Stage Performance: How to Engage with Your Audience and Improve Your Stage Presence?

There are various reasons as to why performers value their audience impact— may it be for expressing out the artist’s feelings towards the audiences, or for worldwide fame. The reason may be the first one or the latter, but both are acceptable when working in this industry.

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You might have chosen the best songs and has practiced with blood and sweat before your live performance. However, if you are not doing well with your stage performance and the way you interact with your audience, all of those hard work will fail. Not sure what to do? No worries! Here are some things that you could do to help you out there.

Knowing Your Audience

Knowing your audience will help you out with your overall performance. As an artist, you should be prepared enough to entertain your audience, right? If you are wondering how then these guideline questions will be able to help you out:

Who will be attending your concert? The young ones? Older people?
Place setup. Is your live performance to be performed at a bar? If so, what should the atmosphere be? What songs should you choose?

After answering these questions, align your songs and create the right atmosphere then surely you are one step closer to having a successful live performance. For example, if your live performance is to be set in a chilling bar, where people can relax and chill after their day is over, then it would be wise to choose songs that would help them relax and talk with their company.

Show Showmanship on Stage

Always remember that your audience is not all about how you sing or play on the stage, but they are also watching you in-between the songs. You should know what you want to show to them and what messages you want to convey to your audience. From entering the stage, your presence, how you sing, and how you interact with them—every action, you make counts.

There are countless ways to ensure your live performance will not bore the audience.

Which is why you should practice the things that you will be doing on stage, such as talking to your audience with questions like are they enjoying the song? Or you are dedicating the song to those who are feeling lonely tonight. Reach out to your audience and stir up their emotions so that you can make a connection between you and the audience. Also, do not forget things about your merchandise (if you have one), or follow you up on social media, or encourage a group photo with them to strengthen your bond with them.

However, take note that whatever your goals may be, you should know first how good is your stage performance like celebrity Mark Boardman making his debut in the west end to capture their attention.

Lastly, determine how you will use the stage. Just like dancing, you should plan your movements on stage so that your actions with your bandmates will be harmonious and pleasing to the eyes. For example, if you are the singer of the band, will you walk over to the left or right side of the stage? If you are the drummer when will you go for that dramatic hitting of the drums, and if you are the guitarist when will you come forward to get the crowd excited and going?

Know that every movement and action you take on stage can either fly or flunk your performance, which is why your showmanship is an important skill set to have because it is one of the reasons why people would want to go over instead of just listening to their own houses.

Expressing Yourself

Your feelings make your songs come to life and being on stage is a whole new, different world. Thus, if you are personally shy off-stage, you should remember that you should expose your emotions on stage, you might feel shy and vulnerable about it, but you should train yourself to play on a sea of people. Remember that you need to have an eye-contact with them so that it would feel that you are reaching out to them from the stage.

For example, if your song is about heartbreak then get into the song and act it out, do not just stand there playing or singing with a big smile on your face or worst, look expressionless. Put in your mind that live performances involve acting and that your job is to convey the message about the song to your audience.

Lastly, you need to be exaggerated on stage for your audience to feel the song’s impact. For example, your song is about being happy, then don’t just stand there smiling. Instead, try jumping out and extend your arm powerfully so that you’ll be able to make your audience receive the song’s message through your body language and facial expressions.

Include Your Audience

Interact with your audience! Make them feel your songs, and let them get connected to you. One thing that some of the starting artists fails to do is interacting appropriately with their audience, which spells failure for the performance and as an artist.

If you are not so sure how to do this, then start interacting first with your band-mates, then gradually go for the audience. Make it look normal and cozy like old friends would. On the other hand, if you are doing a solo acoustic act then just go on with trying to engage with an individual from the audience, or you may even ask someone to sing along with you from the crowd!

With this, you are going to make them feel that you have put a certain amount of effort to make that performance special for them which will make them feel included and think that it’s not all about you up on that stage.

Takeaway

At the end of your performance, all of these guidelines on how to win your audience will seem to blur out since not all will focus on the principles that were outlined above. However, what your audience will comment afterwards will what matters most, like the performance being tremendous or one of them loving your performed song about heartbreak.

Lastly, be aware of the things that need to be improved in your performance. Don’t just stop developing just because your performance was deemed as exceptional by the audience. Instead, seek a room for improvement. If you’re a singer, then go for online vocal coach lessons, and if you’re playing the instrument then find for more knowledge. In this way, you’ll be able to deliver your songs and perform better.