This October, my fellow interpreting colleague Andrea Wilming from Proscenium and I had the great honour and pleasure of offering our interpreting services at the German Dance Award at the Aalto Theatre in Essen. The German Dance Award is considered the most prestigious prize for dance in Germany.We decided to start a series on LinkedIn to offer (potential) customers and anyone interested a glimpse behind the scenes.
This summary of said series shall give you an overview of our work before, during and after an interpreting assignment.
It all starts with the request for quote (RFQ), which, ideally, you should send out as early as possible. This will give us time to reserve the date for your event. Tip: To make your event even more attractive, it is worth communicating to your target group that there will be simultaneous interpreting!
We will probably want to discuss a few details so we can make you an offer tailored to your individual needs. Such details may include the desired language combination, the number of listeners, and whether we need to negotiate a recording and broadcast fee.
For our cost calculation, we will gather information such as the availability of the most suitable interpreting team, travel costs, costs for a sound technician and setup including an acoustic cabin, alignment of all necessary factors for quality assurance, etc. For more transparency, our offers are modular, meaning that our interpreting services are usually remunerated with a basic fee, whereas items such as recording fees, third party services, consulting and project management, travel costs etc. are listed separately. And should confidential information and sensitive data be exchanged during your event, we’re happy to discuss a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). However, as members of VKD – Germany‘s professional association for conference interpreters,
we are already committed to a code of ethical and professional standards that also covers the confidentiality of interpreters.
Once you have reviewed and accepted our offer, the interpreting team will start to prepare for the assignment. Familiarising ourselves with the content and terminology of your event can take a few hours or several days, depending on the length of the assignment and the subject matter. We will therefore ask you to provide us with presentations, speeches and speaker notes in good time so that we can interpret for you with sufficient background and technical knowledge.
On the day of the event, you can rely on our technical team to set up the acoustic cabin well in advance. The interpreters will be on site at least 30 minutes before the programme begins to allow time for any last-minute questions and for technical and sound checks.
After the event, we will get back to you again, asking for any direct feedback from guests who listened to our interpreting. We will want to know whether you were satisfied with our services, project management and communication in the run-up and during your event. And we will be happy to discuss any further events where we can be of support again, reserving the date early on and ensuring that the same team will be available to you. Our internal follow-up process involves a quick feedback session with the team, the updating of contact information and terminology, and archiving publicly accessible documents such as the programme, agenda or list of participants, so that we are already prepared when you contact us again.
When an assignment falls on a weekend, and especially after several days of work with a lot of travel involved, self-employed interpreters should invest in their own well-being. Even if the workload hardly allows any time off, self-care should not be neglected. Being mindful and taking care of yourself is important and has positive effects on your health –this also applies to our customer‘s organisational team, of course. They usually plan an event with many weeks or even months in advance, while there are often many small details to take care of shortly before the event.
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