BOOKING INTERPRETERS and TECHNICAL EQUIPMENT

Important information for the conference organizer:

Be sure to book interpreters and technicians well in advance: we also have our high season.
On your invitation to participants, specify that the conference, congress or meeting will be held with conference interpreters, in simultaneous mode.
Speakers' interventions and presentations should be sent to all your interpreters at least 10 days before the conference, by e-mail. In case of modifications, please print out the new versions on paper and have them placed in their booths.
When simultaneous interpretation will be used at a conference, interpreter booths, headphones for all participants, microphones for the speakers and for participants asking questions plus the presence of a conference technician are our imperatives. I have been working with Villiger Akustik for years : https://www.villigerakustik.ch, but can recommend other companies too.
For the proper preparation and successful work of the interpreters, please also provide and send lists of products, services, divisions, functions and, very IMPORTANT, lists of internal abbreviations in ALL available languages. If biographies or résumés of speakers are going to be read out, please also transfer these to each interpreter.
Don't forget to inform ALL speakers that you are working with interpreters. Point out to speakers that if they read out papers at top speed, then their listeners will go back home having grasped little or nothing!
Always ask all speakers what language they intend to speak (not always their mother tongue) so that we can take this aspect into account for the language split within the team of interpreters.
Please provide comfortable chairs in the interpreter booths: 6 hours on a bar stool or plastic chair do not really help us give our best.
Badges: please remember to also prepare a badge for your conference interpreters, with their name and “ Conference interpreter” below. More than once, after a break, re-accessing the venue was refused to us because we could not be identified as such. Thank you!

FINAL TIP: if you require interpreting services, always make sure that the intermediary (or agency) does not offer interpreters with three mother tongues or one person who will interpret for 3 hours alone (generally substandard and overpriced). Professional training takes 4-5 years, and professionals will only work simultaneously into a foreign language in exceptional cases! There is a grey market, of course, but there are also professionals. The latter are the ones who will always give you good value for your money, as well as the discretion customary to the profession.

WE ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS OUR PREPARATION: HELP US DO OUR BEST FOR YOU!