How to Run a Successful Speech Contest
“Just speak up!” You’ve probably heard these words many times. Speech is the core channel through which we solve problems, reach our goals, and interact with the world. Even though sharing one’s thoughts and experiences in public is intimidating for some, there are many outstanding speech contest formats that can work with any audience.
What is a speech contest?
Speech contests are any public or private events that focus on the speaking abilities of an individual. Typically, the goal of organising a speech contest is to give people the opportunity to improve their speaking abilities or to establish contacts within a group of people. Speech events can also be defined as toastmasters activities, which refers to the term “toastmaster” used in the U.S. that references anyone who is in charge of organising speaking events. Depending on the format, speaking can either be prepared or spontaneous.
Why you should organise a speech contest
Many people think they don’t need to engage in public speaking events because they aren’t going to be public speakers. What they don’t understand is that speech contests aren’t only about becoming a better public speaker. They are also about becoming a better leader, a better parent, a better friend, and a better employee. Form is the beginning of things, no matter where your life takes you, and speech helps you find a form for any emotions or events that you’re going through. What’s more, by speaking in public, you can sync with the mindsets of other people, which will help you build meaningful connections.
For toastmasters, running speaking events also entails many practical benefits. Here are just a few of them:
- Support social incentives: Public speaking is one of the must-have instruments that all non-profit organisations need in their arsenal since you can’t support a cause if you don’t talk about it—a lot. Whether they are involved in a non-profit or not, toastmasters, in most cases, have the privilege of choosing themes for speeches. So why not align them with important social initiatives?
- Use speech competitions as cost-effective activities: Speech contests aren’t always stand-alone events. They can be just for fun. To spice up a conference or a corporate meeting, you can fit humorous speech competitions into your event schedule. Not only is this a perfect mood booster, but these types of activities won’t cost you a dime.
- Gain publicity: This is the most obvious and the most critical advantage. By encouraging public engagement through speech contests, you also create buzz around your organisation, brand, or event. Choose a strategic theme to cater to your target audience and to promote your contest, and be ready with follow-up offers for attendees in advance.
Speech contest ideas
An experienced toastmaster is a powerhouse of creative contest ideas. Picking a theme that can captivate your audience and actually make people speak up can be difficult, so it’s a good idea to check the most trending formats of speech contests before going into this. Here are some of them:
Table topics: For many people, this can be a tough one. Table topics is the format of a contest in which participants have to practice impromptu speaking. Within the established time frame, a person must give a speech on the spot on a topic assigned by the toastmaster.
Tall tales: Want participants to get creative and maybe even go a little bit crazy? Tall tales speech contests are based on creative plots. The task of a participant is to come up with a unique story that is either improbable or exaggerated. At the event, they’ll have three to five minutes to fascinate the audience with this story. You can watch an example of an effective tall tales speech here.
Peer-to-peer evaluation: This format is a perfect fit if your goal is to teach people how to critically analyse speech. Encourage participants to prepare four six-minute speeches in advance, and assign an evaluator to each speaker. You can even go further and involve a board of judges, each of whom will be responsible for specific qualities, like timing, body language, etc.
How to organise a speech contest step by step
Your speech contest checklist should cover the following three aspects:
- Crystal-clear rules: At the planning stage, come up with a comprehensive set of rules that both the participants and judges will be guided by throughout the contest. Check out the core points your contest rules have to include:
– Dates and deadlines
– Venue specifications
– Explanation of a contest theme
– Entrance conditions and limitations
– Information related to media coverage and publicity
– Criteria for judging a speech contest
– Winner announcement and prizes
Need more information? Toastmasters International has developed a very complete Speech Contest Rulebook that clearly defines all important aspects of rule setting. You can find the book here.
- Contest promotion: Breaking the news about your event is the next important step. To ensure you reach the right audiences, start with the development of a working content strategy. You can create enticing speakers bios and a contest agenda, and you can do some magic by transforming the theme of your contest into an engaging story. Next, pick the channels you want to leverage, and create a detailed promotion schedule.
- Judging mechanism and awarding: Make it clear who will be evaluating the speeches of contestants as well as how and what the speeches will be evaluated on. If you’re planning to have several rounds, ensure judges have the necessary tools for managing these rounds and the responsive criteria. Lastly, prepare your awarding scenario in advance to be ready with email and social media announcements.
Why you should use Judgify
Judgify is an awards management system that combines effective tools for managing submissions, judging processes, public voting, and event analytics. Thanks to such features as flexible criteria management, the ability to set up any number of rounds, and judges abstention, Judgify can be effectively used to automate a speech contest’s organisation.