Some of the challenges include:

• Limited attention from all participants: it is impossible to give personalised attention, which can lead to disengagement

• Communication barriers?

• Managing a variety of opinions, perspectives and diversity can be challenging

• Coordination of group activities is more challenging, and can impact overall productivity

• Larger groups may also experience more interpersonal conflicts due to diverse personalities, interests, and communication styles

• Large groups may be more susceptible to 'groupthink', where individuals conform to the dominant opinions rather than expressing their unique perspectives

• Allocating resources, such as time and materials, to meet the needs of a larger group can be more challenging

• Harder to evaluate and recognise individual contributions within a large group

For practitioners who thrive on interaction with their clients / students, and invite participation and active learning during advice and guidance sessions, this can be tough. Personally, I like to check in with participants that they are following what’s going on and keeping up, which I do through questioning and recap, and so on. But this is difficult with a group of 60 plus, as the large group format naturally involves more of a lecture style - as in a school assembly, or a presentation to a group of students in-faculty at a university.

I still think there is scope for such presentations to be inspiring,  motivating and informative, with the right visual aids, and sufficiently energetic presentation skills.

Depending on the nature of the session, I would still try and split participants into smaller groups at various stages to take them out of passive mode and into more active learning and participation mode. Not always easy in a traditional lecture theatre set up.

The large group format does allow you to build your brand. Most people hate public speaking to big groups. Do it well, be inspirational, and you'll be remembered

• Is everyone engaged, how do you know if you have everyone's attention, especially in large lecture theatres - chunking of sections of content can be useful, followed by activities

• Opportunities for interaction is challenging - similarly active participation, for those who are disengaged, or who are choosing to sit in isolation

• What is the starting point, how do you tailor to the needs of the group - pre work can be useful for this, though not easy to ensure it's been completed

• Unaware of how content is 'landing' (quizzes can be an effective tool to measure this), no feedback or opportunity to evaluate necessarily.

• Allowing time for discussion can pose problems for larger groups, and specifically for time management in these groups.

• Groupthink - do people feel free to voice objections/misunderstandings or go with the group, is there a leader?

• Distraction - phones, people arriving late, talking, disengaged pockets etc.

• Logistical challenges - can everyone see/hear?

Even on a personal level I find one to one interaction or small group work much more effective than large groups. Anything over around ten feels like a bigger group.

Large groups are fine if its to deliver information to a specific audience such as students interested in working in medicine but otherwise it's very hard to provide information to a diverse audience.

The main drawbacks are:

• More talking than listening which means limited interaction and potential engagement.

• Hard to read the room with a large group especially if a diverse audience.

• Less personal connection and can't individualise.

• Much harder to ask questions.

• Difficult to manage group activities although not impossible.

• The practitioner may feel much more nervous with a larger group which will affect their performance.

• To present to a large group visual aids are important to engage the group. Potential IT issues could arise which doesn't help with nerves!

I haven't presented to large groups for a number of years, but I've sat at through many school presentations that remind me of why it is such a difficult skill to keep any audience interested. In my opinion anything over 10 seems to be fairly large as you probably struggle to get individuals to contribute & possibly concentrate unless they are very interested in the content.

The trap that many people still fall into in my opinion is they still read line for line from a powerpoint presentation.  I can see that slides can be very useful, but often there are too many in large group situations that are not necessary.

As mentioned by others, other limitations will include:

• Pitching at right level

• Allowing participants to ask questions

• Space to even think about separating into smaller groups

• Hard to build a rapport

• Hard to keep energy levels up

• Making sure you can be heard by audience

• Covering too much or too little