How to plan a multilingual event
Multilingual events fail in exactly two places: too late, or under-prepared. The good news: with a clear timeline, both are avoidable. Here's what should happen when — from the perspective of an interpreter who has been through a few hundred conferences.
3–6 months before: lock down date, venue, languages and format (in-person, hybrid, remote). Ask for interpreter availability — the good ones are booked months out, especially in Frankfurt during earnings and AGM season. At this stage a rough setup (number of booths, language pairs, expected audience) is enough.
2–3 months before: select the technical partner (booths, sound, PA system, RSI platform) or bring the interpreter team in on that decision. Interpreters know which platforms behave well and which don't — Interprefy, KUDO, Zoom Interpretation and platform-native tools each have their trade-offs.
4–6 weeks before: lock in the agenda, speaker list and language directions. If you're going hybrid, plan a tech check with the streaming agency, the interpreter team and moderation.
2 weeks before: get preparation material to the interpreter team — slides, speaker notes, glossaries, prior-year materials, background documents. The classic mistake is to withhold documents in the name of confidentiality. NDAs solve that; sending material a day before does not.
Day before / day of: tech check on site, sound check with all speakers, briefing with moderation. If you're using RSI, plan a rehearsal on the actual platform — every platform has its quirks, and the day of the event is the wrong time to discover them.
During the event: a single point of contact — normally the head interpreter — coordinates between team, technical partners and stage director. That single channel is what keeps things quiet even when something goes sideways.
The pattern behind all of this is boring but reliable: early binding of team and tech, plenty of preparation material, a proper rehearsal. Everything else is polish.