Entertainment

S.2 Episode 1: Maximizing Creativity for your Event

December 14, 2018 EideCom Inc. Decor, Entertainment, Event Production

Hal Lovemelt, an Event Technologist, talks about the creative side of events. Ever wanted to know how to use new technology to captivate your event?  Hal brings a perspective we haven’t yet seen on the Meeting Minds podcast! 

Tell us about you. What is an event technologist?

To illustrate where it comes from for me is, I would tell you a little bit about my background. I got sucked way into TV, public access TV. We did live public access TV in Minneapolis, every Sunday night live on air with a phone number on it. I considered it my education. We had to come up with content for an hour every sunday night. We had to free for all it, it was an improvise show. People could call in and interact with us. It was called Freaky Deeky. Everyone that came on was a freak. It was the freakiest show you could do and very experimental. We had a lot of costumes, basically a mountain of costumes and a huge green screen studio. Everyone improvised we came up with a skit in a matter of seconds. Did weird things, the callers would interact with us and help us to do weird things. I was behind the scenes doing the technology and mixing the feeds and doing video art with lots of different camera angles. We had 4 different camera kpeople and they are all dedicated, and we would make this show every week on Sunday without fail and that kind of forced us to come up with a streamline process for the creative thinking around video experiences.

I realized it’s less fun to watch the show, it’s more fun to be on the show. When we would be done with the show the guests would come and watch it and they would be having a blast seeing themselves. I said that’s it, I have to put people on camera, give them their moment of fun on camera. I built a really crazy ghetto video booth out of wood and I would bring it to clubs. I was still a kid at the time and we would do these dance nights but I would have this crazy green screen and little tv studio you would walk in. It was a hit so one thing led to another and we kept upgrading and upgrading and we are basically on version 10 now.

You’re kind of inventing a whole new interactive experience when it comes to this photo booth type thing. How does that work and what does it do?

In the beginning what happened a lot was people would come up to it and see it and see people getting all weird and stretching their face and they thought it was fun and cool. They thought it was just playback and they’d look and see people in their and realize it was live and then they would get really excited and want to jump in. Then they’d realize when you were in there you could see yourself on a makeshift teleprompter. I get all those bumps everytime i see someone get that moment of magic in their eye. I keep getting motivation to upgrade and keep developing.

You’re writing software, code, and meshing things together.

I basically got so dedicated to this kind of medium that I learned how to code just to do this.

How does this all tie in to larger events and stages?

My craft is actually a more visual artist and a VJ. I’ve done a lot of stage shows for bands. I’ve projection mapped for orchestra hall and festivals and stuff. I will do lighting and video installations for experimental bands here in town. The way it ties in is kind of a deeper understanding for taste and how to mix this different kind of visual art with sound and lighting and a mood. I’ve had a few opportunities to whole event moods and design a whole event where things got a lot crazier.

You were telling me about kinetic lighting, talk about that.

I think it’s the next big thing. I’d like to see it for an audience. It’s definitely seen on the stage and around a fashion show or something. I’d love to see it used in an audience fashion where the audience is interacting with it in a more cohesive way. Waves of people are controlling different moments of it. I’ve seen different approaches to the challenge of large interactions, customized apps with video wall software. You hold your phone up and you’re 1 pixel of an image. There may be apps now that do that, but a couple of artists have done that in the past where they’ve done it with a touch designer system. What that does is it opens what I get excited about in the industry as a whole is companies and small studios developing really unique solutions to interesting event problems and having a market for it.

When you say software what do you mean?

I’m more talking about the service product. For years event producers will come up with a crazy idea and say this is nuts but can you do it, to a big house. A solution house and they will say yeah we can do it and they work tirelessly and make it happen. Whether or not the execution is good, that was a one off because it has to be a one off right? You have to do the next big thing that hasn’t been done before. However what I’m getting excited about is people are realizing that is a very inefficient model for the industry. You can come up with ideas and make products and flush them out over time. Everytime you deploy it keep flushing it out and have that product be a single product you can sale.

If you put on an event and spend all the time and effort to build something cool that’s used once it feels wasteful. Is there technology that will track somebody?

Yeah BlaxTrack. If you buy one I will help you set it up.

Will it integrate with all of our Martin Lighting and can hook it up to our DMX board?

Yeah but it’s not that simple. This system is really quick, you can move you can run and it will track you. It’s tough and it’s just so expensive.

Is that something they use for concerts like following a performer?

Circ de sole, maybe big concerts?

Could you projection map lighting on a human figure and cut them out real time?

