Ask a guest what made a night special and they will name the singer, the food, the surprise. They will never say "the pacing", and yet pacing decided whether all of those landed.
The tempo of attention
Attention moves in waves of roughly forty-five minutes. A great evening surfs those waves: arrival energy, a first focus, release into conversation, a deeper focus, and a final image people carry home. Miss the wave and the same performance plays to a tired room.
What you schedule matters less than when you let it breathe. Timing gives each moment enough space to arrive, land and release before the room is asked to move again.
