# Storytelling in presentations: lessons from the Book Fair

Author: Marin Niehues, Stage Starter · Published: 2025-10-22
Topic: Talks & Stage (https://www.stage-starter.de/en/blog/topic/talks-and-stage/)
Source: https://www.stage-starter.de/en/blog/storytelling-in-presentations/

Storytelling in presentations decides what your audience remembers after the conference, and the Frankfurt Book Fair gave speakers material for this with its [press release of 19 October 2025](https://www.buchmesse.de/en/press/press-releases/2025-10-19-frankfurter-buchmesse-continues-grow-and-connect-world-literature). According to this report on the 77th edition, 238,000 visitors came, including 118,000 trade visitors, and media representatives reported on more than 3,500 events. On the Centre Stage, speakers included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa and former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who discussed digital disinformation. For speakers at professional conferences, this means that a talk holds its place in the programme and in the memory of the audience when it backs up its points with a story that leads from a starting point through a turning point to a result.

**Key points at a glance**
- The 77th Frankfurt Book Fair counted 238,000 visitors from 15 to 19 October 2025 according to its press release, 118,000 of them trade visitors, up from 115,000 the year before.
- The fair had 4,350 exhibitors (previous year 4,300) and 7,800 media representatives (previous year 7,500).
- Media representatives reported on more than 3,500 events, up from 3,300 the year before.
- Book-to-Screen Day 2025 had over 500 participants.
- Two told cases of four minutes each fill 8 minutes of a 30-minute talk, which is around 27 per cent of the time (worked example further down).

## The Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 in figures

The Frankfurt Book Fair is an international trade fair for the book and media industry, where publishers and literary agencies trade rights and put on a programme of talks and discussions. For its 77th edition, the fair gives the following figures in its [press release of 19 October 2025](https://www.buchmesse.de/en/press/press-releases/2025-10-19-frankfurter-buchmesse-continues-grow-and-connect-world-literature):

**Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 according to the fair’s press release**
- 238,000 | visitors in total, of which 118,000 trade visitors and 120,000 public visitors
- 4,350 | exhibitors, up from 4,300 the year before
- 7,800 | media representatives, up from 7,500 the year before
- 3,500 | events reported on by media representatives (more than, previous year 3,300)
- 500 | participants at Book-to-Screen Day (more than)

The programme ran on several stages. Under the name Frankfurt Calling, the fair showed a cultural and political programme on the new Centre Stage every day, on which, according to the release, Maria Ressa and Jens Stoltenberg spoke. On the Innovation Stage the topics were new licensing models and more efficient workflows made possible by AI, and Book-to-Screen Day showed, in the fair’s words, how important it has become for publishers and game studios to develop content for other formats.

The Book Fair deals in stories, and its figures describe the industry of the fair while saying nothing about how a talk works on decision-makers. They do show how much attention a programme receives in which stories are told and discussed. What follows from this for you as a speaker is our own interpretation.

## What storytelling in presentations is and why it reaches a professional audience

Storytelling in presentations means backing up a point with a told case that follows a person or a company from a starting point through a turning point to a result. A professional conference addresses listeners who know their subject and want to take away something they can apply in their company within 30 minutes (what makes a professional conference is explained in [What is a professional conference?](/en/blog/what-is-a-professional-conference/)). A told case gives them the evidence for your argument and, at the same time, something to remember it by.

A sentence by Maria Ressa that the fair included in its release shows how a single image makes a situation tangible: “We are in the last two minutes of an information Armageddon.” Her subject was digital disinformation, a topic one could capture in statistics. She described it with the image of a running clock, and the fair chose precisely this image for its report. The same principle works in a professional talk: the statement “Our delivery times have halved” stays in the mind for a short while as a figure, whereas the scene of a warehouse manager standing in front of a full loading bay on Monday morning stays longer.

## The four building blocks of a story in a professional talk

A story for the stage needs four building blocks, which can be built the same way in any industry:

1. The starting point says who faced which problem, with a figure that makes the problem measurable, such as the duration, the costs or the number of errors.
2. The turning point describes the moment when those involved did something differently, and it contains the decision you want your listeners to be able to transfer.
3. The result is given with the same figure as the starting point, so that the difference becomes visible.
4. The transfer tells the listeners in one sentence when the same situation arises in their company.

