of the training session.
• Pull the seats forward. When your audience is unnecessarily far away from you, it’s harder for them to hear you, harder for them to read your slides, and harder for you to connect with them. I have routinely moved all of the seats forward to improve this situation.
• Eliminate unnecessary seats. Suppose you know that your audience is going to be 30 people, but the room is set up with 6 rows of 10 chairs each (=60 seats total). Most people tend to choose a seat toward the back. The result is that most of your audience will sit in the back half of the room. This reduces the overall energy in the group, and makes it harder for them to hear you and see you (and your slides). You have several options: [a] push the chairs/tables all the way back so they aren’t an option, [b] tip the chairs on the back rows forward to indicate they are blocked, or [c] “tape” them off.
• Identify and solve sight line problems. Check the seats in the corners to make sure that someone sitting there can see [a] the screen, [b] you (even as you move around) and [c] any other equipment you’ll be using (e.g. flip charts, white boards, etc.). I recently delivered a training session in a long, narrow room which could only be set up in Boardroom style. The consequence was that most participants would not be able to see both the screen and the flip chart if I left them side by side. So, I decided to pull the flip chart to a central location when I needed it, and then push it away again to support focusing on slides.
• Plan your movement with room constraints in mind. Remember that your body will block sight lines too. Map out where you can stand to avoid blocking your audience’s view of the screen, whiteboard, or flip chart.
• Design your slides with room constraints in mind. If you know that the room will be set up in such a way that everyone past the front row can’t see the bottom 10% of your slides (which is the case in many rooms), then don’t place any useful information there.

Which seating arrangements do you prefer?

As a speaker or trainer, which seating style helps you achieve your goals?

As an audience member, which seating style is most conducive to your goals?

Have you ever been in a room which was set up in a way that contradicted the goals of the session?

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Yes – just yes! It always amazes me how many presenters just accept the room as it is when they walk in.

I’ve been known to turn the entire room around to get what I wanted. (Mind you, my team weren’t all that impressed by how hard they had to work 😉 )

Thanks, Simon. Good to hear that others are being proactive with the room setup too.

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8 Tips to Power-Up Your Classroom Presentations

Last month, I attended a Back to School Night for parents, sitting through presentation after presentation by teachers, some with slides that helped make their presentation a delight to listen to, and others . . . well, that's why I'm writing this blog post.

The goal of a classroom presentation is to aid you in effectively conveying information in a way that allows students (or their parents) to remember what you said. Unfortunately, for some, the presentation becomes a crutch, and they begin to rely on the slides to tell their story, rather than to help them tell the story.

I've been creating presentations using software like PowerPoint and KeyNote for 20 years, and I've learned a lot about how to most effectively communicate. Here's what I've found.

1. Use as Many Slides as You Need

It's a common myth that better presentations use fewer slides. This is simply not the case. I once sent an education conference presentation to the organizers so they could preview it in advance of my speaking. They wrote back, concerned that my 45-minute presentation had 116 slides. I looked it over and realized they were right! I revised it and sent a presentation with 135 slides back to them. I finished my talk with 5 minutes to spare -- just enough time to take questions -- and the presentation was a huge success.

The number of slides in your presentation is irrelevant. What matters is how well your slides communicate and how much time you spend talking about each slide. Spending five minutes on five slides will almost always be more engaging to your students than spending five minutes on a single slide, even when the information is exactly the same.

In the movie Amadeus , the Emperor of Austria complains to Mozart that his music has "too many notes." Mozart responds, "There are just as many notes as are required. Neither more nor less." Use as many slides as you need to make your point. No more. No less.

2. Minimize Verbosity

Your slides are there to support what you are saying, not to say it for you. Keep your word count low, and only place one main point on a slide, plus three to five sub-points if absolutely needed. Remember tip #1 above -- don't be afraid to use more slides. They're free! Also, the language in your slides doesn't need to be in complete sentences. Pare the text to as few words as possible, using what's there only to emphasize and reinforce -- not replace -- the words coming out of your mouth.

3. Maximize Visuals

Photos, figures and icons work as visual memory triggers. They help your students remember what it is you're saying. Any time you can add a visual that helps illustrate or reinforce the points you're making in your slides, you should use it. One great way to do this on the cheap is to use public domain or creative commons photos you can find on Flickr or Google .

4. Reduce Noise

Many teachers like to add banners, headers, footers, page numbers and more noise to their slides. Unless the information needs to be on every slide for a vital reason (which is rare), you should remove it. All these redundant elements do is create distractions from the content of your slides. I find this to be especially true of page numbers. Imagine if a movie included a time code at the bottom, constantly reminding you how long you had been watching. All this does is serve to take the viewer out of the moment. Page numbers in slides really don't provide any useful information -- they just remind your students how long they've been watching.

Pursuant to tips #1 and #2, you're not going to win awards by cramming the most content on the fewest slides. Make text and visuals as large as you can. Not only does this make them easier to see and read, but larger images and text make a greater impact to aid memory. There's nothing wrong with filling an entire slide with a photo, and then placing text right on top. You may have to use a transparent background immediately behind the text so that it's clearly readable, but the overall effect is almost always more memorable than just some text beside an image.

6. Highlight What You Are Talking About

While you are presenting, your students may be momentarily distracted taking notes, thinking about what you are saying, glancing out the window, possibly even daydreaming. When they refocus on your slides, though, they need to quickly pick back up where you are, or you risk losing them again.

• Use contrast or call-outs to clearly show the area of the slide you are talking about.
• Reveal bullet points or table rows one at a time so that the last one visible is the one you are talking about.
• Use arrows, circles or other pointers to show what you are referencing in specific parts of an illustration, photo or graph.
• Animate and reveal parts of illustrations and graphs (where possible) to build your story rather than showing everything at once.
• Use bold type or different colors to highlight the keywords in any lengthy text.

