Confessions of a Public Speaker

Chapter 6. The science of not boring people

There is a moment at every movie, symphony, and lecture, right before the show starts, when the entire audience goes silent. All the conversations and rustlings stop, and everyone, at about the same time, falls into quiet anticipation for what is about to happen. This is called the hush over the crowd, but really it’s the moment when the crowd itself first forms. The 200 unique people with different thoughts and ideas now become one single entity, joining together for the first time to give their unified attention to the front of the room. And the strange part is that the audience gives control over to the unknown. They have not seen the movie before. They haven’t heard the lecture or seen the play. It’s an act of respect and an act of hope—and it’s amazing. There are only a few things in the world that can silence a room full of people, and the beginning of a performance is one of them.

I get chills when it happens even if, like last week, I’m just in the back row of a movie theater about to watch Crank: High Voltage, a hopelessly silly action film. Even there, right after the previews and before the opening credits start, the sensation of listening to a crowded room trying to be silent is bizarre and magical at the same time. On this day, however, I broke the silence. A peanut M&M escaped from the stash in my hand, crashing to the floor. ...