“This isn’t really a question but …” Anyone who has heard those immortal words at a panel, talk or festival event has at one point questioned the whole damn thing. Do we really need to dedicate paid time to audience members’ gushing praise of a speaker? What’s the ratio of good to mundane/offensive questions, and is it really worth the trouble?

This is a question that seems to crop up in some form at every passing arts festival at home and abroad, so we put it directly to those involved: should we kill off the audience Q&A completely?

Marieke Hardy, director of Melbourne Writers Festival

The major issue with audience Q&A at festivals — writers or music or bush doof or otherwise — is that it rarely works. More often than not it consists of ponderous ruminations, tedious monologues, unasked-for opinions, or a line of questioning so appallingly insensitive it may as well have been asked by your rum-soaked Dutton-loving uncle in the dozy afternoon section of Christmas Day. 

The audience squirms, the moderator talks too fast and too loud in an attempt to rein the chaos back in, and some poor writer who has traveled hours and endured painful small talk with publishers and fellow scribes in a cramped green room simply to sell a few extra copies of a work they’ve poured their entire heart into sits onstage with a tolerant rictus. Surely this is not why we make art.

I’m anti-Q&A. Not on the actual ABC television show Q&A obviously, there’s a definite place for it it there (question and questioner screened, narrative planned in advance, questioners at ease with sensitive nature of political material etc.). I just don’t think the rest of us are ready for the responsibility of kindness, openness and self-reflection an ACTUAL festival Q&A requires.

It’s not about us, it’s about the artist. Are we actually interested in what they have to say or are we too eager to elbow some poor baby boomer out of the way to show off how clever we are?  Until we can sift through the emotional detritus, I posit we don’t deserve it.

Omar Sakr, author and poet

I think if writers don’t want to do a Q&A, they shouldn’t be forced to — particularly in the case of First Nations people, or people of colour, who are often faced with inappropriate or outright hostile, racist questions. That said, I don’t think Q&As should be abolished wholesale. We should just be more selective and proactive about when and how we enact the process.

There are a couple of common sense measures I’d like to see more of, such as screening questions beforehand (which some people already do, but isn’t done as often as it should be). This can come in the form of asking audience members to write down potential queries on slips of paper as they queue on the day, or through a social media call-out in the lead-up to the event.

In my experience, many audience members ask either generic questions, or questions that relate to their lives (how they can achieve similar goals, or overcome a specific barrier etc.) which are largely irrelevant to the panel or conversation they’re attending. Getting them in advance of the event shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

There will of course always be the rare few who listen to the conversation, and ask something pertinent to that, or respond in their own unique, aggressive, or appalling way, and personally, I welcome that potential. I wouldn’t want it ironed out; there’s beauty amidst that mess. Of course, you have to be open to it and some days, it’s just too hard, so where necessary you should be able to say “no, not today” and skip it altogether.

Benjamin Law, writer and frequent host/panellist

Audience questions shouldn’t be banned. When done right, throwing the agenda open to the crowd can be the most rewarding, fascinating and happily batshit part of the event. That said, audience questions should also be … not shit. Here are common problems with audience Q&As and how I’ve found — as a moderator — to avoid them. Most of the time, at least.

1. Grandpa Simpson moments

Sometimes audience members — thrilled and caught off-guard by the power the mic affords them — launch into personal reflections that start somewhere in 1967 and digress into a story about buying a loaf of bread. Everyone else becomes convinced they will die in this room.

Solution: Remind the audience before the Q&A starts that only short questions are allowed. Stories are permitted, but only at the signing desk, after they’ve bought several copies of the speakers’ books.

2. White supremacy

White people love going to ideas/writing festivals, which means they’re often over-represented in audience Q&As. When I interviewed British writer Reni Eddo-Lodge about her book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race in Melbourne, I ironically said, “White people aren’t necessarily banned from asking questions …” which led to white people dominating the questions. My mistake.

Solution: Prioritise others explicitly. At the following Sydney event with Eddo-Lodge, we decided to say something like, “If this book resonates with you because you’re not white, we’d like to prioritise your question.” We had our pick of questions from Indigenous audience members and people of colour.

3. Dead air

Sometimes a moderator will launch into audience Q&As and no hands will go up. It’s awkward, weird, and if the moderator doesn’t have back-up questions, it can result in a weird, passive-aggressive silence. What fun!

Solution: Never throw to audience Q&A immediately. Flag that it’s coming up and direct them to the mics. Then ask your guest your final question, giving the audience a grace period to find their words and courage.

Malcolm Neil, Crikey commercial director

Ban the audience Q&A. Please. Or, at the very least give everyone who paid or booked to hear the advertised speakers time to leave before you inflict upon us the grab bag of egoists, compulsive questioners and bedroom experts.

My apologies to the few people who enjoy the unscripted interventions of the audience, but in my experience of hundreds of events at writers festivals, conventions, conferences et al, the overwhelming evidence has been that the one thoughtful and considered question that advances all our understandings of the issue at hand is buried by dozens that reveal whoever is asking the question hasn’t really got anything to contribute at all.

Sure this makes me sound like a grumpy misanthrope and, while highly accurate, it’s hardly the point. Those same questions are better discussed among your friends over a wine, beer or coffee after the event, where you can actually get to the point of what you are thinking, rather than that horrible moment when you attempt to coalesce all your thoughts into a snappy question and instead they all end in a puddle of drool on the floor.

If we aren’t going to ban audience questions, then can I request that before you stand to ask your question … don’t.

What do you think? Email your comments and responses to boss@crikey.com.au.