7. Transition Changes

Humans suffer from an affliction called change blindness -- we have a hard time seeing changes unless there is a clear transition between the states. This is especially a problem in presentations where slides may look very much alike. Most programs include transitions that can be used between slides or on elements in the slides themselves.

My favorite transition is the cross-dissolve -- where the first slide fades down while the next slide fades up -- but different transitions can help illustrate points in your presentation. Are you talking about combustion or the fire of London? Use a flame transition. Talking about photography or Hollywood movies? Use the flashbulb transition. Even "cheesy" transitions help overcome change blindness and aid student memory at the same time.

8. Repeat Yourself Redundantly

It’s OK to repeat the same slide more than once -- especially when using images -- if you are reminding students of an earlier point. Obviously, this is not a license to be monotonous. However, if you want to tie separate ideas together, emphasize a point or splash in a little comic relief, it's perfectly fine to repeat a slide.

Bonus Tip: Make it Funny!

There's little doubt that emotional responses can aid memory. While it can be difficult to apply this power in a classroom slide presentation, humor is easy enough, and adding a bit of levity to your presentations at the right points can work to give students vital memory hooks.

Remember, the point of presentation slides is not to replace you as the teacher, but to help your students understand and remember what you are teaching. Overwhelming them with too much information can be just as harmful as underwhelming them with too little.

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how to lay out the room for your presentation

Lockdown won’t last forever. I’ve written elsewhere about how to make better online presentations, so here I thought I’d change it up a bit and talk about in-the-room presentations for when we can be with our audiences again!

Sometimes there just nothing you can do – I get that – but far more often than you might think there’s a chance to change the way your room works (or doesn’t work!) to help you make better presentations.

I’m not talking her about the cool theatre-like spaces that you see people posting pictures of. “Look at me, I’m presenting in a cool space!”

Why not? Firstly ‘cos you usually can’t do much about the layout of those rooms and secondly because that’s just not the day-to-day reality of most presenters. Let’s face it, most presentations are in meeting rooms and board rooms.

The simple truth is that most of us, most of the time are going to be presenting in rooms or venues more like the ones below – either a boardroom or a projector on a table… or both!

Presenting with boardroom layouts

Boardroom presentation setups are a particular bane of my life. It’s almost impossible to have the same relationship with people at the far end of the table as you have withe people at ‘your’ end. As a consequence you end up working too hard with some of your audience and not hard enough with others. Not even professional presenters can make that work without some extra magic.

Pro tip: use a remote control so that you can move around the room and make a point of presenting from the side of the table rather than being stuck at one end. That way you can work more easily with different people and you’re not too far from anyone. What’s more, it gives you the advantage of distancing you from your slides and puts you in something called ‘second position’ to your audience. This breaks any subconscious association they have between you and the content of the slides. This generally makes the slides’ content feel more objective. The presenter’s personality is less physically obvious. While we’re at it, think about trying to find a place around the table that allows you to most directly interact with the decision-makers in your audience, not the most engaged people. (You might be interested in this way of targeting who you make your presentations to .)

Presenting with ad hoc set ups

The balancing act of projectors on the table! Ah, the joys!

I mean, who wouldn’t want to fuss of having to put index cards under the projector to make it point high enough, spend time focusing the thing and then have to have one extra thing to concentrate on – namely staying out of the beam of your own projector so you don’t put a shadow on the screen.

Ah yes – the joys of presenting in a temporary room set-up!

Pro tip – to help with keeping out of your own shadow, when you’re setting up, get there in plenty of time and find the limits of the projector’s cone… then mark it on the floor with some coloured tape. It’s generally a good idea to take the tape up before you make your presentation (but if you can leave it down, why not!) but even just a few minutes rehearsal with it in the corner of your eye will get you more used to where you can stand without looking stupid.

And of course it goes without saying that you should get there in pleeeeeenty of time before your audience so that you can mess about with getting the projector sorted out before the audience arrives. People make a link between the quality of your content with other things, such as how well you use the tech – so make your presentation-tech-check something done in private!

Presenting in training rooms

Arguably the most annoying room layout is the one that’s a modified training room. The screen here is beautiful, big, bright and powerful… but what about the poor people who are supposed to sit with their back to it?!

Pretty clearly, no one can be sat there… but the simple and obvious solution of just not putting an audience there barely tackles the problem!

Pro tip – if people can’t sit at some of desks and chairs, consider veeeeeeeeery hard how you can simply remove them. In rooms like this the chairs and so on are often collapsable. Not only does taking the unusable tables make the whole presentation look slicker, it has the another advantage – you as the presenter now can easy easily get into the centre of the horseshoe, so you can control better how close you are to your audience.

Here’s how I prepared a training room for a recent presentation

Here’s a quick shot of a training room I was using for my presentation recently. There are a few things I changed before the audience came in.

• I’d already moved the flip chart before I took the picture, so that it wasn’t right next to the screen. That means I could stand between the two and also that when my audience looked at one, they were less distracted by the other.
• I closed the blinds on the windows just enough to stop it distracting (and annoying!) lines and shadows on the walls and flipchart
• I removed the phone from the front desk!
• I checked out (in terms of carpet tiles!) where I could stand so that everyone in the room could see the screen without me in front of it (the next photo shows the rest of the room)
• I moved the tables so that they weren’t aligned directly behind each other to obscure views (but left them in groups like that as my presentation was going to include a lot of group work)

• A quick check of my slides from the back of the room made sure that everything was visible (one slide got slightly edited) and that my remote control had sufficient range to work from anywhere in the room and I didn’t have to present from my laptop
• Had a cup of tea. Okay, so that’s not strictly part of sorting out the layout of the room but it’s an important part of my preparation ritual and a good measure of when you should have got there. If you don’t have time to have a cup of tea you didn’t get to the venue early enough!
• Played “spot the squeaky floorboard”. Call me cynical but I’ve never met a stage of any size or shape where there wasn’t a spot that squeaked. (Usually it’s the bit you want to stand on most during your presentation.) Find it, note where it is, avoid it.
• Checked the sigh-lines for outside of the room. Knowing where the audience can see as they look at you and your slides etc is one thing, but knowing what they could be distracted by outside the room is another. On this occasion the glass panel in the door, for example, simply showed a corridor that was rarely walked down so I decided not to do anything about it.

