Fewer than one in ten organizers picks the speaker alone. You are going to have to sell me to people who never visit this site, so everything you need is on this page, written and ready to forward. Print it if that is easier.
Somewhere in your organization is a person who used to bring ideas and does not anymore. Nothing dramatic happened to them. A manager said one accurate, well intentioned sentence at the wrong moment, and they went quiet. The manager does not remember saying it. This keynote gives leaders a name for that, a story they will not forget, and three tools they can use before Friday. It is funny for thirty minutes and quietly devastating for five.
Three lengths. Use whichever fits your run of show. Read them as written; they are built to hand the room over at the right energy.
Our next speaker was the only camera on a boat that went up a stretch of the Niagara River nobody had gone up in a hundred and eighty years. Please welcome Ty Pollock.
Our next speaker spent sixteen years in film production and corporate communications, most recently as an Executive Director of PR and Communications. He has held a mainstage in front of five thousand people. And in 2013 he was the only camera on a boat that ran a stretch of the Niagara River nobody had run since 1846. He is here to tell you what happened thirty minutes after the best day of his life. Please welcome Ty Pollock.
In 1861 a captain took a boat down through the rapids below Niagara Falls. It broke him. He never worked the water again and he was dead two years later. For about a hundred and eighty years the only way to put a boat in the water below those falls has been to lower it down a cliff with a crane. In 2013 a builder out of Idaho decided to drive one up instead, and our next speaker was the only camera on board.
Ty Pollock spent sixteen years across film production and corporate communications, most recently as an Executive Director of PR and Communications, before founding Ty in Progress. He has delivered from the mainstage in front of five thousand people. He is going to tell you about the best day of his life, and about the thirty minutes that erased it, and about who erased it, and it is not who you are expecting. Please welcome Ty Pollock.
Ty Pollock is a storyteller and founder of Ty in Progress, with sixteen years in film production and corporate communications and a mainstage credit in front of five thousand at Young Living International Convention. He was the only camera on the boat.
Ty Pollock spent sixteen years across film production and corporate communications, most recently as Executive Director of PR and Communications, before founding Ty in Progress. He has delivered from the mainstage at Young Living International Convention to an audience of more than five thousand. As a producer he was the only cameraman on a boat that ran a stretch of the Niagara River nobody had run in about a hundred and eighty years, a story that became the spine of his keynote work. His methodology is the mirror. His thesis is that lost is not the end, it is where your story begins.
You Are Somebody's Thirty Minutes. In 1861 a captain took a boat down through the rapids below Niagara Falls. It broke him. Nobody had ever gone up. When a boat builder from Idaho announced he would drive one up instead, locals told him anyone who ever attempted it died. Ty Pollock was the only camera on the boat. It was the best day of his life. Then thirty minutes at a customs checkpoint erased it. The agent was not a villain, he was right to stop him, and he will never know what it cost. Neither will anyone in this room.
| Format | Length | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Keynote | 45 to 60 minutes | Mainstage, leadership summit, convention |
| Keynote plus breakout | Keynote, then 90 minutes | Leadership cohort. Ends with every person scheduling a real conversation before they leave the room. |
| Half day intensive | 3 to 4 hours | Cohort only, no mainstage. Deepest version. |
| Mainstage short | 20 minutes | Tight agendas and general sessions |
| Panel or podcast | 7 minutes | Segments and press |
| Virtual | Any of the above | Delivered live, shot and lit like broadcast |
Short version: a microphone, a screen, and sound from my laptop. Nothing here is unusual, but the audio feed is the one people forget, so it is called out first.
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Audio from my laptop | Required. A feed from my machine into house sound. A 3.5mm or USB C to XLR DI box is fine, or audio embedded over HDMI if your switcher passes it. Please confirm which before the day. |
| Video playback | Required. Full motion video with sound plays from my slides. No separate playback deck needed, it runs from my laptop. |
| Screen and projection | Required. 16 by 9, 1920 by 1080. HDMI to the stage. I present from my own laptop and bring my own adapters. |
| Slides | Integral to the talk, not decorative. Built in Google Slides, exported and run locally so nothing depends on venue wifi. Delivered 48 hours ahead if your team wants them on a house machine instead. |
| Microphone | Headset preferred, handheld fine. Lavalier acceptable. Wireless. |
| Slide advancer | Required. I bring my own, a spare from your team is appreciated. |
| Confidence monitor | Requested, showing the slides. In a large room this matters more than it sounds. |
| Countdown clock | Requested. At scale the internal clock goes. |
| Lectern | Strong preference for none. This talk moves. |
| Lighting | Standard stage wash. No special cues. Please avoid washing out the screen. |
| Recording | Happily granted for internal use. Ask about external use and the answer is almost always yes. |
| Sound check | Thirty minutes on the actual stage before doors. Long enough to test audio playback, not just the microphone. |
| Wifi | Not required. Everything runs locally on purpose. |
| 1. Inquiry | You send the room, the date, and what you need people to walk out believing. Reply comes the same business day. |
| 2. Call | Twenty minutes. What the room actually needs, not a sales call. |
| 3. Agreement | Simple one page. Fifty percent to hold the date, balance due on the day. |
| 4. Discovery | Four to six weeks out. This is where the closing application gets written for your room instead of a generic one. Takes thirty minutes of your time. |
| 5. Tech | Your producer and I sort AV a week out. The only question that ever needs a real answer is how audio gets from my laptop into house sound. |
| 6. On site | Arrive the night before for anything starting before noon. Sound check before doors. |
| 7. After | Feedback scores and any recording within a week. Happy to do a follow up note to attendees if you want one. |
Based in Utah. Travels from Salt Lake City. Travel and lodging billed at cost or booked by you, whichever your finance team prefers. For anything starting before noon, arrival the previous evening is standard.
If you have to justify this to a committee, this is usually the number that does it. Put in your fee and your headcount.
For reference, industry survey data puts the average organizer keynote budget at roughly $22,449, with the most common band between $10,000 and $50,000. If your budget is under that, say so in the inquiry. There are formats that fit smaller numbers and I would rather do the right sized thing than no thing.
Mainstage at Young Living International Convention, over five thousand people. Footage on request.
Almost certainly. The story stays the same and the framing swaps. Culture and people, innovation and change, resilience, perspective, legacy, courage. Send me your theme and I will tell you honestly whether it fits or not.
No profanity, no politics, nothing that needs a disclaimer. The one uncomfortable moment in the talk is aimed at leadership behavior and lands as self deprecating rather than accusatory, because for forty minutes the speaker is the one who made the mistake.