Karen Schofield, keynote speaker & trainer

It’s been a while since my last face to face industry conference so I’m excited to be back on the stage in London next month at the MRS’s storytelling conference, co-presenting with my client Liga Magdalenoka-Keen, Director of International Insights from Scientific Games.

Our talk is entitled ‘The art of the spectacle’. As I recently wrote here and on LinkedIn, there can be parallels from live theatre and market research when we think about putting ourselves out there and being vulnerable. But there should be significantly MORE parallels between the two when we consider audience engagement, participation and storytelling. We might not want people booing and hissing during a debrief, but we want them to engage in our stories, to be moved by them, and to act on them as a result.

Key to driving action is leaving the audience feeling something. And that ‘something’ shouldn’t be bored or ‘glad to get out of the room’! We want them to feel inspired, motivated and emotionally engaged. And yet, how often do stakeholders ever leave a room genuinely saying they’ve been any of those things?

Drawing on techniques from theatre and stage, journalism, books and beyond, we’re planning to share a number of techniques for use in various settings to better tell stories and leave audiences feeling inspired. 

Will evil Floella make an appearance? We’re not sure (do you know how long it took me to do the makeup??!), but there will be drama, there will be inspiration, fun and creativity. This session will push storytelling right out of the box into new spaces, because if we always do the same thing, we always get the same result.

Tickets are still on sale if you fancy joining us! Looks like there are some great case studies on the agenda so I’m looking forward to hearing from the other speakers 🙂 Storytelling Conference 2023 – 15 Jun 2023 | Events (mrs.org.uk)