What do you do when the audience won't give you a suggestion? What do you do when they don't respond to your best Ask For?
1. If people don't suggest stuff, the MC can get off the stage and take an empty chair in the front row, call out a bad suggestion, hop back up on the stage, and reject the ask for by saying, "Yeah, that's good, but I'd really rather have one from the audience"
2. Ask individuals for ideas -- sometimes, they're quiet because they figure "someone else will say it"
3. MC sits in the audience, calls out a really stupid idea, then gets back on stage and says, "Can someone here do better than that?"
4. Phil Donahue-style, climb over a row to ask someone in the back for an idea.
5. Get off the stage, and go all the way around to the back row to help them feel more involved. Part of the reason people sit in the back is that they may not want to be too involved; by jumping back there, we move them just slightly out of their comfort zones again.
6. Before the show starts, rope off the back 1-2 rows so that the areas close to the stage get filled up first. This makes for a more intimate performance and, in turn, makes it more difficult for folks to sit quietly in times of ask-fors. :)
7. **Extreme** In really silent rooms, insist that everyone stand up and swap seats with the person next to them, explaining that they need to shake things up a bit.
8. Make them stand up and stretch... then invite them to stretch their minds... seriously!
9. Offer prizes for good suggestions. We could invest $5 in a bag of wrapped candy, or $10 in a hat full of "prizes". (I really like this one as something to try.)
10. Try to break the "surface tension" of the group. The point being, make people feel comfortable making suggestions and risking. We have to make them know they won't be judged or criticized for risking a suggestion.
11. Play one side of the room against the other. People sometimes respond in a competitive situation.
12. Make them practice yelling stuff out at the start of the show - keep it up until they seem to have maxxed out. Maybe call it a "lesson". Then do refresher courses if their energy wanes.
13. Get them to practice with something easy with many choices, like colors or countries or jobs. If someone doesn't offer a suggestion, single them out & ask them for a few of whatever you'd requested.
14. Remind them that the show will only be as good as their suggestions.
Some audiences are inventive: ask them for a wee bit of creativity and they come through. At many shows, there is one person, usually sitting right up front, who delights in giving wild suggestions.
Other nights, you get an audience that pretty much wants to watch TV. Ask them for something that requires a little creativity, like "What's a problem you'd like Kofi Annan to solve?", and you get silence.
Here are some ways to deal with that:
| • | Get a read on the audience and adjust your ask-fors. If the audience isn't inventive, don't ask them wild questions. You can still get fresh suggestions from them by asking easy open-ended questions like "Can someone please tell me a word?" With a non-inventive audience, ask-fors that limit them to a small set, like "Someone tell me a color," are going to lead to extremely dull suggestions. If the audience delights in their own creativity, though, have fun with it. |
| • | If the audience is non-inventive, work them up gradually. Get them involved with games where they give you a lot of easy suggestions right during the game, so they can see that you will respond creatively to anything they give you. |
For tips on dealing with suggestions that you don't like, see also: Rejecting Suggestions.
Version 10 2004-Mar-31 17:38 UTC
Last edit by Ben Kovitz