So it’s just hitting them? So the fallout doesn’t happen? (yes) Typically what happens, the projector itself the framerate wouldn’t keep up. It wouldn’t feel real, you’d see the edges and see the cross bleed. Most of the time people do that with depth sensors which are low res, that will change and things will get crazy when that changes. Depth sensor now, you can cut people out you can make really simple background subtraction but it’s choppy and low res. You make a blob.

What I do with background subtraction where I can cut people out in total darkness without a green screen, that technology can;t be applied to any scenario, but with depth cameras it could be applied to any scenario once the resolution is there. You can imagine walking past a wildont and a camera being in the window and looking at it and it completely cuts you out from the scene you are in.

It’s like live rotoscoping.

Yes exactly.

For those of you listening rotoscoping is a film term. In post production, let’s say you have a video of somebody standing in a family room and there is a chair in the background. Rotoscoping is frame by frame they cut the person out or a particular item and manipulate it. You don’t have to have them stand in front of a green screen to have a background behind them.  Another use would be when somebody is using a bald cap makeup so it looks like there is bald. There is always wrinkles and edges so you will edit out the wrinkles frame by frame and blend them.

There are whole production houses that just make actors look tinier bit skinnier or fix them.

Tell me about the theatrical element of an event. I think a lot of meeting planners are always seeking new ideas to engage the audience.

In my opinion it’s all about attention. Most event producers know that too, it’s all about getting the attention: creative voices of god. It can be really upgraded and really creative ideas. I want to encourage event producers to not limit their crazy ideas just because they don’t think it’s possible. If you have a crazy idea for something and the answer that you say to yourself is but one one will be paying attention that problem can easily be solved. If you have something really unique like an elephant walking in and out of the room – something crazy for a gala or something I say go for it. Just really nail the attention part. Corralling people is always a challenge for event people. If the cocktail hour is going long and everyone is still gabbing and you need them to get into the venue, you can flash the lights or strobe the lights and make a crazy scene where a car crashed into the building you can go nuts you can go crazy.

A lot of the non profit events that raise money for years before they worked with us they struggled to get the attention of the audience to stay on stage. Or getting them into the ballroom in a given period of time.  You are right, using directed attention and cues to pull people in, it’s age old stuff.

The age old stuff is the stuff that works the best.

When you can control the sound and the visual you can really control the audience and what they are looking at.

Don’t be afraid to make a couple guests mad. When I would bring that up early in my career, why don’t we go dark. Somebody has to put their glasses on, but they have a family that can help them.

If you are going to cater to everyone you’re not going to cater to anyone.

Tell us more about the onstage theatrics.

I’ve see a lot of cool things. I saw this show in Berlin that blew my mind. This goes back to kinetic lighting. They made and now sells the DMX motors. This was one of their first projects they built these one meter mirror disks and had LED edging on the disc, and both sides were mirrored. They had three points of being hung and three motors per disc.  They had 100 discs and they were hung in a very interesting pattern and all of them could move up and down and they lined the room with the grid of the movers. Very nice precision movers. I talked to the guy later and he told me he had to calibrate them every day because the room ambience of the heat and stuff changes. This act was very precise. They would have the show that was synced to music and sounds where they make these crazy patterns and shoot pointed lights at these mirror. You would be underneath and they would get really close then go up.

You will see a lot of these motors coming into the A/V houses because it’s a cool easy thing to wow someone.

Even if you move anything during a show people are so excited. What other cool things can you technologists do?

Anything you can dream of!

Tell me about projection mapping vs LED.

It depends on the application. Although i’ve seen an LED video booth and I’m very intrigued, it’s that there’s a cost difference that is so hard to get beyond. I’m a resolution kind of guy, I’m really into it especially with what kind of art I do. I don’t want a low res LED wall. It’s about the pitch of the LEDs. If it’s a huge stage it doesn’t matter because people are far away from it. All my ideas with LEDs have people being close. Small pitch LED walls are really expensive.

I don’t understand why a 4k 70 inch tv is $1000 and the pixel density is microscopic and you can walk up to the TV and be an inch from it and still not see the pixels. Why can’t we use that to make LED walls.

It’s never bright enough. We put TVs on the side for my video booths they are awesome but if you look at the whole thing we put Robis up top and we have pixel strips going down the side and those always make the TVs look dark. They make really bright tvs and we’ve purchased them. THe problem is you can’t get the $1000 tv. They make display tvs that are made to run 24/7 and made to look good in broad daylight those are still Tvs, still LCD and they are way more expensive than your average TV.  The brighter you get the lower, crappier black and color levels.

Give us things you’d like planners to think about when using technology.

I always like to say don’t take the human out of technology. I’m kind of anti automation to a certain degree when it comes to technology. I don’t like kiosks at all. I like humans being involved and that comes back to the theatrical part and that will make things memorable.

