An Open Letter to Events Who Don’t Pay Their Speakers
Dear Event Organizer,
I get it. Running an event is complicated. You’re dealing with the venue, catering, scheduling, av team, budget, getting butts in seats, and pleasing the powers that be.
But, my dear event organizer, we need to have a serious conversation about not paying the people who make your event worth attending.
The speakers.
I doubt you are paying the caterers, the AV team, and the marketing team with “exposure.” Being professionals, they would laugh and hang up the phone if you offered them “exposure” in exchange for their services.
Yet that is all the payment that you propose to your speakers: Exposure.
The fact is that you can’t pay rent with exposure, buy food with exposure, or pay for your kid’s ballet lesson with exposure.
The speakers are the draw to an event. They are the reason butts show up in the seats and the fact that you don’t want to pay these people needs to stop.
The more you charge for people to attend your event, the more you need to pay for the speakers that those people will hear.
For instance, let’s say you charge $1000 to attend your conference. What if you took $100 of that fee and put it towards a speaking budget. If 500 people attended your conference, you’d have a speakers budget of $50,000.
Speakers aren’t expecting to get rich from your event, we are expecting to get paid a living wage.
And if you’re thinking, “Michelle, we are barely breaking even at that price”, then raise the cost of your conference by $100 so you can afford to pay your speakers.
Being able to pay your speakers only benefits the event that you’re putting on. Paying your speakers ensures that you attract high-quality speakers to your conference. The better speakers you have, the better the experience your audience has. The better the experience your audience has, the more they will talk up your conference to their colleagues which means you’ll be able to put more butts in seats for your events next year.
It’s a win for you, a win for your organization, and a huge win for the speakers who deserve to be paid for their work, experience, and expertise.
For the love of all things good, pay your speakers,
Michelle
Many years ago I was pursuing a career as a pilot. Things were tight and the “rule” was that many beginning pilots were willing to fly for free to build time. Time is an important commodity as a pilot, it is your resume and your value later on. No one asked me to pay to fly, just fly for free after I had paid many thousands of dollars to get my licenses.
I was against that practice and fought with many users and even the pilots themselves to abolish it. It slowly stopped because no one was willing to do it…and yes we all got to build time with, maybe low paying, but definitely paying jobs. If we say no, we will prevail.
I have spent years and thousands of dollars becoming the speaker I am today. I have thousands of hours on stage. Why should that be given away free? I can choose to do so if I have a financial interest in getting more business but I will not and I should not pay to give my valuable experience and time. It isn’t right for me and it isn’t right for all the other speakers who will then be approached… because “others’ meaning I have done it.
I owe it to you and you owe it to me to put and end to this abominable practice.
I stand with Dr. Mazur on this.
A thousand times YES to everything you said here Beverly!
What strikes me about this is that you OWN your value. I think speakers struggle with how much their experience is worth. That’s why they say yes to speaking for free or even to paying to speak. They don’t realize the time, energy, and money they have invested to being the speaker that they are today.
That’s value that should be recognized. It’s value that events should pay us for!
[…] Professor Michelle Mazur argued in an open letter to conference organizers that “exposure” is not a legitimate form of […]
[…] Professor Michelle Mazur argued in an open letter to conference organizers that “exposure” is not a legitimate form of […]
[…] Professor Michelle Mazur argued in an open letter to conference organizers that “exposure” is not a legitimate form of […]
From working inside the industry for companies that produce conferences- they don’t pay speakers because there will always be someone willing to speak for free. Many for-profit conference production companies: IQPC, IIR, WBR, marcus evans, UBM, american conference, Hansen Wade (I can go on and on) don’t pay for their speakers or have set very minimal budget for speakers (think the price of what they charge 1 attendee). These companies have no genuine interest or contribution in the areas they hold conferences in, simply they found a way to make money on the model- and there are better margins in not paying speakers. Should they pay? Yes Will they? Likely no. The conference industry is prime for a disruption or take out these conference factory companies that just leach off certain sectors and legitimate associations that contribute to the sectors.
I think speakers need to unionize or something to stop this. People are so desperate to speak that they will say yes to free or even PAY for the pleasure to be on stage.
You have to wonder about the audience experience of the people who pay to go to these events. An event is only as successful as the speakers the events bring in. I can’t imagine they get a ton of repeat business.