Directions for Astronomy on Tap Speakers

The speakers are the main draw for the Astronomy on Tap events. See our AstronomyOnTap page for more information on how these events occur.

General Responsibilities

• Prepare and present some astronomy-related talk to the public audience
• Pick a title and send it to Cameron way in advance of the talk for advertising and poster creation

Topic Choice/Title Talk Preparation

I recommend you prepare your presentation as though you are explaining an astronomical topic to someone seated next to you on an airplane with no background in science. When choosing a topic for a lecture, make sure it is a subject that intrigues you, a subject that will potentially intrigue a layperson, and it is a topic on which you are knowledgeable. Oftentimes the best topics are not related to your own research. I usually try to give the audience one major takeaway out of the whole talk. We request a title (not an abstract) for your talk at the beginning of the semester (June or December) so we can sufficiently advertise your event and create posters for it. Please choose a talk title that laypeople will be able to understand, nothing too jargony or cryptic. Also, shorter is better for talk titles. You can see a list of previous talk titles by looking over previous AoT posters or our previous events listed on the Astronomy on Tap website.

Audience

We anticipate anywhere from 80-200 attendees, where ~100 is the official capacity of the venue. Since it is near the beginning of the evening, there probably won't be too many drunk people present, but some people (even you!) may be tipsy. Don't worry too much--just have fun. The audience came to enjoy a drink and hear some science, so the format is pretty forgiving. You're also allowed to curse. This is a bar and these people are adults. Just use good judgement, as you are representing your institutions and our field. You can look at photos of all of our previous events to get a feel for what how this will go.

Venue and Parking

These events are held at Der Wolfskopf Pub in Old Town Pasadena. It's located at 72 N Fair Oaks Ave, Pasadena, CA 91103 (Fair Oaks just north of Colorado -- Google Maps Link). It's a good bar with a nice staff and decent clientele, and we've been working with them since 2016. There is usually parking on the street within a block or two of the venue, but remember to bring quarters to pay through 8:00PM ($1.50/hour), as the Pasadena Parking Police really crack down. Alternatively, you can park at One Colorado, a parking garage with a conveniently located entrance half a block away (South side of Union, just east of Fair Oaks google map link. It will probably cost you about $5 to park for a few hours.

Drinking

Drinking alcohol is encouraged for both the speaker and the audience. We now have a deal with management that you will get 2 free drink tokens to use on beers throughout the night. Unfortunately, these can only be used for beer, wine, and well drinks, not super fancy cocktails, but you can get whatever beer you want! Enjoy your drink(s) and your talk, but don't turn this into an episode of Drunk History. Or do, but no vomiting. I don't want to clean that up.

Resources

There is an A/V system with a standard HDMI input port so you can plug in your laptop directly to it. We also have a Mac miniport to HDMI port dongle available for Apple laptops. If you don't have a laptop that works with either of those, please contact Cameron directly. The A/V system feeds to six big screen TVs mounted on the walls around the bar, so everyone should be able to see what you're displaying. Using slides on the TVs will assure that people stay engaged through your talk, but I guess it is possible to do it all by hand. Because the TVs are NOT big projection units, only use big text to assure people can read it. Plus, you want to minimize text on slides anyway--this is a bar after all. No chalkboards/whiteboards available. There is a wired microphone at the front of the beer hall that is wired into the speakers throughout the hall to assure everyone can hear you, so you needn't shout, but make sure you speak loudly into the microphone so you are heard. Unfortunately, there is no real wifi in the bar, so download content to your computer beforehand. Sound output from your laptop to the house speakers should be possible. These talks will not be recorded, but there will be photographs taken for our website.

Talk Duration

Prepare to talk for about 10-15 minutes, and we'll take a few questions at the end making the entire talk slot for 15-20 minutes. It's all pretty fluid, but 15 minutes appears to be a maximum amount of time that people want to listen to someone talk in a bar. If you go over that, you risk people just ignoring you. You can tell as people start to lose interest with time, as the ambient noise in the bar increases with time as people stop paying attention.

Arriving/Setup

The talks start at 7:30, so please arrive by 6:45 to assure we can get your talk working with their A/V system. This will also give you a chance to order a drink and relax a little before everyone arrives.

Outreach Presentation Best Practices

• The purpose of these events is to educate the public to be more aware and appreciative of the science around them. So keep that in mind while assembling your presentation.
• Please refrain from injecting politics into the talk, particularly by denigrating specific politicians or groups as it can interfere with our ability as scientists to educate people. In fact, injecting politics into the talk can turn some audience members off to the scientific enterprise entirely, when these are precisely the people we need to be reaching. Please just use your best judgement in keeping your talk professional and for a wide audience.
• Please minimize any scientific jargon from your talk, or if you must use it, introduce it substantially. Remember, these are members of the public, not a colloquium audience. Pretend you're talking to someone you're seated next to on a plane, or your Uber driver, or an uncle from a family reunion.
• Please do not use a colloquium slide deck and turn it into a public talk. These are very different audiences and usually have very little overlap in their slides.
• Try to keep slides relatively simple--not a lot of text, and use images where it will enhance the point you're making. Oftentimes, I'll even use blank slides to get the audience to focus back on me and my message instead of being distracted by something on my slides.
• For the text you use on your slides, assure that it is large so that people in the back can read it OK. The screen is big but not THAT big.
• When people ask you questions during the Q&A, please repeat their question before answering. This will assure that everyone in the audience, including the audience watching the recording, knows what was asked.
• Don't freak out about not knowing the answer to all questions--that's perfectly reasonable. If someone asks you a question you cannot answer, take a moment, think about it, and if you don't know, admit it. You can potentially offer up resources where they can find out more, or talk after the lecture, or tell them that no one knows the answer.
• Don't worry too much about the talk. Prepare, but it's going to go OK. The audience is one who wants to be there and is excited to hear about your science. It's a fun experience and most speakers come away from it energized!

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