One think I’d really like planners to think about is bringing your vendors together to the creative table. As a video booth designer, all I want to do is work with bigger and greater decor companies to make crazy sets and come up with cool ideas. That way we are not splitting the budgets. Bring everybody together.

Feedback.video

hal@feedback.video

Meeting Minds by Eidecom

Episode 19: Working with A-List Talent

December 4, 2018 EideCom Inc. Corporate Events, Entertainment, Galas

We were able to bring Kat Perkins into the EideCom studio to talk about her experience working with A-List talent.  She shares what makes an event engaging and successful.  This is an episode you won’t want to miss!

 

Tell us about your story, being on the voice and all that.

 

It was crazy. I actually was out of the music industry for a while. I had a rock band we had a record deal. I moved here at 18 and started a band in the early 2000’s. It was quite the music scene here, we got a record deal within a few years of forming our band. I ended up having a cyst on my left vocal cord that paralyzed my whole left side of my voice. It inhibited me from speaking or singing. I thought I’d have surgery and be fine, but it was not. 3 months turned into 8 months turned into 12 and I lost the record deal, agent, manager. They had to move on with their lives and I get it.  It was totally random people get them on their wrist or shoulder and I got it on my vocal chords.

 

Now I can say it was the best thing to happen to me.  It was hard to say that for a while. I had to change my sites which led me to a nanny job in Edina, MN. 5 kids, so fun. I came from a long line of teachers so it made sense for me to foster and educate kids. A family that is going to hire a tattoo rocker chick is a pretty cool family.  I connected with these kids and one of their favorite things was watching the voice, otherwise I’m not sure I would have watched it. A year after being introduced to the show I got an email on youtube from the producers of the show and they asked me to try out for their show. It was a video that went viral, I didn’t even know about it. It was from my past life, I was singing at a piano in an airport and the rest is history. A few months later I was on team Adam and my life was completely changing.

 

From a small town in North Dakota to moving to the big city to having everything at my fingertips to nothing to then being on the voice and now my life is like whoa! I can’t even believe I’m sitting here with that story. I was pretty content with being a nanny and fine with it.  I was just about to start playing out again and doing some bar gigs. Suddenly I was in front of 15 million people.

 

What is it like when you are on the voice?

 

The word for it is intense. Although I don’t want that to be negative because it is really fun. Imagine being around 200 people that do the exact same thing that you do and want the same thing out of life.  That is inspiring. If you don’t get intimidated by that then you can use that energy and try to become a better singer. The schedule is hard. There’s competition in it which makes it hard. That’s what makes it a great TV show because music and competition don’t normally go together. It’s a hard schedule if you’ve ever been behind the scenes of any TV show it’s like a circus. It’s going so fast and all you can do is sit there and get your makeup done and sing the best you can.  Your mind will never let go that 15 million are watching and you need votes. You become super competitive and want to win.

 

They don’t let you drink on the voice which I think is really great. I couldn’t imagine doing that or being hungover. They try to keep you safe. You do pretape the blinds, battle, and knockouts.  You know how far you’ve advanced before america does. It’s hard to keep that secret. A million dollar clause, if you break that you are sued immediately. I had to tell the family I was nannying for but I was telling people I was off at rock and roll camp or some sort of bootcamp.  RIght before it starts airing you can say I auditioned for the voice until it catches up. You pretape it then you go back. Everyone’s finding out the same info you are in real time.

 

How far in advance are you taping?

 

It’s a long time.  My blind audition was in October, the whole month. It’s four weeks for a 90 second audition. That was October and I didn’t air until March. You’re coming back home every few weeks for the breaks and people are like, “where are you what’s happening.” I had the best job in the world and the family held onto my position.  They just wheeled around their schedules to not hire another nanny. There are so many people with full time jobs, or going to college, or have kids. I can say this now, you don’t get paid for the first part. At a certain point you have to join the union, then you get paid for the airtime, but that’s months into the process. And it doesn’t make up for what you lost.

 

Thank god I had a family that supported me. Friends, people started a go fund me, we sold t-shirts. My boyfriend was holding down the fort at home, paying the rent.

 

What did you tell people in your not close circle?

 

I’m doing extensive training in Los Angeles, I was thinking people thought I was at rehab. I’m a rock chick, I mean, no stranger to a cocktail. I was telling people I was trying to get back in the business. They said great keep going, take meetings in LA.   There were people at the actual hotel you’re staying. They see you kumbaya – ing around the fire and singing constantly. It’s super loud you can hear people warming up. They would ask if we were filming and we said we were at rock and roll camp.

