I remember in high school having to do a 1-minute presentation (we called it a “speech”) on a piece of art. I was physically ill the night before. I couldn’t figure out why they would subject kids to this torture. It was probably a classroom with 15-20 kids. My mom said it was good practice for the future. I told her I would live in a box on the streets before I took a job that required public speaking.
Now, at 50, I’ve probably gotten in front of a room to give a presentation well over 100 times, most of those when I worked for a union and facilitated trainings for new employees (20-75 people at a time). These days I do 3-5 workshops a year on lawn care (10-80 people at a time). I’ve gotten to the point where I’m actually more comfortable doing presentations to big groups than having one-on-one conversations.
My largest crowd was 170+ union presidents and officers at a national union convention. It was a workshop on internal organizing. It was the only time I had to be mic’ed up for a presentation cuz of the size of the room.
So…what’s the largest group you’ve spoken in front of? Does public speaking give you the bubble guts, or are you fine with it?
Couple of hundred would probably be my max, in person. Law classes, continuing professional development for various professionals, including lawyers, sometimes judges.
Lots and lots of times where the audience is one judge, sometimes a handful of judges, for legal submissions, with an audience in the courtroom, including journalists.
Sometimes webcasts, where I don’t know how many will be tuning in. Some tv appearances, ditto (sometimes on CPAC, which I think is the Canadian equivalent of CSPAN?)
Probably a few hundred at a farming conference. Quite commonly a couple of dozen at a planning board meeting. If it’s an unfamiliar group I worry a bit about whether I’m going to phrase right what I’m going to say; but the speaking itself doesn’t bother me anymore.
Perhaps fifty people at a funeral. (Jerry Seinfeld once joked that for most people, their biggest fear was public speaking, with dying lower on the list of biggest fears. So, he said, most people would rather be the corpse at a funeral than the one giving the eulogy.)
Maybe 5000 or so. A Clearwater Environmental Festival out on Sandy Hook on our big stage. I spoke briefly about our local wooden boat programs and the Hudson Clearwater Sloop’s program and school sails.
Thankfully, I didn’t think about how large the crowd was, I was filling in for someone else and just got up there and winged it.
I went to a small school, and had to give speeches or host events in front of them sometimes, so around 350 kids. Since then I also acted in a small community theatre which had a seating capacity of 250. So not large numbers at all.
About 300 for me. When I was in the Air Force, my commander chose people to read a book about leadership and give a speech about it in front of the squadron. He chose me to read a book about Southwest Airlines called Nuts. I had taken two speech classes, one in high school and one in college, before that so I used what I learned in those classes. I was still very nervous, though, and my hands were shaking the whole time. I guess I hid my nervousness well, though, because my first sergeant came up when I was finished and presented me with a squadron coin and several people told me I had done a good job afterwards.
I have presented to crowds of several hundred dozens of times, probably over 1500 on a couple of occasions.
I have presented budget proposals to town meeting I think six times. Crowds are 300 to 800.
I have presented at User Conferences and Finance professionals groups many times. Audiences are at least many hundreds (one has a capacity of 350 attendees and is always sold out). Boring stuff like how we handle inflation or exchange rate movements in budgeting and forecasting.
I think the biggest crowds I have been in front of have been when I am on stage as a presenter or panelist discussing corporate financial planning techniques and software packages. Those were probably over 1500 in the room, but not necessarily all paying attention. I was something of an expert on [globally popular Financial Planning & Analysis package] in the early and mid 2010s and they would ask me to present our use of their product or sit on a panel at the User Conference almost every year.
I represented my employer when we made a large in-kind contribution to a largish city school district’s technology in the 1990s (we wired all the schools with access to this newfangled internet thing). My boss, who was supposed to represent the company was fired a couple of days earlier, so I had to sub in. It was on TV as well (not live, but I had about 10 seconds on the local evening news). I was freaking terrified. I was on the stage with the mayor and lieutenant governor.
But the most terrified I have been in public speaking is the two best man speeches and my own wedding speech. I have video of two of them and they are extremely flat and boring.
I’ve also been a contestant in four rounds of a collegiate quiz contest, including the grand final. The studio audience was small, but it was carried live on radio to an audience of hundreds of thousands (there was very little broadcast entertainment in Pakistan in the 1980s!). This is what my siblings mean when they say I peaked at 19.
A couple of all-school assemblies in high school, so probably 600+
Both times I was working off a prepared script, so it wasn’t particularly terrifying. Trying to expand bullet points into complete, coherent sentences rattles me much more.
Mine are rookie numbers compared to some of you. The largest group I’ve ever spoken to was somewhere 125-150 people. This was back when my employer still had quarterly luncheons for new hires and most of them would show up because who doesn’t want a free lunch? Since I handled new employee orientation for most of them, I was tapped to get the lunch started, introduce any real speaker we had, and to tell them to go back to work when we were finished.
On occasion I still get a little nervous before speaking. Not for new employee orientation though. I’ve done that so often I could do it in my sleep.
About 100. I don’t remember the exact number we had. I was First Sergeant of a company for a while and had to speak in front of the company. My least favorite part.
About 150-200 at a friend’s wedding (best man) but I was pretty drunk and barely remembered it aside from people coming up later to say what a great job I did. So I guess that’s the secret.
Sober, closer to 100 at a church event. After that we’re down to a classroom in Speech 101 type affairs.
I used to say I wasn’t afraid of public speaking so much as I dreaded the awkwardness of having to subsequently interact with anyone who’d witnessed the speech if I’d screwed any part of it up. Which, in retrospect, was kind of like saying I wasn’t afraid of heights so much as I dreaded the pain of hitting the ground if I fell.
I used to do a lot of community theater, with crowds typically on the low hundreds. I teach English as a Second Language and had to give some demo classes in Chinese public schools to advertise our little after-school academy, and there were maybe 500 people in the crowd, my largest audience to date. I also used to do a lot of improv, with crowds generally 70 or fewer. A couple of times, we had more performers onstage than there were people in the audience; that hurts WAY more than a crowd of hundreds!
I don’t think I have ever exceeded what I did as a kid.
When I was about 17 an electricity company gave a presentation at a theatre to physics students of a number of schools and I got roped into giving a speech to thank the presenter. There would have been about 2000 present.
Since then I haven’t spoken in front of more than about 200 (and that was very rare).