So what do you do to sort out your presentation room layout?

Seriously – everyone’s ideas are different!

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Home Blog Presentation Ideas 23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

23 PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Creating Engaging and Interactive Presentations

PowerPoint presentations are not usually known for being engaging or interactive. That’s often because most people treat their slides as if they are notes to read off  and not a tool to help empower their message.

Your presentation slides are there to help bring to life the story you are telling. They are there to provide visuals and empower your speech.

So how do you go about avoiding a presentation “snoozefest” and instead ensure you have an engaging and interactive presentation?  By making sure that you use your slides to help YOU tell your story, instead of using them as note cards to read off of.

The key thing to remember is that your presentation is there to compliment your speech, not be its focus.

In this article, we will review several presentation tips and tricks on how to become a storytelling powerhouse by building a powerful and engaging PowerPoint presentation.

Start with writing your speech outline, not with putting together slides

Use more images and less text, use high-quality images, keep the focus on you and your presentation, not the powerpoint, your presentation should be legible from anywhere in the room, use a consistent presentation design, one topic per slide, avoid information overwhelm by using the “rule of three”.

• Display one bullet at a time

Avoid unnecessary animations

• Only add content that supports your main points

Do not use PowerPoint as a teleprompter

• Never Give Out Copies of the Presentation

Re-focus the attention on you by fading into blackness

Change the tone of your voice when presenting, host an expert discussion panel, ask questions, embed videos, use live polling to get instant feedback and engage the audience.

• He kept his slides uncluttered and always strived for simplicity
• He was known to use large font size, the bigger, the better.
• He found made the complex sound simple.

He was known to practice, practice, and keep on practicing.

Summary – how to make your presentation engaging & interactive, fundamental rules to build powerful & engaging presentation slides.

Before we go into tips and tricks on how to add flair to your presentations and create effective presentations, it’s essential to get the fundamentals of your presentation right.

Your PowerPoint presentation is there to compliment your message, and the story you are telling. Before you can even put together slides, you need to identify the goal of your speech, and the key takeaways you want your audience to remember.

YOU and your speech are the focus of this presentation, not the slides – use your PowerPoint to complement your story.

Keep in mind that your slides are there to add to your speech, not distract from it.  Using too much text in your slides can be distracting and confusing to your audience. Instead, use a relevant picture with minimal text, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

This slide is not unusual, but is not a visual aid, it is more like an “eye chart”.

Aim for something simpler, easy to remember and concise, like the slides below.

Keep in mind your audience when designing your presentation, their background and aesthetics sense. You will want to avoid the default clip art and cheesy graphics on your slides.

While presenting make sure to control the presentation and the room by walking around, drawing attention to you and what you are saying.  You should occasionally stand still when referencing a slide, but never turn your back to your audience to read your slide.

You and your speech are the presentations; the slides are just there to aid you.

Most season presenters don’t use anything less than twenty-eight point font size, and even Steve Jobs was known to use nothing smaller than forty-point text fonts.

If you can’t comfortably fit all the text on your slide using 28 font size than you’re trying to say and cram too much into the slide, remember tip #1.4 – Use relevant images instead and accompany it with bullets.

Best Practice PowerPoint Presentation Tips

The job of your presentation is to help convey information as efficiently and clearly as possible. By keeping the theme and design consistent, you’re allowing the information and pictures to stand out.

However, by varying the design from slide to slide, you will be causing confusion and distraction from the focus, which is you and the information to be conveyed on the slide.

Technology can also help us in creating a consistent presentation design just by picking a topic and selecting a sample template style. This is possible thanks to the SlideModel’s AI slideshow maker .

Each slide should try to represent one topic or talking point. The goal is to keep the attention focused on your speech, and by using one slide per talking point, you make it easy for you to prepare, as well as easy for your audience to follow along with your speech.

Sometimes when creating our presentation, we can often get in our heads and try to over-explain. A simple way to avoid this is to follow the “ Rule of Three ,” a concept coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.

The idea is to stick to only 3 main ideas that will help deliver your point.  Each of the ideas can be further broken into 3 parts to explain further. The best modern example of this “Rule of Three” can be derived from the great Apple presentations given by Steve Jobs – they were always structured around the “Rule of Three.”

Display one sentence at a time

If you are planning to include text in your slides, try to avoid bullet lists, and use one slide per sentence. Be short and concise. This best practice focuses on the idea that simple messages are easy to retain in memory. Also, each slide can follow your storytelling path, introducing the audience to each concept while you speak, instead of listing everything beforehand.

Presentation Blunders To Avoid

In reality, there is no need for animations or transitions in your slides.

It’s great to know how to turn your text into fires or how to create a transition with sparkle effects, but the reality is the focus should be on the message. Using basic or no transitions lets the content of your presentation stand out, rather than the graphics.

If you plan to use animations, make sure to use modern and professional animations that helps the audience follow the story you are telling, for example when explaining time series or changing events over time.

Only add engaging content that supports your main points

You might have a great chart, picture or even phrase you want to add, but when creating every slide, it’s crucial to ask yourself the following question.

“Does this slide help support my main point?”

If the answer is no, then remove it.  Remember, less is more.

A common crutch for rookie presenters is to use slides as their teleprompter.