 

You were on team Adam, tell us about that.

 

I feel like now that I know people on a bunch of teams especially since I’m on a Facebook forum, Adam showed up and filmed but he also loved to loiter.  He was a people’s person, once it got down to 6 of us on our team, I would go hang out with him while he’s waiting to film. As far as voice lessons go, and what you’re seeing vs not, we spent about 45 minutes a week with him. It was more than I thought it would be, but a lot of people go Oh god that’s nothing. At one point we had a three hour rehearsal with one of my songs because it wasn’t going well, he was there and he rode it out with all of us. I’m sure getting union over time.

 

Was he really coaching you?

 

He really was for me. He really took special care into picking the songs and making sure I was comfortable and that the producers weren’t driving the bus too much.  He wanted me to swim down a certain lane and if we went a certain way we could get the votes. It was winter in MN so we could get a lot of votes. We still keep in touch, I don’t know if anyone else has that story but I could text him now. He threatens we’re going to golfing one day. He came through town recently and I asked to hang out, we had sushi and beer. He loves to help me, he tweets about my new singles. He’s the real deal for me. I don’t know if i’m the only one. He has no business remembering who I am it’s season 15 now. I gave him a prince onesie for his newborn, and he hand wrote a thank you. I gave him some little t-shirts when he came through town. He’s so excited about being a dad, loves his wife, she’s amazing.  He’s 6 2’ everyone thinks he’s so little but he’s not. Blake is 6”5’ so he makes everyone seem little.

 

Now that you are done with the voice and you’ve moved on, 4 years, what are you doing now?

 

Well we came home and I went back to my nanny job for 2 months because I was under contract. I had to wait until I was free and clear from anything NBC universal wise, and I decided to dive back into the music industry.  Released a single called Fearless. I wanted something that encapsulated my experience, I know I was a rocker and it’s not a rock song but it’s the inspiration I wanted out there. It compelled me to talk about overcoming obstacle, like the surgery and never thinking I’d be in the industry.  I would get all these twitter messages from teachers about coming to their classes. I would pop into these classrooms and talk to these kids, let them ask me questions and sing for them. It was a surprise for them. All these teachers said why don’t you put together assemblies and see if you can go to the legislature and if they will fund you to do this. So we did. WE go the ND legislature behind this, the MN people behind this. I started to make it an anti bullying campaign with the follow your dreams message, be kind you’ll get farther, I wasn’t on the voice because I was unkind. I didn’t get the votes because I was a meany.

 

The teachers love it, they talk to the kids everyday about it, but after I leave they say that the kids are using their manners. “Kat says to be kind, etc” it inspired me to keep going. I was still doing concerts, I was on a full tour trying to fit the school assemblies in. I never worked harder in my life ever. It started to get me going, you know this may be good for adults and we put together a corporate campaign. We went into companies and turned my message to being fearless in your workspace.  Stepping over the line of fearful to finding success on the other side. A lot of times we are not dealing with fear, we are dealing with doubt. You are doubting yourself and your self confidence. It’s been a crazy journey and great ride, to be able to talk to people like that and share my experience.

 

Aside from going out and performing at galas, what else are you doing?

 

Now we are in preparation for my big christmas tour. I was a huge Loreline fan growing up. I grew up playing piano and playing her songs.  I met her finally, she’s little, she’s my height. She’s so inspiring and started doing this christmas tour and I thought why can’t i do that?  IN the concert world it’s hard to work in December January February. It’s great to do summer festivals and fall and spring fests, but when it comes to winter now what?

 

I put together this variety show. It’s way different. I know a lot of people think of me as the girl that sings Heart or Fleetwood Mac. We do traditionals, I write a ton of christmas music each year, we record records, I tap dance in the show, I play my french horn, my dad tours with me and plays horn with me, it’s a family affair. I tell people to bring their kids. It’s Christmas, nobody is more Christmas than me, I was born December 23rd, just in time for Christmas.

 

Tell me more about that…

 

We really focus on the midwest, especially when you are in a van and trailer in the winter time.  You get stuck places so we keep it close. MN, SD, ND, WI, IA. We do about 20 dates a year.

 

We do it at Chanhassen, we were approached a couple years ago, they have the fireside theatre. I said let’s give it a shot. Instead of doing one big ordway or Orpheum, we do five at Chanhassen. It’s super intimate, we pull people on stage and it makes sense in the 500-800 person theatre. Chanhassen is 300 so we do more. It’s all wood and has the A-frame, it feels like Christmas.  That starts November 29, 30, December 1,2, 3. We’ve been in rehearsal, been prepping the tour. We have costumes custom built for all of us. 10 person band we have an orchestra. Tickets are on sale for all locations. Go to katperkins.com It’s a christmas extravaganza!

