Conference to retain some COVID-era adaptations

This weekend, the Church will hold its first general conference to welcome a large live audience since before the COVID pandemic began. Even with the return of an audience, though, Church spokesman Heber Gordon Alonzo Pratt explains that several adaptations made during the previous four conferences will be retained going forward.

First, during the sustaining votes, which are held each conference to allow members to express their support for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve and all other general-level governing bodies of the Church (as presently constituted), audience members will no longer be asked to raise their hands in support. Rather, as during the pandemic, all audience members, whether viewing online or in person, and

in real time or later using recordings, will be presumed to have expressed support unless they explicitly express otherwise by contacting their stake president and surrendering their temple recommend (if applicable). Making this change permanent has a number of benefits, Pratt explained. First, it does not privilege the voices of in-person attendees over those of members who are far from Salt Lake. Second, it eases the minds of General Authorities who may become unsettled by the possibility of a dissenting vote occurring right before their very eyes. Third, it relieves attendees, who do not know ahead of time which session the sustainings will occur in, of the burden of having to raise their hands upwards of five times. “Essentially, we’re streamlining the sustaining process by making it opt out rather than opt in,” Pratt summarized.

The second change continued from the COVID era is that attendees will be better isolated from General Authorities to maintain safety. Pratt explained that, with 10,000 attendees in the 21,000-seat Conference Center, and likely a full audience at future conferences, there is always a risk of illness being passed from attendees to General Authorities, who may be at greater risk because of their advanced age. Therefore, a retractable glass barrier has been installed in the Conference Center to reduce the likelihood of disease transmission. “Of course audio equipment will be used to transmit both music and the spoken word across the barrier,” Pratt reassured, “although of course only in one direction.”

Third, during the pandemic, a laugh track system was used to provide feedback to speakers who included funny lines in their talks. Pratt said that this system turned out to be quite popular among the General Authorities, who otherwise would have found it unnerving to cast their comedy pearls before the swine of an empty (or nearly empty) room. Pratt explained the need to retain the system: “I’m sorry to say it, but members can be unreliable. Can you imagine how bad Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve would feel, for example, if he just cracked an excellent joke–a real best on the President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency scale–and people didn’t laugh?” With this system in place, he explained, speakers can get reliable and comforting feedback on their funny lines. He noted that each speaker submits his or her talk ahead of time to the Humor Division of the Correlation Department, with careful markup explaining which lines are meant to be funny.

Finally, it was during the pandemic that the Saturday Night Session Selector was first used to keep members guessing. “Let’s face it,” Pratt admitted, “much of our experience in the Church is predictable. The inspired Session Selector allows the First Presidency to add some randomness to it. And, as the apostles of old who cast lots to select Matthias as the replacement for Judas, they trust in the divine hand to bring the wheel to its intended resting place.”