PULTEVENT
Live audience reactions: 7 ways to use them on a conference stage
Hall B, day two of an industry summit, twenty past ten. Four hundred people have just sat through a keynote on supply chain risk, and the speaker asks the question every speaker asks: does that make sense? Silence. Then the LED wall behind her fills with little flying lightbulbs and handshakes, a few question marks drift up the left side, and she says, before anyone raises a hand: right, the question marks, let me take the second chart again.
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That is what live reactions are for. Not a poll with a result to announce, not a survey after the fact, but a steady signal from the seats that the speaker and the moderator can read while the talk is still happening. People in a big hall rarely put their hand up. They will tap a phone.
In PULTEVENT this is one of four mechanics in the Forum interactive section. Attendees scan a QR code or open a short link, the reaction panel loads in the mobile browser with no app and no sign-up, and each tap reaches the screen in a couple of seconds. The moderator runs it from a laptop browser; the hall sees it on the projector or LED wall. It is server-based, so attendees' phones and the control laptop need an internet connection.
7 ways moderators and speakers use live reactions
1 The confusion check
The question mark reaction, labelled 'lost me here', is the most useful one on the panel. When it starts rising, the speaker knows which slide to go back to without having to ask.
How to run it. Put a confidence monitor or a tablet with the reaction view at the front of the stage, so the speaker sees it without turning round to the LED wall.
Dense talks lose people quietly. This makes the loss visible while it can still be fixed.
2 Applause for a big room
In a hall of eight hundred, applause for a good slide gets lost. A burst of hearts and fire flying up the screen is visible from the back row and shows up in the recording.
How to run it. Keep the flying emoji layer on during keynotes and set a moderate rate limit, such as one tap every three seconds per person.
It gives the audience a way to respond that doesn't interrupt the flow of the talk.
3 Panel agreement meter
During a panel, rename two reactions to 'agree' and 'not convinced'. When a panellist makes a bold claim, the bars show at once which way the room leans.
How to run it. The moderator glances at the control panel and uses it as a prompt: 'A lot of you aren't convinced. Maria, want to push back?'
Panels drift into polite agreement. A visible split gives the moderator a reason to start a real argument.
4 Warm-up before the first speaker
Before the opening keynote, the host asks the room to test their phones: tap the lightbulb if you came to learn something, the handshake if you came to meet people. The screen fills in seconds.
How to run it. Put the QR code on screen during the walk-in music and keep it there until the host starts talking.
Everyone is connected before the first talk begins, so nobody fumbles with a camera in the middle of a keynote.
5 Live read during a product demo
A launch session where the presenter shows five new features. Each one gets its own burst of reactions, and afterwards the team can see which feature drew the lightbulbs and which drew question marks.
How to run it. Rename the target reaction to 'I'd use this' and the question mark to 'show me again'.
The product team leaves the room with a rough ranking of features from the people they built them for.
6 The thank-you wall
At the end of a talk the host asks the hall to thank the speaker. The heart reaction floods the screen for twenty seconds while the speaker walks off.
How to run it. Take a photo of the screen at the peak. Speakers love getting it afterwards, and it costs nothing.
Speakers, especially unpaid industry speakers, remember how the room made them feel on the way out.
7 Breakout room pulse
In parallel breakout sessions, each room runs its own reaction session on a TV. The programme team sees at a glance in which rooms energy is dropping.
How to run it. Name each session after the room and the talk title, so the post-event comparison makes sense a week later.
You learn which formats and which speakers to invite back, based on the room rather than a survey half the audience ignored.
One tap, no reload
The panel stays open on the phone. Attendees react as often as the rate limit allows, without refreshing anything.
Your own set
Default reactions cover learning, a strong case, a hot debate, agreement, thanks and confusion. Rename them, swap them, switch any one off.
A session per talk
Start a new session for each speaker. Every talk keeps its own reaction set and its own chart.
Shares, not numbers
The screen shows how the mood splits, with bubbles and bars that grow, so no speaker is shamed by a count.
What the attendee actually sees
A single screen with large buttons, one per reaction, each with an icon and a short label. The default set is a lightbulb for 'learned something new', a target for 'great case', fire for 'hot debate', a handshake for 'agree', a heart for 'thank you' and a question mark for 'confusing'. A tap gives a small animation on the phone so people know it went through. There is nothing to type and nothing to scroll.
If the moderator sets a rate limit, a tap inside the waiting time is simply ignored. That stops one enthusiastic person in row three from painting the screen alone, and keeps the picture honest.
What the moderator controls
From the laptop control panel the moderator can edit the emoji and labels, turn individual reactions on or off, set how often each person may react, pause intake, clear the screen and start a fresh session. Pausing is handy during a video clip or a sponsor break; clearing is handy between two speakers who share a slot.
Every session keeps its own set and its own chart. After the forum you can open the sessions side by side and see how the keynote compared with the afternoon panel.
Why the screen shows proportions, not counts
A number next to 'confusing' can humiliate a speaker in front of their peers. The hall screen shows shares of each emotion as bubbles and bars that grow, plus the emoji flying up. The moderator sees more detail in the control panel. The room gets the mood, not a scoreboard.
Mistakes we see on the day
Forgetting to start a new session for the next speaker, so the second talk inherits the first one's hearts. Putting the QR code on screen once, for ten seconds, while people are still finding their seats. Never testing the second screen until the doors open. And switching on every reaction for a twelve-minute lightning talk when two would have done.
The fix is boring and works: a run-of-show line for every talk that says which session to start, which reactions are on and who presses the button.
Internet and venue check
Reactions travel through the server, so attendees need mobile data or venue Wi-Fi, and the control laptop needs a stable connection, ideally wired. Ask the venue about Wi-Fi capacity in the hall itself, not in the lobby. If a phone drops its connection, it returns to the same session when the signal comes back. Everything runs in the ordinary browser on iOS and Android.
Trying it before you pitch it to a client
The demo gives you 72 hours of full access without a card, which is enough to set up a reaction set, open it on your own phone and put the stage view on a TV. After that there is a monthly plan or a one-time payment with lifetime access to every section of the platform, and the prices are listed on pultevent.ru/en.
About the author
PULTEVENT was built by Ruslan Barashkin, who hosts forums, industry conferences and corporate events, and has run over 500 events since 2014: best host of Moscow 2024 and of Saint Petersburg 2023 at the TOP 100 Awards. He built it for his own stages first. The rest is at pultevent.ru/en.
How to run live audience reactions at a conference
- 1
Open the Forum interactive section and create one reaction session per talk in the programme.
- 2
Edit the emoji and labels for each session and set a rate limit.
- 3
Connect the laptop to the projector or LED wall and open the stage view full screen.
- 4
Show the QR code during walk-in and ask the host to run a two-tap warm-up.
- 5
Switch to each speaker's session as they take the stage, and pause during videos.
- 6
After the forum, compare the session charts and export the results.
FAQ
Do attendees need to install an app or register?
How fast does a reaction appear on the screen?
Can we change the emoji and the labels?
Can one person flood the screen?
Does the screen show how many people tapped 'confusing'?
What happens to the data after the event?
See also
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