How to Run an Artist's Panel

When attending a convention or conference, part of the thrill comes from being around favorite or admired artists and creators, as well as other like-minded fans. Discussion panels give groups of these fans and emerging artists an opportunity to learn from their favorites and even ask questions of them. A smoothly organized and moderated panel will be of the most benefit to all. Here are some tips for making it a success.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Choose a theme or reason for the panel. Having a central idea to work on will guide your choices for panelists and generate topics for discussion. Sometimes, the convention will provide ready ideas as to what panel topics will be the most popular for the guests and attendees, but other times it will be up to you.

2. Invite a variety of artists to participate in the panel. Stacking the dais with the artists of the same style and level of success is not the best way to encourage interesting conversation. When possible, select artists who share common elements but are in different sections of the industry and at different places in their careers to provide a more varied perspective.

3. Limit the number of panelists in relation to the time available. Having more than five artists on a panel scheduled to run 1 hour will either lead to not everyone getting a chance to speak or going over your alloted time, which may not be an option depending on other events scheduled.

4. Prepare brief biographies of each artist and practice them. To get the panel off to a good start, prepare your introductory remarks ahead of time to get through the beginning portion of the panel quickly. Along with their name and current or most recent projects, highlights of their career are great, but leave out the humorous anecdotes if you're introducing more than one person.

5. Create a list of questions or talking points to direct the conversation between the panelists. You may or may not get a chance to ask all of them, but it's better to be overprepared than not. Steer clear of yes/no questions. Instead, try and phrase them in ways that require an explanation or encourage discussion.

6. Allow time for convention guests to ask questions of their own. There are a couple of ways to do this. You can simply open the floor to questions or you can pass out index cards as the room is filling for people to submit questions. Having someone collect the cards and compile the questions can weed out duplicates and determine what issues are the most popular among the group.

7. Start and end on time. This is tough, especially when the conversation is going really well or there are more people wanting to ask questions. Keep in mind that there are usually other panels scheduled for the room after yours and other commitments that your panelists may have; disrupting the schedule tends to have a domino effect and can cause your attendees to miss other panels they may want to attend.

[Psalmist4M]

on 7/13/2008 Great article, good information.
Please take a moment to read and rate a couple of my articles. Appreciated.