With the best will in the world many presenters find it difficult to keep within their allocated time and the session chairs often find it equally difficult to call them to order when their time is up.
There are plenty of lightening talk formats but Gasta’s principal component is the counting down in Irish from one to five by the audience to start the presenter and again at the end of the five minutes the audience count from one to five before shouting out Stád (Stop).
As you can see from the video below from the #ALTc in Manchester University in 2018 the counting in Irish is somewhat more energetic than simply calling out numbers; as they count they are also required to sway, stand up and /or stamp their feet!