First of all, you shouldn’t have that much text on your slides. If you have to read off something, prepare some index cards that fit in your hand but at all costs do not turn your back on your audience and read off of your PowerPoint.  The moment you do that, you make the presentation the focus, and lose the audience as the presenter.

Avoid Giving Out Copies of the Presentation

At least not before you deliver a killer presentation; providing copies of your presentation gives your audience a possible distraction where they can flip through the copy and ignore what you are saying.

It’s also easy for them to take your slides out of context without understanding the meaning behind each slide.  It’s OK to give a copy of the presentation, but generally it is better to give the copies AFTER you have delivered your speech. If you decide to share a copy of your presentation, the best way to do it is by  generating a QR code  for it and placing it at the end of your presentation. Those who want a copy can simply scan and download it onto their phones.

Tips To Making Your Presentation More Engaging

The point of your presentation is to help deliver a message.

When expanding on a particularly important topic that requires a lengthy explanation it’s best to fade the slide into black.  This removes any distraction from the screen and re-focuses it on you, the present speaker. Some presentation devices have a built-in black screen button, but if they don’t, you can always prepare for this by adding a black side to your presentation at the right moment.

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Part of making your presentation engaging is to use all the tools at your disposal to get your point across. Changing the inflection and tone of your voice as you present helps make the content and the points more memorable and engaging.

One easy and powerful way to make your presentation interactive is experts to discuss a particular topic during your presentation. This helps create a more engaging presentation and gives you the ability to facilitate and lead a discussion around your topic.

It’s best to prepare some questions for your panel but to also field questions from the audience in a question and answer format.

How To Make Your Presentation More Interactive

What happens if I ask you to think about a pink elephant?  You probably briefly think about a pink elephant, right?

Asking questions when presenting helps engage the audience, and arouse interest and curiosity.  It also has the added benefit of making people pay closer attention, in case they get called on.

So don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if rhetorical; asking a question engages a different part of our brain. It causes us to reflect rather than merely take in the information one way. So ask many of them.

Asking questions can also be an excellent way to build suspense for the next slide.

(Steve Jobs was known to ask questions during his presentations, in this slide he built suspense by asking the audience “Is there space for a device between a cell phone and a laptop?” before revealing the iPad) Source: MacWorld SF 2018

Remember the point of your presentation is to get a message across and although you are the presenter, it is completely fine to use video in your PowerPoint to enhance your presentation.  A relevant video can give you some breathing time to prepare the next slides while equally informing the audience on a particular point.

CAUTION: Be sure to test the video beforehand, and that your audience can hear it in the room.

A trending engagement tool among presenters is to use a live polling tool to allow the audience to participate and collect immediate feedback.

Using a live polling tool is a fun and interactive way to engage your audience in real-time and allow them to participate in part of your presentation.

Google Slides has a built-in Q&A feature that allows presenters to make the slide deck more interactive by providing answers to the audience’s questions. By using the Q&A feature in Google Slides, presenters can start a live Q&A session and people can ask questions directly from their devices including mobile and smartphones.

Key Takeaways from one of the best presenters, Steve Jobs

He kept his slides uncluttered and always strove for simplicity.

In this slide, you can easily see he is talking about the battery life, and it uses a simple image and a few words. Learning from Jobs, you can also make a great presentation too. Focus on the core benefit of your product and incorporate great visuals.

Source: Macworld 2008

SlideModel.com can help to reproduce high-impact slides like these, keeping your audience engagement.

He was known to use large font sizes, the bigger, the better

A big font makes it hard to miss the message on the slide, and allows the audience to focus on the presenter while clearing the understanding what the point of the slide is.

He found made the complex sound simple

When explaining a list of features, he used a simple image and lines or simple tables to provide visual cues to his talking points.

(This particular slide is referencing the iMac features)

What made Steve Jobs the master of presentation, was the ritual of practicing with his team, and this is simple yet often overlooked by many presenters.  It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking you don’t need to practice because you know the material so well.

While all these tips will help you create a truly powerful presentation , it can only achieve if applied correctly.

It’s important to remember when trying to deliver an amazing experience, you should be thoroughly prepared. This way, you can elevate your content presentation, convey your message effectively and captivate your audience.

This includes having your research cited, your presentation rehearsed.  Don’t just rehearse your slides, also take time to practice your delivery, and your tone.  The more you rehearse, the more relaxed you will be when delivering. The more confident you will feel.

While we can’t help you with the practice of your next presentation, we can help you by making sure you look good, and that you have a great design and cohesiveness.

You focus on the message and content; we’ll focus on making you look good.

Have a tip you would like to include?  Be sure to mention it in the comments!

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Very great advices!

Greetings ! A compact composed communication for the host to have an impact -VOICE

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MY FAVOURITE

MY FAVOURITE. PHILOSOPHY. by Katrina in Oz. No need to use mouse at all!. A man with one watch knows what time it is;. A man with two watches is never quite sure. Don’t look where you fall,. but where you slipped. Look at life through the wind-shield,. not the rear-view mirror.

428 views • 14 slides

MY FAVOURITE FAMOUS:

MY FAVOURITE FAMOUS:. Ariana Grande is an actress, singer and songwriter was born on June 26, 1993 in Florida. Ariana in victorious was a girl with fair skin, and red wavy hair, tall, cute and pretty, in the series was called C at.

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My favourite songs

My favourite songs. ♫. ♪. Songs are my love. . So no, I do not have a favorite singer. I listen to all kinds of songs. Must reach me. I listen to a song by mood. Songs I listen to every day . I love Music . Music fills me . ♫. ♪.

889 views • 8 slides

My favourite programs

My favourite programs . By Naomi dent. My favourite programs are: . Eastenders 2. Coronation street 3.Hollyoaks 4.South park 5.NCIS 6.CSI:NY 7.CSI.miami 8:holby city . These are the different images .