 

The people who listen to our podcast are in the meeting and event space. From a performer’s perspective. How do you engage with an audience and make them feel more connected?

 

When it comes to meetings and events, the music part- every big event I’ve been at it’s fun to celebrate the end of the night with a party and dance, enjoy a concert at the end after they have raised money for a great cause. When it’s within a show we use my songs that are more inspirational to tug at the heartstrings. During the program.  I have a song called you are not alone that just fit totally for the Ronald McDonald house. Fearless works a lot within meetings and corporations because it’s inspirational.

 

Speaking is kind of self serving. Talking to people about how to live a better life, a more successful life, how to be happy and enjoy the success and not dwell on the things that go wrong. Redefine win. On the voice I didn’t win I got fourth place but I won in the sense that 600,000 auditioned for that show and I got 4th. So I won! I love giving that message too. It doesn’t always mean the trophy or new car, which I wanted on the voice. The top three got a car, on my season it was a kia.  Now they do Nissan, maybe toyota. Redefining winning is big. Helping people step outside of their comfort zones. I don’t want to date myself too much, but as we get older and the audiences that I’m speaking to it’s harder to be brave. It’s harder to get over that dwelling failure thing that we have in our peripheral. I’ve learned to overcome that every single day. I have to make that choice and a lot of people won’t put that together unless they are told it’s a decision.

 

You seem very grateful and happy and not stressed by people wanting to be fans. You stay around to talk to everybody.

 

It goes far with fans and that’s why I do it. People asked if I’m bugged by going to the mall of america and being bombarded by people. I love that, I have to add an extra half hour. I worked all my life for that thing and to have those fans. On my side of it, I want those fans because I want to be able to inspire them. Do you know how many artists inspired me to be where I am?  If I had the chance to tell them, I would totally take that chance and hopefully they would receive that. That’s part of it, I love my life and job that way. Even if I am the ending band at a meeting or a gala or something I definitely stick around to say thank you. A lot of people have never heard of me until then, and that’s great, I just want to connect and brighten their day and celebrate.  That’s my job.

 

I have the story where we had a ton of lysiums back in the day. We had a ton of people come through my school from poets to singers to world war 2 survivors holocaust survivors magicians anti drug campaigns there were so many I remember. I remember being inspired by a WW2 survivor. I saw him at our school and I did all my speeches about that man and his journey.  He changed my life. He’s no longer with us but it was that moment that really helped me become who I am. I hope i have kids all over the place talking about this 20 years down the line. I hope people are inspired by me. The great thing about the voice it appeals to ages 5-85 and when I got off the show that was my goal. Keep appealing to ages 5-85, why wouldn’t you?  

 

Katperkins.com

Contact page goes straight to her phone

 

 

Meeting Minds by EideCom

 

Episode 11: Tricks to Grow Your Events

September 21, 2018 EideCom Inc. Corporate Events, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship

Interested in growing your events? On today’s episode Amy Zaroff shares her experiences in the events industry and the core values of her business! Today is all about creating your business’ culture through core values to grow events. Check out Amy Zaroff at www.amyzaroff.com

How did you get going, what’s your story?
 
