A conference is the one place where the quality of interpretation is on display to everyone in the room at once, and the one place where a mediocre interpreter can quietly ruin an expensive day. We have been working conferences since 1995, from medical symposia and investor days to scientific congresses, and we staff them the way the profession has always done it: two interpreters per language pair, taking turns every twenty to thirty minutes, with both of them having read the program, the papers and the speakers' slides beforehand.
Simultaneous interpretation is, contrary to what many organizers assume, the least expensive way to run a bilingual event, because nothing stops. The speaker speaks, the audience listens in its own language, and the program keeps its schedule. We bring the equipment with us if you do not have it: a portable system for meetings of up to about ten listeners, and full booth systems with receivers for every seat when the audience is larger. Book ten or more days ahead and the portable equipment comes free with the interpreters.
For seminars and training courses, where the pace is slower and the audience asks questions, we can also work consecutively or in a whispered mode for one or two delegates. For online events we interpret on Zoom, Teams, Webex and most other platforms with built-in language channels, and we test the setup with your technician the day before.
The one thing we ask of organizers is material. Give us the agenda, the glossary if one exists, the presentations and the list of participants with their titles, and your interpreters will walk into the booth sounding like they belong at the meeting. Tell us the dates, the venue and the expected size of the audience, and we will send you a complete proposal, interpreters and equipment included.
