Conferences and summits
Multi-day, multi-track events with several languages running at once, booths at the back and receivers on every seat.
Interpreting Services
Simultaneous interpreters, booths and equipment for conferences, AGMs and meetings where every delegate needs to follow along in their own language.
Conference interpreting services come in three forms. In simultaneous interpreting the interpreter works from a soundproof booth as the speaker talks and delegates listen live on headsets. In consecutive interpreting the speaker pauses every minute or two and the interpreter relays what was said. In whispered interpreting, or chuchotage, the interpreter sits beside one or two delegates and interprets quietly for them alone.
Prism Linguistics handles the whole job in more than 300 languages: sourcing qualified interpreters, arranging the booths, headsets and receivers, and putting a technician on site. We have covered everything from a half-day works council meeting to multi-day international conferences, in venues across the UK. It is the most involved of our interpreting services, and the one that most rewards planning ahead.
Simultaneous interpreting is the standard for conferences, because it costs the event no time at all. The interpreter listens through headphones and speaks the translation into a microphone a few seconds behind, from a booth at the back of the hall, while delegates turn a dial on a receiver and hear their own language. Done well it is almost invisible: the conference simply runs, and nobody is left behind because of the language they speak.
The lag is usually two to five seconds, and that gap is where the work happens. The interpreter holds the end of one sentence in memory while producing the start of it in another language, and predicts where the speaker is going next. It is one of the few jobs where two cognitive tasks genuinely run at once, which is why it cannot be sustained alone.
Accuracy in a booth starts to slide after about half an hour of continuous work, and the interpreter is often the last person in the room to notice. So simultaneous interpreting is booked in pairs for each language, the two swapping roughly every 20 to 30 minutes while the resting interpreter stays in the booth writing down numbers, names and terms for the one who is live.
This matters when you are budgeting. A full day of English and French needs two interpreters, not one. Add Arabic and you need four. Add Mandarin and you need six. Interpreters are charged per linguist per day with a one-day minimum, so the number of languages, rather than the number of delegates, drives the cost of a multilingual event. A short session of ninety minutes or less can sometimes be covered by one interpreter per language, and we will say so instead of quietly quoting a pair.
In consecutive interpreting the speaker talks for a minute or two, stops, and the interpreter delivers that passage in the other language, working from notes taken in a shorthand of their own. No booth, no headsets, nothing to hire. The trade-off is time: a meeting interpreted consecutively takes roughly twice as long, so a two-hour agenda needs a four-hour slot.
That makes it the right choice for board meetings, works councils, training sessions, site visits, press briefings, contract negotiations and speeches at a dinner. It also suits any room where people interrupt each other, because the interpreter can hold the floor and keep the sequence straight in a way a booth cannot. For a one-to-one appointment rather than a meeting, our face-to-face interpreting page covers that setting properly.
Whispered interpreting is simultaneous interpreting without the equipment. The interpreter sits just behind or beside the delegate who needs support and interprets under their breath, continuously, as the meeting runs in the main language. The French name, chuchotage, has stuck in English because there is no neater term for it.
It works beautifully for one or two people and falls apart for three or more. Whispering carries, and a room of delegates trying to concentrate will not thank you for a running commentary two rows back. Where four or five need a language, a tour-guide system solves it: the interpreter speaks into a transmitter and the group listens on small receivers, which costs a fraction of a full booth.
| Mode | Equipment | Effect on timings | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simultaneous | Booth, console, receivers, technician | None: the event runs at normal pace | Conferences, AGMs, summits, multi-language events |
| Consecutive | None | Roughly doubles the running time | Board meetings, training, site visits, speeches |
| Whispered (chuchotage) | None, or a tour-guide system for small groups | None | One or two delegates in a larger meeting |
| Remote simultaneous | Platform language channels, no room kit | None | Online and hybrid events, dispersed speakers |
Simultaneous interpreting needs the right kit, and we arrange it rather than expecting you to. That means soundproof booths built to the ISO standards for sound insulation and sightlines, interpreter consoles, delegate receivers and headsets, and tour-guide systems for smaller groups. We source the equipment through established UK suppliers and quote it as part of the same job, so you are not chasing an AV company separately.
A technician builds and tests the system before the first session and stays for the event, which is the part people underestimate. Batteries go flat, a delegate sits on a receiver, someone unplugs a console looking for a phone charger. One person whose only job is the interpreting system keeps small problems small.