This order protects your talk from the most common mistake of specialists who tell stories: they begin with the turning point because it is the interesting part, and the listeners then do not know why it matters. Whoever names the starting point first, with a figure, gives the turning point its weight.

## Storytelling in presentations: a worked example for 30 minutes

How much time a story needs can be calculated with open assumptions. Assume your talk lasts 30 minutes and you tell two cases of four minutes each. The cases then take up 8 minutes, which is around 27 per cent of the time. The remaining 22 minutes are left for context and recommendations, in other words for the part your audience wants to apply.

The effort is spread over the year more favourably than it first looks. Assume you give six talks a year and tell two cases in each, which means you need twelve tellings. If you have written up four cases of your own properly and give the talks to audiences from different conferences, you tell each case three times. Book-to-Screen Day at the Book Fair shows the same logic on a large scale: it was about developing content further for other formats, and your case, too, can be told as a talk and equally as a specialist article or a LinkedIn post.

## Storytelling in the abstract for a call for papers

A call for papers is the public invitation from a conference to which speakers apply with a proposal for a talk. The programme committee reads only the text you submit there and does not see your talk. An abstract that names the case in one sentence (for example “How a mid-sized manufacturer cut its delivery time from eleven to five days”) lets the committee see what the audience takes away.

You try out new stories best where a failed attempt costs little. Meetups and user groups are suited to this, as we described in the article on [small stages as a way in](/en/blog/meetup-talk-small-stages-speaker-agency/), and anyone still wondering what all this is good for will find the answer in [Why should I become a speaker?](/en/blog/why-become-a-speaker/). A story that has worked twice there is one you can offer in an abstract for a professional conference.

## Five steps to bring storytelling into your next talk

1. Collect three or four cases from your own work and write each one up on a single page, with the starting figure, the decision and the resulting figure.
2. Clear client cases for release, because a case that can be traced back to a company through its industry, size and figures belongs on stage only with the client’s consent.
3. Decide which point the case backs up, and cut everything that is not needed for it.
4. Tell the case aloud to a colleague and time it until it fits into four minutes.
5. Name the case in one sentence in the abstract and tell it in the first half of the talk.

**A told case with a starting figure, a turning point and a result figure backs up your point in front of a professional audience and stays in memory, and four cases are enough to fill six talks a year.**

**How Stage Starter gets you onto conference stages**
Stage Starter is a speaker agency for experts from B2B fields. We research the conferences that fit your topic and your ideal clients, develop the talk with you and write several versions of the abstract for every call for papers. We then submit in your name, keep track of the deadlines and follow up with the organisers. Our founder Marin Niehues has received over 100 invitations and was named Most Active Speaker by Sessionize in 2024 and 2025. In the [first conversation](/en/erstgespraech/) we work out which stages suit you.

**In 2025 the Frankfurt Book Fair showed with 238,000 visitors how much attention a programme receives in which stories are told. Speakers at professional conferences back up their points best with two told cases of four minutes each, and they build a small stock of cases of their own for this.**

## Frequently asked questions

### What is storytelling in presentations?

Storytelling in presentations means backing up a point with a told case that leads from a starting point through a turning point to a result. In a professional talk this is usually a client or a project from your own work, backed by figures from before and after the change.

### How long should a story be in a professional talk?

For planning, three to five minutes per case is a good guide. In a 30-minute talk with two cases of four minutes each, that is around 27 per cent of the time, and the other 22 minutes are left for method and recommendations.

### How do I build storytelling into a B2B talk?

You begin with the starting point and a figure that measures the problem, describe the decision that changed everything and give the result with the same figure. At the end you tell the listeners when the same situation arises in their company.

### May I tell client cases in a talk?

A client case belongs on stage only if the client has agreed or the case cannot be traced back to them. Industry and company size can make a client recognisable even without a name, so clearance is the safe route.

### What does the Frankfurt Book Fair have to do with talks?

According to its press release, the Frankfurt Book Fair counted 238,000 visitors from 15 to 19 October 2025, including 118,000 trade visitors, and its programme included Frankfurt Calling on the Centre Stage. For speakers it is an example of how much room a professional programme gives to people who can tell a story about their subject.