Lectern

A lectern is the slanted stand a speaker puts notes on. A podium, strictly, is the raised platform a speaker stands on. Almost everybody says podium for both, and a production company will answer to either, but the distinction is worth knowing because a request for a podium occasionally means a riser and a drawing is the only way to be sure.

Technically it is three things at once. It is a microphone position, usually with a gooseneck, and the microphone placement decides whether a speaker who turns to look at the screen disappears. It is a light problem, because a lectern casts a shadow upwards on to the face of the person behind it unless there is light coming from a decent angle — which is why a speaker lit only by the room’s downlights looks like they are holding a torch under their chin. And it is a sightline object, because it hides a speaker from the chest down and therefore has to suit the height of the people using it.

The small details are what get noticed. A reading light that works. A shelf for a water glass that is not visible to the room. A clock or a timer the speaker can see. A surface for a laptop if one is being used, and a cable path to it that does not cross the front.

Branding on the front panel appears in every photograph of every speaker, which makes it the most reliable piece of signage at an event.

Corporate event production — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Stage wash The even, flattering light a person stands in to be seen — the least glamorous part of a lighting plot and the first thing a camera exposes as missing.
• Lavalier microphone The small clip-on microphone worn on a lapel — invisible on camera, and the one whose sound is decided almost entirely by where it is placed.
• Sightlines What each seat can actually see — the thing that decides stage height, screen height and where a camera platform may stand, and the thing a flat floor ruins.