Your keynote speaker cancels last minute. How do you keep attendees engaged and reassured?

It happens! Conference 'Curve-Balls'! QUICK - TALK TO THE OTHER SPEAKERS! Before you let the audience know, of any change you should check with the other speaker(s) to see if they could do an impromptu cover. Then explain the change to your delegates with full candour and transparency. If you are in the habit of booking experienced, professional speakers, then one or more of them at your event should be able to step up for you. As a professional speaker, I have been asked several times to 'make up some time' based on a speaker not turning up, technical problems with the live link to a remote speaker, or that previous speakers have finished too early! Offer a meaningful payment. The right speaker could save your whole conference.

Always ALWAYS have a backup plan & leap into it as soon as possible. Own it, admit it and with good eye contact, bond with the audience. Even if you lean towards how awkward this experience can be, they will respect your honesty and with a little luck, you will win their patience!

Call me! But seriously, most good speakers have a pre-prepared talk that they could pull out of the hat at a moment's notice. Alternatively, ask your existing speakers to fill the gaps, whilst you call round your network to see if there are any other experts who could fill in

This happened to me! I worked as a Legislative Aide for a PA State Representative. He was unable to attend a huge luncheon where he was to receive an award. He called me and asked me to go in his place, I said yes! I walked into the luncheon and ushered to the front table by a State Senator. He quickly told me that I needed to accept the award and give a small speech… I was like, no way! I have nothing prepared, I thought this was me showing up for lunch on his behalf?! There are over two hundred people in this room, I’m not saying anything! Long story short, during lunch I wrote a speech on my napkin and graciously accepted the award on my boss’s behalf. Lesson learned, there is no such thing as a free lunch!

* If I ran a nice event and could not find any professional keynote speaker in time, I would just extend a different part of the agenda to fill the time vacancy (e.g. networking segment) or reduce the total time. Trying to wing it could be a disaster. * It may be worth brainstorming how to prevent the situation in the first place. Before hiring someone, it's worth asking a keynote speaker if they know other speakers in the event of a cancelation. An agency can be asked the same question. * When we hire a speaker, do we limit our options by only asking around within our existing network? If we choose speakers based on who happens to know someone in our network (or be in our network), it's not a very secure way to select a speaker.

ALWAYS have a backup plan or even two. One of the many jobs as management is to anticipate the unexpected and be prepared for it. This means having someone or even two people who are willing to be on standby if something goes wrong, be it that your keynote speaker gets sick or injured, has a travel issue or a family emergence.