I always wanted to be in broadcasting and since 7th grade Ted Koppel from Nightline was my idol.  I thought some day I’m going to go to DC and I’m going to work on Nightline. I never worked for Ted Koppel but I did go to Washington DC.  I went to American University,  became a broadcast journalism major, and I worked for all the different television stations in DC and Minneapolis as well.  Back when I was a high school senior there was a show called Good Company which is now Twin Cities Live. Steve Edelman and Sharon Anderson were the co hosts and Steve was my mentor back when he gave me an internship. When I moved back to Minneapolis I started working for Hubbard Broadcasting and I loved production.
Production in any form is telling a story there’s a distinct beginning, middle, and end. And just like when you’re putting on a great show you have to carry the viewer, the attendee, the listener through the story. So there I was getting really excited.
Then my husband decided when we were twenty-five to open an authentic New York Style Deli restaurant. We had it for seven and a half years and that’s where I got the love of hospitality.  The combination of hospitality and production were what fueled me to get into event production. In 2004 we closed our restaurant and just prior to closing a woman who owned a thirty-two year invitation stationary and gift shop called Give My Regards To, contacted me. She said, are you interested in buying my business. I had no clue how to sell paper or gifts or have a retail space but I knew her customer base was an upper to mid-high clientele and I wanted that clientele. So what I did, I bought the business. I turned it into event planning and design because if they were already coming to buy the invitations I was going to convince them I could throw them a great party. That’s how I got my start.
What are you doing today?
Over the years I started with social events, weddings, bar mitzvahs, general celebrations and as the economy changed, close to 2008, people weren’t buying invitations and stationary as much as they used to, most of it was going online. I’ve always enjoyed being ahead of the trend or whats next. When you’re an entrepreneur you can feel change coming. I decided I was going to bring graphic design in-house, I was going to move away from retail space.  I was going to move into an office and industrial space where events came first, retail was second. In 2008 we made that change and moved to a spot in Edina. In 2010 we were getting ready to change the name of our company so people didn’t think of us as an invitation store.  So I paid someone a lot of money to tell me to change the name of my store to my name. In 2010 Target called and that was a game changer for me. They said, do you do cooperate events and do you do national events. And I had done national weddings and bar mitzvahs but the only corporate  I had done was local.  I said yes. They gave me incredible opportunities all over the country. Once you have Target as brand profitability that’s a good thing. I live by the mantra “all you have is your name”. I would say and they would say we stand behind everything we do.
Is it just you, you do have employees?
I do, I have a great team.  I have a team of 4 full-time employees. At some points its been more sometimes its been less. Right now we have a real sweet spot. We believe fake it till you make it doesn’t cut it. We surround ourselves with wonderful creative partners and our team grows as it has to.
You have a lot of experience, for our listeners out there, what are the things they can do to make their business a better business?
We created a core values document for our company. Our EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) facilitator, Sue Hawks, she encouraged us to put together our core values document and to hire, fire, reward, and review by it. That’s fine and well I know my team prescribes by these values. I have found it much more helpful to share with our creative partners and our up and coming event professionals so they can really understand what it means.
I said earlier all you have is your name, so understanding the value of reputation is one of our key values. Wherever we are in the community, you’re an extension of your brand. You can be in the grocery store and someone may come up to you who recognizes you and may ask, hey did the invitations go out for our event and even if you’re in your sweats on a Sunday in your baseball cap, you have to be on in that moment because you are representing your company.  You are only as good as your last event so that means not only should it look great and be photo worthy but you have to understand what it means to work with your creative partners effectively, respectfully, with integrity all those things.  There have been times where I have lost my temper and I needed my teams and my creative partners to teach me we are all in this together but there’s a better way you can say that! I’ve learned from that.
Exhibiting confidence and expertise in all that we do.  We can’t fake it till we make it.  If you really don’t know something as a company it’s ok to say it.  As long as you say I’m not sure but I will find out for you. It’s fun when you are in a creative business to learn together. You can throw big ideas out there and see what sticks, and when you throw the big ideas out there, you can figure out how to make it work if you have the right people.
Tell us more on exhibit confidence and expertise.
When you feel like you look good, you exude confidence. There’s another thing about being confident and being an expert in something: if I tell you Sheila has the best cupcakes I’ve ever had or heard about, if I only heard about them and never met her, I’m not an expert. I’m giving you hearsay. There are many people that say I hear you’re great or I hear he is great you should use him, the only way we can know that is if we work together, then we become an expert. That’s really important too.
Hirees and partners should have the similar values as you…
Absolutely.  You have to have had the conversation. Networking can seem like a chore and cold calling people to get coffee, but it’s all about the first impression.  I’m a big believer, especially with people who want an informational interview, I’m going to pay more attention to you if you call me over an anonymous email.
You’ll never replace an in person interview.
Absolutely because you feed off their energy, we right here have had so much fun!
Let’s talk about no dropping the ball.
I love no dropping the ball.  Here’s the deal, if I tell you I’m going to get a proposal to you by Wednesday by 3:00, if I get it to you by Wednesday at 2:30 I have exceeded your expectations.  If I get it to you by Wednesday at 3:00 I have met your expectations and if I get it to you by 3:10 I have not done a great job.  I don’t want you to over promise and under deliver as an employee or as a creative partner. When I am on a timeline you are on a timeline as a creative partner.  We have to work together to understand whats up.
When I have the relationship, over the years, there’s an unspoken understanding between me and the vendor, we know how each other works.  When I have a new employee or training somebody they may not know.  I encourage my team to go meet with as many people from that organization as possible so they can have their own shorthand. I don’t want them to go on the merits of the brand but because they have the relationship. So that’s on no dropping the ball and finish what you start.  Fully deliver what you say you are going to deliver.  You will be trusted more in the industry when you do what say you are going to do and you have the integrity and you care. For me this business isn’t just about making money, it’s about creating life’s most memorable experiences.  We really need to think what that means on a much deeper level.