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My Favourite Things

My Favourite Things. By: Jesse Butler. My Favourite Sport. My favourite sport is hockey. I've played it since I was about 4 years old. HOCKEY. HOCKEY. My Favourite Rapper. My Favourite rap group is gang Starr. Gang Starr consists of 2 people, Guru and Dj Premier. My Favourite Food.

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My Favourite Element

My Favourite Element. Chemistry Unit Project. Your Element. Your teacher will assign you an element from the periodic table. This element is your new best friend; it is your FAVOURITE element!. Format. You will be making an 11” x 17” poster about your favourite element

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My Favourite singers

My Favourite singers. Olly Murs. Jessie J. Rihanna. Beyonce. Katy Perry. Little Mix. The Wanted. One Direction. Thank you for watching plz comment on how I did. Why don't you tell me what’s ur favorite singer or band. Remember my poll.

1.11k views • 10 slides

My favourite programs . By Naomi dent. My favourite programs are: . Eastenders 2. Coronation street 3.Hollyoaks 4.South park 5.NCIS 6.CSI:NY 7.CSI.miami 8:holby city. These are the different images .

137 views • 3 slides

,,My favourite programme,,

,,My favourite programme,,. My favourite TV programme is XFactor. XFactor is music program. People who come to the program are amateurs. Singers have a chance to win 100, 000 PLN and a contract with Sony Music Poland.

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My favourite game…

My favourite game…. I am Phoebe. I love Golf. This is Phoenix, my brother…. He loves golf also. I like to go to the gym (sport’s hall). I am able to train there. There is a swimming pool there. I love to swim. I have bike also. I like basketball. I did paragliding. But I prefer golf.

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My favourite season

My favourite season.

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My favourite Star

She is the most beautiful in my eyes. She is very optimistic , serious and works very hard. She is my favorite idol —— Victoria Song. My favourite Star. 谢恺迪 2013 01 04. Victoria was born on February 2nd, 1987, in Qingdao. She is a singer, an actress and also a dancer.

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my favourite animal

my favourite animal. MY BABY. MY FAVORITE ANIMAL IS A LyNX. LT IS FAST AND DANGEROUS. LT IS BROwN. my lynx eats snake, zebra and monkey. i lake it Because it’s cute. it eats grass. The lynx.

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My Favourite things

My Favourite things. By Daniel Southworth. Introduction. My favourite Things Favourite Football Team- Man Utd Favourite Man Utd Player- Carlos Tevez Favourite Man Utd Match- 1999 Champions League Final. Favourite Football Team Man United. Sir Alex Ferguson-Manager

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My favourite meal

My favourite meal. What can you see?. I can see ……. I can see some bread. I can see some rice. Which food do you like? I like ……. I like vegetables. I like sandwiches. I like noodles. I like congee. I am Mary. I like congee. . I like noodles. . I like rice.   .

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My Favourite Vegetable

My Favourite Vegetable. We are learning to use our sounds in our writing. My Favourite Fruit. We are learning to use our sounds in our writing.

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My favourite music

My favourite music. I listen to many kinds of music – mainly metal and rock. My favourite bands , that I will tell about in this presentation are : Rammstein Depeche Mode Metallica. Rammstein. Rammstein is a German metal band.

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MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS

MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS. CARTOON MOVIES. HE-MAN LIKES FIGHTING HE I S A SUPER HERO. MERMAID PETER PAN. MERMAID LOVES SWIMMING PETER PAN LOVES FLYING. GARFIELD LIKES EATING LAZENYA BUGS BUNNY HATES RESTING.

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,,My favourite book”

,,My favourite book”. Prepared by: Aleksandra Kuczyńska class:VI.d. My favourite book is. ,,Anne of Green Hill” Lucy Maud Montgomery. A few words about the author of the book.

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my favourite festival

its a festival which is celebrated all over India.

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How to Present to an Audience That Knows More Than You

• Deborah Grayson Riegel

Lean into being a facilitator — not an expert.

What happens when you have to give a presentation to an audience that might have some professionals who have more expertise on the topic than you do? While it can be intimidating, it can also be an opportunity to leverage their deep and diverse expertise in service of the group’s learning. And it’s an opportunity to exercise some intellectual humility, which includes having respect for other viewpoints, not being intellectually overconfident, separating your ego from your intellect, and being willing to revise your own viewpoint — especially in the face of new information. This article offers several tips for how you might approach a roomful of experts, including how to invite them into the discussion without allowing them to completely take over, as well as how to pivot on the proposed topic when necessary.

I was five years into my executive coaching practice when I was invited to lead a workshop on “Coaching Skills for Human Resource Leaders” at a global conference. As the room filled up with participants, I identified a few colleagues who had already been coaching professionally for more than a decade. I felt self-doubt start to kick in: Why were they even here? What did they come to learn? Why do they want to hear from me?

• Deborah Grayson Riegel is a professional speaker and facilitator, as well as a communication and presentation skills coach. She teaches leadership communication at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has taught for Wharton Business School, Columbia Business School’s Women in Leadership Program, and Peking University’s International MBA Program. She is the author of Overcoming Overthinking: 36 Ways to Tame Anxiety for Work, School, and Life and the best-selling Go To Help: 31 Strategies to Offer, Ask for, and Accept Help .

