With the ease of using Google Translate for every day communications, you might think it would be pretty easy to provide the presentations at conferences in a second, or in multiple languages. Think again….
If you are hosting an international conference and decide to offer English and maybe the language of the host country for your delegates, then you are starting down a road that has lots of issues to consider.
- Do you simply engage a simultaneous equipment provider and the language interpreters you need to be on site?
- What about the event website and registration process? That’s time-consuming to translate.
- What about invoices and pre-event delegate communication? Probably not necessary?
- Do you translate the slides? Do you have 2 screens in the meeting room – one with English slides, one with the 2nd language?
- What about the conference booklet, printed agenda, evaluation form?
- Signage? Where do you draw the line?
- Event blogs and publicity?
You get the picture. Catering for a second or multiple languages at your event is a significant decision increasing both your direct event costs and significantly impacting your staff time costs.
If you are looking to run a multi-language conference or training event and would like some advice, please do not hesitate to contact us.