Keep going…
Willing to go the extra mile. I’m a real proponent of being proactive versus reactive and doing something before it’s asked.  That’s not just for my team there’s been so many times where a creative partner has just thrown something in, going the extra mile makes such a difference! If you’re loyal to others they will be loyal to you, because we’re all in this together.
I have been plenty reactive in my career over the years. Where I learned to be proactive, in the restaurant business when you are a server or a host and you see someone’s eyes come up from the table or from whom they are speaking with you know that even if they don’t raise their hand to say excuse me, they must be needing something or they’re about to ask for something. That’s when you take that proactive mentality and go and say “is there something I can help you with.”  I think that’s important.  This is a really easy skill, you have to pay attention.
I want to talk about being truthful, accountable, and no blame, if you do something wrong or you made a mistake just own it.  I’m the biggest proponent of this because I make a ton of mistakes and I have to own them. I have to apologize when I should and learn from it and move on. There are so many people from my business who have left the company and started their own business’. I do not see that as a problem I see it as a wonderful success story.  Many are female entrepreneurs so I’m excited about that. It’s exciting to teach someone and watch them go.
The last two points are be able to handle the intensity of all situations.  Sometimes with intense type A personalities passion can come across as disrespect. That is not to sugarcoat that if you’re being a jerk you’re being a jerk.  If you really are feeling it, it’s not only you feeling it, but your team too. If you can’t handle the intensity of all situations the event industry may not be for you.
And lastly for our company, we live by insanely high standards.  If there is a seam in a back drop we are using that’s not going to photograph well and we can’t have the seam. The fabricator may say you have to have a seam, well guess what we are going to seal the seam, make it look good, no one is going to know the seam ever existed. Those details matter, we are in the business of details. If you expect great things, great things should and can happen.
What do you tell someone who’s listening who’s thinking I don’t like intense situations, any tips?
It’s important to note it’s never personal. It’s not a personal attack on you the person, it’s the concern about the event in the moment. If you can understand that you are part of a larger mechanism to make something great for someone else and that you’re part of building an experience then you’ll go about it as exciting work. It’s not that I would say don’t join the business if you can’t handle intensity but it is a million miles a minute. There is an innate characteristic of someone in the event industry.  They don’t care about being on their feet 16 hours at a time, they don’t care they may miss breakfast, lunch, and dinner and have to go through the Burger King drive-thru at midnight.  There’s a whole bunch of things.  It’s not a sexy business.
How do people develop core values for their own business?
Every organization has either a mission statement or a value system which is why you’ve been attracted to work for that company. As a leader, a planner, or a designer or anything what matters to you and what value can you add to the company. What can you bring to the table, what can others bring to the table, and where do you see common ground.  Start with 3-5 things, what makes you tick in your business, share that, you’ll find it will resonate with the rest of the team and spark conversation.
How do I deal with team members that don’t line with the core values?
That’s a great question the book you mentioned by Gino Wickman called Traction, talks about there being a visionary in an organization, an integrator, and the leadership. One of the tools he puts forth is putting the right person in the right seat. If you don’t align with the majority of the core values and you’ve been reviewed by your leaders on whether or not you align you may be the wrong person.
It’s important to show these in the interview process.  That will allow the person being interviewed to say do I fit?
What about someone on your team not adopting the core values?
As far as buying in, you lead by example. If the culture is such that everyone is following these values it’s going to just be.  If you don’t subscribe to them you’re going to feel like an outsider. The mechanism that’s in place through the EOS, with this people analyzer it’s part of the review process.  If you follow along with EOS and do what you’re supposed to do it does work. If you’re hiring, firing, reviewing, and rewarding by the document it will work.  You have to be sure every 90 days, if you tend to have new hires, that you are referring back to it. And I would ask the question to that person, how do you feel about how these core values are resonating with you after being here 90 days?
What about making sure your customers are a good fit?
It’s on my website. These core values are on the website for a reason. I want people to know.  If you read this you know there’s no BS, she really means this. Showing who you are and what you stand for speaks for itself, there are times you aren’t the right fit.  Sometimes you have to divorce yourself of a client or the client of you. Fortunately that hasn’t happened in a long, long, long time.  It did happen in the beginning of my career on both sides. I was just learning what I was doing, I was getting my feet wet. I owned an invitation store that happened to do parties, that was over a decade ago. When it does happen, be honest and say we may not be the best fit for you and suggest someone who may be.  That doesn’t mean you think less of the person you’re referring it means you know their core capabilities and they really would be a good fit.  That’s trust.
What other pieces of advice for the early on entrepreneurs?
Education, our community has many great organizations that people can be apart of.  They can be apart of ILEA (International Live Events Association) the wedding community, the audio-visual community. Getting your face out there and meeting as many people as you can, informationally interviewing with people as much as possible.  I see a ton of young women in the wedding space popping up because they’ve either attended an event, helped their sister plan her wedding, or really feel like they are very organized and can handle multiple tasks simultaneously. That does not make a great event planner.  What makes a great event planner is the knowledge of function and form coming together seamlessly and if you don’t truly know what that means get out there and start asking people.
I love meeting with the newbies.  I do not want to do wedding planning.  I will tell you all the tricks I know to make you a great wedding planner, I’ll happily tell you.  Go out meeting, learning, getting educated, follow people on social media. You have to get out there see and be seen in the early days especially.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t later in your career as well, you have to stay relevant.
You can reach Amy Zaroff on social media as @amyzaroff
Meeting Minds by EideCom
Dawn of a Dream

