Readers Day Toolkit
04. Practicalities
Where to hold it?
Ideally you need a venue which has a large meeting space or theatre to hold your whole audience, with rooms in which smaller breakout activities can happen. The size of your breakout rooms may determine your workshop sizes and the number of these will determine your maximum audience size. Ideally you also need additional space for serving refreshments, or be able to manipulate your space easily so that these can be provided quickly.
If you are very lucky you may have a library that can provide all this. This is ideal as the event remains clearly a library activity and will also help with your costs.
- Is the venue accessible by public transport?
- Does it also have parking facilities or is close to adequate parking?
- Is it fully accessible internally?
- Does the main auditorium have microphones and an induction loop system?
- Is technical support available?
- Is the seating comfortable? - people will be sitting most of the day
- Are the breakout rooms reasonably close together or is there potential for getting lost?
- Are there adequate toilets?
- Can refreshments be provided within budget or brought in easily and safely?
- Will the staff at the venue support and get involved in the day, or not? This must be discussed and not assumed.
- How much preparation of the venue can be done in advance? e.g. seating layout, signage.
- Will it be clean and tidy on the day?
- Will it be heated on the day? What sort of temperature control can you have?
If not the following must be borne in mind:
Educational establishments such as colleges or secondary schools can be ideal in having large numbers of classrooms as well as a large hall, but the venue must be reasonably comfortable and positioned somewhere that readers are happy to travel to and spend a day in. The more attractive the venue the more enjoyable the day can be for the audience. If possible find somewhere that combines character and comfort.
4.1 Shaping the day:
Once you have determined your venue you can start to put together the shape of the day. You must know both your budget and likely venue first so that you know how many workshops you can provide and accommodate, and how much you can offer your writers in fees and expenses.
Most readers' days offer some collective sessions where everyone comes together to listen, as well as smaller workshops where people can have more contact with writers and facilitators. Obviously you can design your own day.
Having a "host" who can set the tone for the day seems to work well; someone who apparently holds the day together, ensures sessions start on time, engenders some collective spirit among the panel. Ideally your host also leads workshops as well so that you get added value from them.
A basic outline for a day is set out below - this model has been used regularly and seems to work. You will always get some audience members who want longer workshops, or more chances to listen- it's a truism that you can't please everybody all the time. You are aiming for a balance between providing workshops that people can self - select, and some opportunity to listen, be entertained and learn something new.
Obviously you may decide a whole day is too long and try to provide some elements in half a day, or you may go for a whole weekend! While successful days usually try and keep people together for a whole day, for some audiences this is too long. You can try to design a day that people are able to drop in and out of, or only attend an element of.
Remember people do take time to move and find new rooms. One hour is probably too short for workshops bearing in mind 10 mins. will be lost in moving/ settling. Anything over 1 _ hrs is probably too long- allows the session to get too intense/bogged down.
Model Timetable:
- 9.30 - Arrive, register, refreshments
- 10.00 - Welcome, introductions, panellists introduce themselves through prepared question/answers and/or readings
- 11.00 - Refreshments
- 11.20 - Workshops
- 12.30 - Lunch and readers' fair
- 1.30 - Another panel session/readings/ testimonies
- 2.10 - Workshops
- 3.20 - Refreshments
- 3.40 - Round up the day, answers to quiz, information about future events, thanks
- 4.00 - Exit with goody bags (If possible)
This is a tried and tested timetable for a one day event: Workshops before refreshment breaks means it doesn't matter too much if they run on a bit.
