5 Great Ideas For An After Dinner Presentation

After dinner speakers should understand the genre within which they are working. It demands social grace and elegance. The aim is to round off a pleasant social occasion with cleverness and suave sophistication so the speaker needs to be someone who is at ease, confident and socially well respected. His job is to entertain.

Quite frequently firms hold celebratory dinners to mark some event or landmark. On such occasions an after dinner speaker may be invited to help round off the evening, or an important personage in the company may take on the task. In such instances a topic like 'You are the company you keep' might allow the orator to draw out some serious points about loyalty and alignment under the guise of a few puns and analogies.

When the exact nature of an audience cannot be known in advance it is best to search for a topic that has universal appeal. Many stories for children begin with a line such as, 'Once upon a time there was an old man'. The universal themes of time and humanity are implied in these words. A topic that emanates from these two themes will usually fit well within what people expect.

Other broad categorizations of audience types may be town and country. Rural audiences may be expected to respond to earthy or environmental themes. Farmers are also great grousers, ever quick to laugh at their enemies who are usually authorities of one sort or another. Urban audiences, on the other hand, may respond to more sophisticated topics such as 'Fashion Fits'. Here again there is scope for some puns and anecdotes that may be amusingly told.

Sport is a social activity and sports people love to complement their activities with functions where they can talk and laugh about the things and they do and the people they play with. A topic such as 'Reminiscences' will be quite sufficient for a retired star to recall amusing incidents and the foibles of well known characters. The trick is to drop names and allude to famous people in familiar terms. The audience will enjoy basking in the glow of being 'in', and laugh easily, especially if they have enjoyed their dinner.

An astute and experienced orator will sense the mood of his audience and adjust to it. A less practiced public speaker will stick to his prepared text come what may. His inflexibility may be in his best interests because if he does not have the skill to switch from one topic to another it will be best not to try in public.

However, if a large amount of wine and good food has been consumed an audience may be well satisfied with a very broad topic such as 'Let's not get serious now'. This may especially be the case if the invited guest has thrown caution to the wind and joined in with the conviviality. In such a situation even banalities and truisms can be greeted with howls of laughter.

When experienced after dinner speakers are invited to speak they will probably ask in advance about the plans for the evening. He will want to know about possible topics, about the intended audience and about the duration of the speech. Whatever does transpire the success of the evening will depend to an important extent on the after dinner speech and the way that it was delivered and received.