What do you do when you have a speaker that cancels at the last minute?

I normally have a series of presentations on reserve not only if someone cancels at the last minute, but also if their presentation runs extremely short. I've also opened the floor up to questions and discussions driven by the group either about the subject that was supposed to be presented or otherwise.

I haven't had a speaker cancel at the last minute for any user group events I've organized. If I did, I would probably ask attendees if they had any topics they could speak on.

If no one stepped forward, I would turn the event into one of the following:

1. a tips/advice discussion session on the topic that was originally planned
2. quick 5 minute talks by attendees (hopefully they would step forward for such a short talk) on using some application/tool

This has happened to me, so now I try to have one presentation in reserve. The last time this happened, before I started building reserves, I talked off the cuff and coerced members into giving lightning talks. It was a short meeting.

Lightning Talks!

Anyone who wants to speaks for 5, 10, 15 minutes about something related to the group's interests. These types of meetings always sound like a bad idea before they start (because there's nothing planned), but they almost always end up being awesome.

At the groups I'm involved in in the Denver area, we usually have someone in attendance who is an experienced speaker who could pull a presentation out of the bag on demand if need be. We're very fortunate to have these guys in reserve. I realize this kind of luxury might not obtain everywhere, though, so I don't know if this answer is universally useful. As a matter of policy, though, it's good for group leaders to be prepared to offer a quality experience to attendees when a speaker is hindered from fulfilling his or her obligation.

The members of our group's board are asked to have a couple of "10 Minute Short Takes" ready in case a presenter runs short or has to cancel (we've been lucky to have only a couple of cancellations in our group's 25 years).

These "Short Takes" presos are generally tips and tricks, an in-depth look at a particular software or OS feature, or a tour of a useful or diverting website - anything that doesn't require special configuration or installation.

We've also found the short Find Out How videos on the Apple website to be a great resource (we're an Apple user group). http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

When we ran Ignite Montreal, we had a couple of speakers in 'reserve' that we ended up inviting to the show (they were excellent! We're lucky to have had them!). I'm running a couple of panels at E2 and Web 2.0 Expo in 2010; I always make sure I have one speaker who commits to being "backup", and a couple of friends in town that can sit in on a moments notice (I tend to ask people that I know have presentations ready / have a decent amount of experience talking at events).

If I don't have a backup speaker we try to have one of the group leaders have a talk in their bag of tricks.

We have had times when the scheduled speaker could not be there, due to hospitalization, weather, etc., at both groups I am affiliated with.

We try to have something in reserve at both groups, but if there is nothing in reserve, for one reason or another, we are lucky enough to have some very knowledgeable members, who can jump in with a question and answer set up, or even sometimes speak about particular subject without a lot of preparation. We always have a laptop, projector and sound system going, so things just keep on rolling.

I like the Lightning Talks! idea, and will bring that up with our Board. Thanks for the idea markdrago.

This has happened so often at the San Antonio SharePoint User Group that we've started reserving local speaking topics for these occasions.

I try to line up out of town speakers 3 months in advance, if you'd like to speak on SharePoint, let me know! If you cancel at the last minute, I have a great group of local speakers to replace you with.

Speaker Cancelitis is an all-to-common disease and, like most diseases, a bit of preventive medicine helps.

Knowing that an enormous amount of expertise resides in our camera club, I have a couple of folks who I tap to have general, interesting, equipment-light programs they can give on short notice.

Since I advertise guest-speaker programs in advance of our meetings, I always want my members to feel--even when a speaker fails to show--that they have gotten at least as much value out of a meeting as they would have from the planned speaker.

Jim Lowell
President
Jacksonville (FL) Camera Club

At my Java User Group (JUG) I think the one speaker that canceled simply caused a re-scheduling of the meeting since many of our past meetings have been on a speaker-availability basis. This year, I'd like to see that change, and the responses here so far have been pretty informative. I think as a running policy, when a speaker cancels or is unable to attend for some reason, I would want to:

1. Switch to Plan B (so there has to be one, and I'll make sure the JUG knows what that is ahead of time so there are no surprises) and communicate immediately.

2. Make sure there is ample space for the speaker to return, all the while not making them feel bad about not appearing, but not hounding them either if their reply is slow in coming.

3. Keep any swag we had on hand for the next meeting, since that sometimes brings JUG members in. I don't want to give the impression every single meeting will have freebies!

4. Communicate a stable scheduling process to all the JUG co-chairs so we have fewer cancellations. Sometimes knowing what is happening in the industry itself might help you schedule (Java conferences, activities in the company your speaker comes from, and so on).

I'll follow this thread for good ideas to flesh a process out with. Thanks, everyone.

This just happened to our group (EBMUG) this month.
I was out of town for this meeting so that's always a good strategy!
We are lucky enough to have some very talented people on our leadership group. One of them stepped forward with just a day's notice and did a very compelling presentation on GIMP. This was a big hit since we tend to have lots of photo enthusiasts in our group.
Personally, I'm always ready to do 20 or 30 minutes on the finer points on Safari, iTunes and iPhoto each. These apps seem to have universal interest since they ship with all Macs and there's always some interesting points that are news to even to most experienced user.

We have rarely had that problem. We do have a number of subjects that were requested from a previous survey of our members that some of our Special Interest Group instructors can fill in the gap. Also there is always room for Q & A's which seem to fill any spaces in time.

I guess that's really a good question. In my case I always try to keep some backup plan like some PPT ready to share and discuss with the group or always keep ready with group of people within the group who can run the show.

But it all depends upon the duration and some other factors (like the its a big event or regular monthly meeting, etc) too. In my case I have not faced such situation till now.