One practical point for whoever books the venue: booths need line of sight to the stage and the screen, because an interpreter who cannot see the slides is working half blind. If your venue already has interpreting facilities built in, we will work with what is there and quote the linguists alone.
Not every event happens in one room any more. Remote simultaneous interpreting runs the same discipline through software: interpreters work from a studio or a quiet, wired location, and online delegates pick their language channel and listen exactly as they would with a headset in a hall. We work on Zoom, Microsoft Teams and dedicated interpreting platforms, whichever your organisation already uses.
For hybrid events we bridge the two, so the room and the people at home get the same feed. Sound quality makes or breaks it. Speakers on laptop microphones in echoing rooms are much harder to interpret than the same speakers on a decent headset, and a wired connection beats hotel wi-fi every time, so we run a technical check with your AV team beforehand.
For a two-person conversation online, remote simultaneous is more machinery than you need. Video interpreting handles that, and for a quick spoken exchange, telephone interpreting connects within minutes, around the clock.
Most of our event work falls into a handful of shapes. Yours probably resembles one of them.
Multi-day, multi-track events with several languages running at once, booths at the back and receivers on every seat.
An AGM interpreter has to handle formal resolutions, financial figures and a question session that nobody can script in advance.
Smaller rooms, higher stakes. Usually consecutive or whispered, often under a non-disclosure agreement.
Technical or safety training for a mixed-language workforce, where a misunderstood procedure has real consequences.
Contract talks, supplier visits and inward delegations, where tone matters as much as the words.
Consultations, awards evenings and launches with a mixed audience. See our business sector work.
Once equipment is involved, plan on two to three weeks for the kit and the linguist team together. That is not padding. Booths and receiver sets are physical stock that has to be reserved, delivered and built, conference interpreters hold diaries months out and are frequently abroad, and the two have to line up on the same date in the same building.
Rarer languages stretch it further. Only so many people in Europe can work simultaneously between English and, say, Amharic or Lithuanian at conference standard, and in a busy season they are booked. Consecutive or whispered work with no equipment can often be arranged within a few days, because it is a diary problem rather than a logistics one. If your date is tight, tell us anyway.
The cheapest thing you can do to improve accuracy is send preparation material early: slide decks, the running order, scripted speeches, a speaker list with names spelled out, and a glossary of your in-house terms and abbreviations.
Acronyms are the usual culprit. Technical vocabulary an interpreter can research; a company-specific three-letter abbreviation appearing on slide four with no explanation is unguessable in real time. A week's notice on materials is worth more than an extra interpreter, and costs nothing. Everything you send is covered by the interpreters' non-disclosure agreements, in line with UK GDPR.
Simultaneous interpreters are priced per linguist per day, with a one-day minimum and a team of two per language for a full day. That single fact explains most conference quotes people find surprising: the cost scales with the number of languages and the length of the event, not with how many delegates are in the hall.
On top of the linguists sit the equipment hire and the technician, quoted for the room and the number of receivers rather than per person. Then the usual variables: rarer languages cost more than common European ones, evening and weekend sessions carry an out-of-hours premium, and travel and accommodation apply when the venue is far from where the interpreters are based. Consecutive and whispered work skips the equipment line altogether, which is why a board meeting is a much cheaper proposition than a conference.
We quote linguists, kit and technician as one clear price rather than a stack of line items. Honest ranges for every mode are published on our pricing page, and for a real figure, send the dates, languages and a rough agenda through the quote form for a reply within one working hour in office hours.
The languages, the dates, the venue, the running order and roughly how many delegates need each language. Even a draft agenda helps us plan properly.
We work out how many interpreters each language needs, whether booths or a tour-guide system fits the room, and quote the linguists, the equipment and the technician together.
Once the team is confirmed we brief them and share slides, scripts, delegate lists and any glossary you have. Preparation is what makes specialist subjects sound natural on the day.
The technician arrives early to build and test. Interpreters work in pairs and swap at sensible intervals, and someone stays with the kit throughout. You concentrate on running your event.
Need a single language for a smaller event? Our Polish interpreters and Arabic interpreting pages cover individual languages, and private interpreting handles personal bookings.
Send us the dates, the languages and a rough agenda. We will come back with an interpreting plan and a clear price.