[latentflip]

I've been pitching quite a bit recently to various sizes of audience (although nothing as big as 2000 people) but meykey take away (perhaps unsurprisingly) has been practice, a lot.

More specifically:

- Practice in front of a mirror, this really helped me focus on my body language (reduce arm waving, and feet shuffling and the like). It also made me realise I don't look like a complete idiot or anything when I speak, and I actually look perfectly normal, which was a big boost of confidence.

- When you get bored of practicing the full talk, do more rapid run-throughs, focussing solely on the key-points. For an ignite talk that might be just one word or phrase per slide. It's quite energising to blast through your talk like that, particularly just beforehand, and it really helped me remember the main points for each slide.

Good luck!