I was working with a client recently who gave a keynote speech then joined a panel session with a few other speakers from the same conference session.

He was effervescent about the speech. It had landed really well and he was sure that his audience had grasped his takeaways.

Then I asked him about the panel.

“Yeah, that was fine. It felt easy by comparison.”

Did you get those same takeaways across?

“I think so, I’m not sure. I can’t really remember.”

When I pushed him about what he did talk about in the Q&A, his recollection was positive, but still vague.

And if he couldn’t remember what he said, what chance did his audience have?

For many good public speakers, it’s a growing problem, because conversational formats are becoming the norm. Not just after a keynote, but instead of them.

According to booking data from JLA Speakers, one of the UK’s leading speaker agencies, interactive formats like fireside chats, panels and podcast-style sessions have risen from just 23 bookings in 2018 to 208 in 2024. That’s a nine-fold increase in just six years. And JLA believe conversational and interactive sessions could be the default next year.

Already, more and more events are using panels as the primary format, not as a follow-up to a keynote but as a replacement for it. And for speakers, that creates a problem many haven’t even spotted yet.

That’s because accomplished keynote speakers have spent years developing a specific skill set – building an argument, sequencing ideas, leaving an audience with something memorable.

A keynote gives you time, structure and control. If used well, those things can help you land your points with impact, even while appearing effortless.

But panels often give you none of that. Of course, a good moderator will bring structure – but it isn’t your structure. They will also control the timing, but that’s not your timing.

Your contribution might feel fragmented and unpredictable, while you might also be competing for impact with two or three other speakers, equally keen to ensure the audience takes away their key point.

Many good speakers trust that their expertise will shine through if they just answer the questions well. They tell themselves that building credibility in the Q&A will reinforce whatever they say, or whatever they said in a previous keynote if applicable. They generally treat the panel as lower stakes.

But the panel isn’t lower stakes. It’s an entirely different game. The risk isn’t so much that you’ll say something wrong – although that is definitely one possibility.

The greater risk is that you’ll say nothing memorable at all.

But as with keynote speakers, the leaders who thrive in conversational formats are the most prepared.

This doesn’t mean deflecting every question back to the same three lines, regardless.

It means being able to engage authentically and still make their points.

It means structured spontaneity.

Just as jazz musicians improvise within chord structures and poets produce creative work within the tight boundaries of a fixed structure, great panelists use the constraints of an interactive format to land messages while still feeling natural and authentic.

In practice, this means three things.

1. They need to know their messages well enough that they can find their way back to them from wherever the conversation takes leads.
2. They then combining evidence and example to ensure that when they speak, they’re far more memorable than their colleagues.
3. They understand that the last thing an audience hears from them is what they carry out of the room. If your final contribution isn’t your own point, you’ve handed control of your message to either the moderator or another panellist.

None of this happens by accident. It happens because someone built the structure before they walked into the room.

All of which takes me back to why my consultancy is called Castle Comms.

A castle isn’t built during the battle. It’s built in the weeks and months before, so that when pressure arrives, the structure holds.

The best keynote speakers already know this — for that format. As keynotes are replaced by conversations, they need to know they can apply the same discipline in those situations too.

If you’re being asked to sit on more panels, take part in more fireside chats or appear in more podcast-style sessions than you used to, that’s a sign you might need to practise a different – and more demanding – skill.

If you don’t, it’ll be your fellow panellists that your audiences remember, ahead of you.