For conference organisers
The speaker-prep checklist.
Talks fail for boring reasons: an adapter nobody owns, a slot that moved, a contact who does not answer on the morning. Almost all of it is information an organiser already has and has not sent yet. This is the list, in the order a speaker needs it.
Copy any part of it into your accepted-speaker email. No attribution needed, and there is nothing to sign up for.
In the acceptance email
The five facts that stop a dozen questions
Most speaker anxiety is unanswered logistics. Putting these in the acceptance email removes an entire thread of back-and-forth, and gives the speaker something to plan against on the day they say yes.
The exact date, start time and time zone of the session
A speaker booking flights against a provisional slot is a speaker who books the wrong flights. If the slot is not final, say so in those words.
The venue name, room and the entrance speakers should use
Venue and room are different problems. Large venues have speaker entrances, badge desks and loading bays that are nowhere near the public door.
Session length, and whether Q&A is inside or outside it
A 30-minute slot with Q&A inside it is a 22-minute talk. Speakers cut the wrong material when they find this out on stage.
A named contact with a phone number, not just an inbox
On the morning of the event nobody reads a shared inbox. One name and one number is the single most valuable line in the email.
Whether the talk is recorded, streamed or photographed
It changes what a speaker puts on their slides, what they say about their employer, and whether they need to clear anything first.
Two weeks out
The AV facts that decide whether the demo works
Almost every stage failure is an AV assumption that nobody wrote down. These are cheap to send and expensive to discover at the lectern.
The connector the stage actually provides, and who owns the adapters
HDMI, USB-C and a house dongle are three different answers. "We have adapters" is not one of them unless someone is holding them.
The projector resolution and aspect ratio
A 16:9 deck on a 4:3 projector loses the bottom of every slide, and the speaker finds out when their code samples get cropped.
Whether presenter notes and a confidence monitor are available
A speaker who rehearsed with notes and arrives to a mirrored display is rehearsing again, live, in front of an audience.
What the audio setup is: handheld, lapel, headset, or lectern only
A lectern microphone means the speaker cannot walk to the screen. That changes how the talk is written, not just how it is delivered.
Whether wired network is available for demos, or Wi-Fi only
Conference Wi-Fi under load is the classic demo killer. Tell speakers early so they can build an offline fallback instead of hoping.
48 hours out
The logistics that go wrong quietly
By now the speaker has a deck. What they do not have is certainty about the morning of the event, which is when things actually break.
Confirm the final running order and any change to the slot
Slots move. A speaker who learns at the badge desk that they are on an hour earlier has lost their rehearsal and their lunch.
Say when and where the tech check happens
A tech check that exists but is never mentioned is a tech check nobody attends. Give a time and a place, not an invitation to ask.
Give the arrival time you actually want, and what happens on arrival
"Arrive early" means five different things. "Be at the speaker desk in the east foyer by 08:15, ask for Priya" means one.
Confirm travel and accommodation details are booked and correct
Silence reads as confirmation. It is often an unbooked room and an expenses conversation nobody wanted to have.
On the day
What a speaker needs in the last hour
This is the window where a speaker cannot solve their own problems. Everything here is something only you can hand them.
Somewhere to sit that is not the hallway
A speaker rehearsing in a corridor is a speaker being interrupted. A room with a door is a real production input.
Water at the lectern, and a clock or timer the speaker can see
Speakers overrun because they cannot see the time. A visible countdown protects your schedule more than a warning card does.
Tell them who will introduce them, and how their name is pronounced
Ask, do not guess. The first ten seconds of a talk set how the room treats the speaker for the next thirty minutes.
Confirm who handles the room if something fails mid-talk
When the projector dies, the speaker should be looking at one person, not scanning the room for anyone with a lanyard.
After the talk
The part almost every event skips
The follow-up costs you two emails and is the difference between a speaker who comes back and one who politely declines next year.
Send the recording link and the feedback scores when you have them
Speakers use both to get their next talk accepted. Sitting on them for three months is the most common organiser failure.
Ask what went wrong that you could fix for the next speaker
The person who just used your AV, your green room and your running order knows more about it than your retro will.
The speaker's side of this list
Green Room.
This checklist is what you send. Green Room is the iPhone app your speakers can use to track it: paste the acceptance email, and it turns the details into a dated plan and tells them what is still missing. It is local to their phone, has no account, and the first event is free.