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The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Remarks by President   Biden at Presentation of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the Army Black   Knights

12:09 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, good afternoon.  Please — please have a seat.    Well, I can — you can tell the Academy grads in the audience; they got bigger grins on their faces —   AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Go Army!   THE PRESIDENT:  — than the others.  (Laughs.)      Well, welcome.  Welcome.  We are here today to celebrate a tough team, a storied football program, this year’s Commander-in-Chief Trophy winners: The Army Black Knights.  (Applause.)   I’m impressed with your generosity, General.  (Laughter.)    It was an honor to have so many friends and fans with us here today.  They include Secretary of Defense Austin, a proud West Point grad himself.  You can clap.  (Applause.)   The Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth.  Christine, where are you?  There you are.  (Applause.)   Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who’s smiling anyway, C.Q. Brown — (laughter) — Air Force.  (Applause.)  He’s an Air Force guy, but he’s the best.  And I was so hon- — not to try to rub this in too much.   But I also welcome Representative Stanford Bishop — Sanford Bishop.  Representative Burt — where — where is Brett?  You here?  There you are, Brett Guthrie.  Good to see you, Brett.  (Applause.)    Representative Pat Ryan.   REPRESENTATIVE RYAN:  How you doing, sir?   THE PRESIDENT:  Pat, how are you, pal?   REPRESENTATIVE RYAN:  Beat Navy!  (Applause.)   THE PRESIDENT:  I ain’t protecting you, man.  You’re on your own.  (Laughter.)   And Representative Steve Womack.  (Applause.)   We’re also joined by Army’s football’s biggest fans: Bill and Steve of the radio show “Crawdad’s Countdown to Kickoff.”  (Applause.)  Fellas, thanks for making the trip from Alabama.   AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Go Army!   THE PRESIDENT:  (Laughs.)  And we finally have Coach Jeff Monken who — who has once again led the Bla- — Black Knights back to the White House again.    Where are you, Coach?  (Applause.)  I’ll make sure you —   And some folks here know, over the past few seasons, the coach has restarted the old Army football tradition.  Every time the team takes the field, they now carry the gold and black flag with a skull and crossbones.  This flag represents everything the Black Knights stand for: toughness, tenacity, camaraderie, accountability.  And you all certainly demonstrated that, Coach.    Over the course of this season, you faced setbacks, doubts, and uncertainties.  Critics counted you out, but you never gave up.  You never quit.  Game by game, play by play, you ground it out together.    You beat Air Force, who was undefeated until you played them, forcing six turnovers and winning by 20 points.  (Applause.)    A month later, you beat Navy — (applause) — second year in a row.   Today, you’re taking home West Point’s 10th Commander-in-Chief Trophy.  You should be very proud.   And I want you to know I’m proud of you, too, not just for the wins, but — not just for those forced turnovers; although they’re impressive, Coach — but because every game, after you hang up that uniform, you immediately put on another uniform: one representing the United States of America.   Everyone — everyone on this stage stepped up to serve, to lead, to join the long line of American servicemen, each a link in a chain of honor in America.    You represent the very best of who we are as Americans, and I’m confident that in the years to come you will be willing to do — to see — you’ll see the same toughness, tenacity, and camaraderie, and accountability to our country that you brought to the field in every single game.   Now, many of these cadets are going to have to hear me twice, so I’m going to make this shorter than usual, because I’m — I’m getting a — I’ll have the honor of speaking again at West Point’s commencement.    So, let me just close with one brief final thought: Go Army.    AUDIENCE:  Beat Navy!  (Applause.)    THE PRESIDENT:  I occasionally used to root for another club until my son joined the United States Army, spent a year in Iraq, became a major, won the Bronze Star and a few other things.  And so, I wasn’t even allowed to mention any other team ever — (laughter) — ever.

Well, God bless you all.  May God protect our troops.  And, Coach, over to you. 

COACH MONKEN:  Thank you, sir.  (Applause.)

Thank you, Mr. President and distinguished guests.  On behalf of our superintendent, Lieutenant General Steve Gillen; our command- — our commandant of cadets, Major General Lori Robinson; our academic — our academic dean, Brigadier General Shane Reeves; our director of athletics, Mr. Mike Buddie; the United States Corps of Cadets; the Long Gray Line of West Point graduates; and the nearly 1 million men and women who serve our nation as members of the U.S. Army, Army Reserves, and Army National Guard, the Army football team is honored to accept the most coveted trophy in all of college football, the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.  (Applause.)

We’re grateful —

THE PRESIDENT:  I want to know who the hell is going to carry it home.  (Laughter.)

COACH MONKEN:  I carried it in here.  I’ll get — I’ll take care of it, sir.  (Laughter.)

We’re grate- — we are grateful for your invitation to the White House and for welcoming the members of America’s team as your guests here today. 

This is a team of tough, talented players and a team of gritty, intense fighters.  And just as they battled to finish the season with four straight victories, including wins over rivals Air Force and Navy, as you had mentioned, to claim the service academy dominance in winning the CIC Trophy, these warfighters will lead our nation’s sons and daughters to victory on other fields on other days. 

With us today are 48 soon-to-be-commissioned cadets who will later this month earn their diplomas, graduates of the world’s preeminent leadership institution, the United States Military Academy.  Soon after, they will enter the profession of arms prepared to lead and fight our nation’s wars. 

Joining them today on the stage is the rest of our team, underclassmen who, in the next few years, will join these soon-to-be graduates as officers in the Army. 

Mr. President, these young men and women embody the values of duty, honor, country, and they represent the best our nation has to offer. 

We’re incredibly proud to be here and grateful to you for this tremendous honor.  On, bro- — on, Brave Old Army Team.  And beat Navy. 

Thank you, sir.  (Applause.)

We got something for you.

Sir, I’m going to call Cadet First Class Jimmy Ciarlo, who’s one of our team captains, Ringwood, New Jersey, to present you with one of our game-worn jerseys from the Army-Navy victory.  (Applause.)

(The President is presented with a United States Military Academy Black Knights jersey.)  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  (The President holds up the jersey.)  What do you think?  (Applause.)   COACH MONKEN:  Perfect.

THE PRESIDENT:  I want to — got to make sure you get my number right.  (Laughter.)

It’s a great honor.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

What year are you?

MR. CIARLO:  I’m a senior.

THE PRESIDENT:  See you at graduation.

