Presenting at the Conference

There are 7 session rooms, ranging from 200-350 capacity. With 1600 in-person attendees on average, some sessions do get very full.

What you’ll find in the session room:

• Chairs arranged in theater seating (rows of chairs) to maximize seating and adhere to fire code
• A podium on a platform or stage, depending on the room.
• One screen (two screens in largest rooms)
  • The screen is widescreen, so use 16:9 format for slides
• One laptop pre-loaded with your APNA-approved slides (More info below)
• 3 Microphones
  • Lavaliere mic (clip on) for the primary presenter
  • Podium mic for co-presenters
  • Aisle mic for attendee questions

The exact time for your presentation is in your May 2 placement email, so please note the time and stick to it! Because sessions are back-to-back, timing is important so that you don’t go over into the next presenter’s time.

• Pre-conferences: 2-hour sessions on Wednesday
• Concurrents: 45-minute sessions Thursday – Saturday.
  • Scheduled in blocks of 2-3 with 15 minute breaks in between
• Mini Concurrents: 20 minute presentations Thursday and Friday.
  • Two 20-minute presentations (plus time for audience discussion), grouped together and presented within one 45-minute block.
  • Help the other presenter(s) watch the time so that neither presentation goes over!
• Q&A: Allow time for questions (but don’t allow questions to overtake the session).
  • 5 minutes of a 20 minute session.
  • 10 minutes of a 45 minute session.

• Remember, there are 3 mics in the room. As these sessions are recorded, use of mics is essential.
  • There will be one aisle mic in each session room – guide attendees to ask questions only at this mic.
• Session laptops have internet access. If your presentations requires internet for video streaming, etc. arrive 10 minutes early to test the internet and links.
  • TIP: If you embed videos into your presentation for streaming, bring the video link as a backup.

Your Slides

• If you submitted your slides by the program materials deadline, your APNA-approved slides will be pre-loaded on the laptop
  • Bring a back-up on a flash drive just in case.
• Advance your slides from the podium via the laptop.
• Remember to use the widescreen (16:9) format for your slides
• Mac Users: If you want to retain your formatting/graphics, bring your mac to the session room for us to hook up to the projector. Please let ECannon@apna.org know in advance if you intend to do this so we can arrange for an A/V tech in the room before your session.

• Inform attendees upfront how you will handle questions. Ex: at specific times or at the end.
  • We recommend holding questions until the end for presentation continuity and recording.
• Take questions only from attendees at the aisle mic. Direct those with questions to the microphone.
• Repeat questions so that the question and your response can be heard by everyone.

All sessions will be audio or video-recorded and posted in the APNA eLearning Center after the conference (unless you said “no” for the recording release during abstract submission).

• Audio is NOT recorded unless you use the mics, so all presenters must speak into a microphone. If you have multiple presenters, one should use the lavaliere mic and others use the podium mic.
• Recordings are posted starting 1- 2 months after the conference.
• Attendees access these recordings as a part of their conference registration fee and are available to purchase in eLearning.

These volunteers are a great resource to help you during your session.

• Attendees can sign-up to be room monitors when registering for the sessions they will attend.
• Typically 1-6 per session
• They help you stay on time with signs, hand out any additional materials, remind attendees to ask questions using the mic, etc.
• Volunteers do not do speaker introductions – this time is not counted for contact hours by ANCC. Please briefly introduce yourself and begin your session.
• You can volunteer for sessions where you are not presenting. We highly recommend volunteering to meet people!