Choosing the Right Presentation Format for Your Event
Published by Switch Live, part of Spiritland Productions
Introduction
The world of presentation content is changing faster than most people in the events industry realise. A few years ago, the conversation was simple: PowerPoint, Keynote, or nothing. Today, event managers and agencies are arriving on-site with Canva exports, Figma links, Google Slides running on a browser tab and, occasionally, something the AV team has never encountered before.
This is not a problem in itself. The tools have genuinely improved. But not all of them are built for live events, and the gap between what looks great on a laptop screen and what performs reliably on a 6-metre LED wall in front of 400 people is wider than most people expect.
Here is our honest assessment of what is out there, what works, and where to be careful.
PowerPoint
The workhorse. It is not glamorous, but it is rock-solid, universally compatible, and understood by every operator in the industry. For healthcare, medical and financial clients in particular, PowerPoint remains the dominant format and for good reason: it is predictable, offline-stable and supported everywhere.
The watch points: file size and machine spec. Heavy animations, embedded video and large image assets can bring an underpowered laptop to its knees at exactly the wrong moment. Always test on the machine that will be used on the day, not your own. And keep an eye on that file size.
Keynote
Increasingly common, particularly among tech, fintech and marketing clients. Keynote presentations tend to look sharper out of the box, and the animation engine is genuinely better than PowerPoint's. We are seeing it more and more at events.
One specific watch point worth flagging: Keynote has a built-in timer that, if left active, can display a countdown on the presenter monitor. If your event has a separate stage timer on the comfort monitor, the two can conflict and confuse speakers. Switch it off before the show. It is a small thing that causes disproportionate stress.
Google Slides
A solid, collaborative option and increasingly common in cloud-first organisations, particularly in fintech. The key caveat catches people out more than any other: it requires an internet connection by default. At a live event, that is a risk.
The fix is simple but often overlooked. Go to File and select Make Available Offline before the event. It will quickly download the latest version to the machine, so you are not dependent on a connection mid-presentation. Do this the night before, not on the morning of the show.
Prezi
This is the one with movement. If you have ever watched a presentation that zoomed, panned and swept its way across a giant canvas rather than flipping between slides, that was almost certainly Prezi. Used well, it is genuinely impressive and memorable. Used badly, it will make the back row feel mildly seasick.
For live events, the key watch points are connectivity and control. Prezi runs best online, so always confirm whether your client is using the offline desktop version well in advance of the day. The other consideration is pacing: the movement-heavy format requires a confident presenter and a well-rehearsed show. On a big screen, with the wrong presenter, it can overwhelm the message entirely.
When it works, it really works. Just make sure your operator has seen it and fully tested it before the day.
Canva
Brilliant design tool. We use it ourselves. It produces visually impressive output quickly and the collaboration features are excellent for agencies working with clients on content.
It is not built for live events. Canva runs in a browser, has limited offline functionality and is not designed for reliable, frame-accurate playback in a live environment. Take designs out of Canva and rebuild them in PowerPoint or Keynote before they go anywhere near a stage.
Figma
The same principle applies here, more so. Figma is a professional design tool with exceptional output, used by some of the world's best design teams. It is not a presentation platform and should not be treated as one in a live environment. Export from Figma, import into a stable platform and test thoroughly.
The New Generation: Pitch, Gamma and others
A newer wave of tools including Pitch and Gamma are capable of producing visually striking output, particularly for AI-assisted or design-forward content. They can look seriously good on screen.
The challenge is that almost all of them are web-based, which makes them inherently less stable in a live event environment. PowerPoint and Keynote have years of development, testing and real-world reliability behind them. These newer platforms do not yet have that track record. The risk of something behaving unexpectedly on the day is higher, and the support available when it does is considerably thinner. If a client arrives with content built in one of these tools, the safest approach is to export it and rebuild in a format your operator can rely on.
The Golden Rule
Whatever platform your content is built on, it needs to be tested on the machine, in the room, at the resolution it will be shown, before the audience arrives. No exceptions.
At SWITCHLIVE, our standard workflow is to run a primary machine and an identical backup with the same content loaded on both. If there is a problem, an update, or a last-minute change, we can vision-mix between the two machines with no visible disruption to the room. It is a simple discipline that significantly reduces risk.
A few final watch points that come up time and again:
Leave time to review the content. Working on slides (or any content for that matter) until the last minute is one of the most common issues we encounter. Content that has not been properly reviewed before the day tends to have problems that only become visible on a big screen, at full resolution, in front of an audience.
Load your fonts. If the presentation machine does not have the same font files installed as the machine it was built on, things will look skew-whiff. Text will reflow, layouts will shift and headings that looked perfect in the office will look wrong on stage. Check that the fonts are loaded before you test.
Build your content to the native resolution of the surface it will be shown on. If your screen is 1920 x 1080 pixels, your slides, graphics and video assets should all be built at 1920 x 1080. If it is a non-standard configuration, build to that. Scaling content up to fit a surface introduces softness and artefacts. Scaling it down can cause cropping or reframing that you did not intend.
Test everything on the day machine. Not your laptop. Not a similar spec. The actual machine that will be in the room.
Coming Up
In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a follow-up article covering video playback for live events: file formats, resolution rules, playback tools and the software we trust on show days. Watch this space.
SWITCHLIVE is a broadcast-led live event production company, part of Spiritland Productions. If you have questions about content formats for your next event, we are always happy to talk.