MR. CIARLO:  Sounds good, sir.  Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT:  (Inaudible.)  (Laughter.)    Well, thank you all very much.  And, by the way, are your par- — any parents here?  (Inaudible.)  And to all the spouses of the guys running the show, God love you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Guys, thank you very much.

COACH MONKEN:  Thank you, sir.  Beat Navy.  (Applause.)

12:18 P.M. EDT

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Man contracted a flesh-eating bacteria after walking on South Carolina beach

by CONLEY GRAYSON | WCIV

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Brent Norman has spent his whole life near the ocean.

"I've grown up on beaches all my life and stepped on probably over 10,000 shells," Norman said.

At the end of April, he walked his usual route on Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms in South Carolina.

"Health-wise, I try to hit 15 to 20,000 steps every day," Norman said. "The way the tides were pretty high, I unfortunately stepped on several seashells."

Norman started to feel pain in his right foot in the following days.

"Fast forward to Wednesday, swelling on my right foot had grown even more. And then at that point, I was no longer walking," Norman said.

Norman described the pain "as if someone had driven up out of a nail through my foot."

After nearly a week of toughing it out, he went to the emergency room on Thursday.

"Everyone behind the check-in counter, their eyes were about double the size they normally were," Norman said. "I could tell people were uncomfortable sitting around me looking at it."

That's when Norman’s doctor told him his foot was infected with Vibrio, most likely from stepping on a seashell.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there are 12 species of vibrio, and one is known to be a flesh-eating bacteria.

"She lanced it, removed the debris from in there, and then they gave me an antibiotic shot and then also pills that I'm taking for two weeks," Norman said.

According to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) , Vibrio are a kind of bacteria that naturally live in warm ocean water.

The agency says there are typically higher concentrations of the bacteria in the ocean from May to October.

According to the CDC, 150 to 200 infections like Norman’s are reported yearly.

The CDC says one in five people with this infection die, sometimes within one to two days of becoming ill, making Norman a rare case.

Norman is on antibiotics and is still recovering, and is already itching to get back to the sand.

"My reward is living at the beach and I intend to continue to do that, as soon as my foot is healed, I will be back on the beach," Norman said.

Silk pajamas, spanking and questions about STDs: Stormy Daniels details sexual encounter with Trump

Adult film actor Stormy Daniels took the witness stand at Donald Trump 's New York criminal trial Tuesday, testifying under oath about the sexual encounter she says she had with him in 2006 and the $130,000 deal for her silence that was struck during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.

In a remarkable day of testimony with the former president sitting roughly 10 feet away from her, Daniels recounted the tryst in detail. She also talked about Trump's supposed efforts to get her on his TV show and her decision to come forward with her story, as well as the payoff and the fallout from doing so.

During cross-examination, which at times became heated, Daniels tangled with one of Trump’s attorneys, Susan Necheles, who accused her of making up a series of false claims to "extort" Trump, then a presidential candidate.

Trump’s lawyers also argued that some of Daniels’ account of the 2006 encounter “was unduly and inappropriately prejudicial.” They then requested a mistrial.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge that Daniels’ unfair claims included her testimony that Trump didn’t use a condom and that she thinks she “blacked out” for a part of it.

“There’s no way to unring the bell, in our view,” Blanche said during a dramatic exchange with prosecutors.

Judge Juan Merchan shot down the mistrial motion but acknowledged that "there were things that would have been better left unsaid,” adding that he would strike some of Daniels' testimony from the record.

Court isn’t in session Wednesday. Cross-examination of Daniels will resume Thursday morning.

Trump is headed to Florida on Tuesday evening, with plans to spend Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago, campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

Daniels testified that she first met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in July 2006. Describing their first meeting as a "very brief encounter" on a golf course, Daniels said she was 27 and remembered Trump being as old as her father — around 60.

The jury — which appeared focused intently on Daniels and her testimony — was shown a picture of them together from that trip.

Daniels said that they later ran into each other at the club and that a man she later learned was Trump's bodyguard told her Trump wanted to have dinner with her. She said she replied, "No, with an expletive in front."

She did, however, get the bodyguard's number, and she said that later that day her publicist convinced her she should accept the invitation, telling her: “It’ll make a great story. He’s a business guy. Like, what could possibly go wrong?”

She said she went up to Trump's penthouse hotel suite and was told they'd be going to dinner at one of the restaurants downstairs. When she entered the room, which she described as "three times the size of my apartment," he was wearing "silk or satin" pajamas, she said. She said she quipped, “Does Hugh Hefner know you stole his pajamas?” and asked him to change, which he did.

They then sat at a dining table in the suite, where, she said, Trump asked her numerous questions about her adult film writing and directing. He then asked her about sexually transmitted diseases, and she said she was tested constantly and "I've never had a bad test."

She said that she grew frustrated with him because he kept cutting off her answers and that when he pulled out a magazine with him on the cover, she said, "Someone should spank you with that." She said she then rolled it up and "swatted" him with it. While jurors mostly appeared poker-faced through her testimony, one began rubbing her face and appeared to be holding back laughter.

After that, she said, Trump was "much more polite" and suggested she should come on his TV show, "The Apprentice." Daniels testified that "he said, 'You remind me of my daughter,'" and that appearing on the show would demonstrate she shouldn't be underestimated.

In all, they chatted for about two hours, Daniels said. She said that she went to the bathroom and that when she walked out, Trump was lying on the bed "in boxer shorts and T-shirt." She said she was "startled, like a jump scare. Wasn’t expecting someone to be there, especially minus a lot of clothing.”

She said Trump told her, "I thought you were serious about what you wanted." She said she felt "there was an imbalance of power, for sure. He was bigger and blocking the way, but I was not threatened either verbally or physically.” Asked in court whether she ended up having sex with him on the bed, she said, "Yes."

She described the sex as brief and said Trump told her “it was great. Let’s get together again, honey bunch.” She said he hadn’t used a condom and hadn't expressed any concern about his wife’s finding out what had happened. She said he also didn’t give her his phone number.

Trump's bodyguard reached out to her the next day to invite her to meet Trump at a bar in her hotel, she said. When she got there, she said, he was with then-Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Trump left about 10 minutes later but continued to call her well after the encounter, she said, "with an update — or a non-update if he didn’t have one — for ‘Apprentice.’”

"He always called me honey bunch," she said.

She said they saw each other again in January 2007, when he invited her to the launch of his Trump vodka brand. While she was there, she said, he introduced her to his friend "Karen," who she later learned was Karen McDougal , a former Playboy model who said she was having a monthslong affair with Trump during that period. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified earlier in the trial that he paid McDougal $150,000 to keep her quiet about the claim during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has denied both Daniels' and McDougal's claims.

Daniels said Trump also invited her to Trump Tower around that time and assured her, "I'm still working on the ‘Apprentice’ thing."

She said they last saw each other in the summer of 2007, when he invited her to see him at a bungalow he was staying at in Los Angeles. She said that he "kept trying to make sexual advances" but that she shot him down. "I told him I was on my period," she said. He said he later called her and told her he hadn't been able to get her on his show.

Payments made to Daniels by Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen at the end of the 2016 campaign are at the heart of the case, the first criminal trial of a former president. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in return for her keeping quiet about her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.

Daniels said Tuesday that Gina Rodriguez, her manager, spoke to her about going public with her story for money in 2015 after Trump announced he was running for president. Rodriguez didn’t have much success shopping the story until after the release in October 2016 of the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump was recorded in 2005 bragging that he could grope women without their consent.

She said that Rodriguez then told her that Trump and Cohen were "interested in paying" for the story and that she agreed, because it meant the story — which her husband didn’t know about — wouldn’t become public. "I didn't care about the amounts. It was just, 'Get it done,'" she said.

Prosecutors say Trump reimbursed Cohen the money in payments that were falsely described as legal expenses. They have charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Daniels' deal with Cohen was revealed in a January 2018 story in The Wall Street Journal. Asked about the impact the story had on her life, Daniels said, "Chaos."

“My husband asking questions, my friends asking questions,” she said, with people showing up on her front lawn.

She said that Cohen started to talk about her allegations publicly but that she couldn’t because of the NDA and the $1 million penalty it included if she violated it. She said she later hired lawyer Michael Avenatti "so that I could stand up for myself."

He helped her get out of the NDA but also filed an unsuccessful defamation suit against Trump on her behalf and against her wishes, she said. Daniels lost the case and was ordered to pay Trump's legal fees . She eventually fired Avenatti, who was convicted of several crimes, including stealing from Daniels .

Daniels had vowed on Twitter, now X, never to pay the legal fees, which she acknowledged on cross-examination totaled over $660,000.

"You said, 'I will go to jail before I pay a penny'?" Necheles asked Daniels. "Correct," she responded.

Daniels also acknowledged that she hates Trump and has called him mean names online, including having referred to him as an "orange turd," but she said Trump, who has repeatedly referred to her as "horseface," made fun of her first.

Necheles also pressed Daniels about earlier accounts of her story. Daniels testified she agreed to do an interview with In Touch magazine in 2011 after it told her it was writing about the alleged encounter with Trump. Daniels said that it had agreed to pay her $15,000 for the interview but that the deal was scrapped after Cohen got the story killed. She said she was threatened weeks later by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot who told her to "leave Trump alone."

Necheles repeatedly suggested the parking lot incident was made up, which Daniels disputed. Daniels said that she was frightened by the encounter and that she stayed quiet until Trump declared his candidacy for president, at which point she gave her manager the green light to shop her story around.

“You weren’t really scared, were you?” Necheles said.

“I was terrified, but the ballgame changed,” Daniels replied, implying that by telling her story when Trump was a candidate, she felt she could ensure her safety.

“You were looking to extort money from President Trump, right?” Necheles said.

“False,” Daniels replied.

Before Daniels first took the stand, Merchan told prosecutors she could testify that she and Trump had sexual relations but that she should leave details out. Once she was on the stand, Daniels often elaborated on her claims without being asked, and Merchan repeatedly told her just to answer the questions that were posed to her.

When Blanche made his mistrial motion, Merchan also faulted the lawyers for not having spoken up during her testimony, saying he was surprised there weren't more objections.

"I think that I signaled to you and to the prosecution that we were going into way too much detail,” Merchan said.

Trump, whom Merchan has fined for repeatedly violating a gag order by attacking Daniels and Cohen, took to his social media platform before Tuesday's court proceedings to complain he had "just recently been told who the witness is today."

“This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare. No Judge has ever run a trial in such a biased and partisan way,” he wrote in a post that was taken down a short time later.

The Truth Social post went up shortly before The Associated Press first reported that Daniels was expected to testify. It's unclear when Trump and his lawyers were told she'd be testifying — prosecutors have typically not been telling them who would take the stand until the day before, citing Trump's record of witness commentary.

That Daniels would testify wasn’t a surprise, however. Trump’s legal team had argued unsuccessfully that she should be barred from taking the stand, a request Merchan rejected before the trial started. Cohen is also expected to testify.

Before Daniels, prosecutors called a longtime publishing executive to authenticate and read excerpts from some of Trump’s books.

Sally Franklin, an executive at Penguin Random House, read one from "Trump: Think Like a Billionaire" that talked about how closely Trump tracks his money — which prosecutors are likely to use to show he was well aware of what he was paying Cohen back for.

"I always sign my checks so I know where my money is going,” he said in the excerpt.

Adam Reiss is a reporter and producer for NBC and MSNBC.

Gary Grumbach produces and reports for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C.

Jillian Frankel is a 2024 NBC News campaign embed.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.