Episode 7: Next Level Fundraising with CCRF

July 24, 2018 EideCom Inc. Entertainment, Event Production, Fundraising, Galas, Non Profit 00:02:16

Jim Leighton, VP of Events and Partnerships, and HaiVy Thompson, Director of Marketing and Community Engagement from Children’s Cancer Research Fund, join us today to share how they are changing the game of fundraising! In this episode you will learn what makes an event an experience, how to tell a story, and a special premier of CCRF’s big announcement!

 

HOW ARE YOU KEEPING THE DRIVE TO ALWAYS PUSH THE NEEDLE? HOW DO YOU GUYS KEEP IN THE MINDSET OF TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL?

One of the key things is that we put it into our value statement. One of our values as an organization is innovation. Our team and all of our partners, they know that. We are not afraid to innovate. Personally, I get bored. I don’t want to do the same thing every year. We have the great opportunity to create and play a little bit. Because we are in the non-profit space, we know we have to be cost-effective and money does matter. But you never know where the best next thing is going to come from! We have to diversify. Our event can’t just stay in the ballroom, so we play in the digital and virtual space. Innovation is at our core.

Also, we get so energized by our donors, our fundraisers, the kids, and the families we work with. We get so much inspiration from them to keep pushing ourselves year after year.

WHEN YOU START CRAFTING NEXT YEAR’S EVENT, HOW DO YOU WEAVE IN THE CAUSE INTO THE AUDIENCE’S EXPERIENCE?

We start by thinking about what are some compelling stories that are happening with our families right now. We get so much inspiration from the things they are dealing with in their cancer journey. Even when the journey is complete and they are living post-cancer, there are a lot of challenges that come with that. We stay close with our families and we learn a lot from them. Then, we talk to our researchers and ask them what they are doing, what they are excited about, and what is new and different that donors might really enjoy hearing about. We take that and start there. Then, with all the event components, we ask how can we weave that into each and every moment whether that be a gala or a walk/run.

Impact in our world is challenging to show. Impact takes a long time. Research takes a long time. One of the things at CCRF we pride ourselves on is the time from bench to bedside. Because we focus on certain research we have had some situations where that has been greatly shortened and then we can tell that great story! In research it can be decades before we get to clinical trials. So instead of asking people to give money now and see their result in 30 years, we focus on those things that have had a greater impact in a shorter amount of time. We build those relationships with the researchers to share those stories.

ONE THING YOU ARE VERY WELL KNOWN FOR IS CREATING AN AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE LIKE NOTHING ELSE. SO COULD YOU TALK US THROUGH YOUR MENTALITY. HOW DO YOU MAKE THE EVENT SO SPECIAL FOR THE AUDIENCE?

Thank you so much. We think about all of the ways people are engaging. All of the senses. The one we haven’t figured out is smell, but we will get it.

In 2007 we had a mom share her story and it was so impactful (tune in to hear the story!). That was the moment in my career that I said, “Authentic storytelling. How can we continue to tell these stories?” And then we started assembling a team. So now with HaiVy and her marketing team, our partners (who are so important because we need people to amplify that story and craft it) we really put stories and mission at the forefront of every event.

A few years ago, we took the guests on an experience that the children go through. So going back to the five senses, we wanted people to experience an MRI, because that is something a lot of the kids have to go through and it is really scary for them. You have to lay really still and go through this dark tunnel. So we worked with you guys, EideCom, to really build the sound for that and we dimmed the lights and we got people to experience what an MRI feels like to signify how challenging the journey is for families, and kids especially, and that their support makes it possible so that this doesn’t have to happen in the future. That was really cool because it involved all the senses. We want to give the guests something truly memorable that they can share with their families and friends tomorrow.

We can’t do any of this without our partners. You need to have partners you can trust. Like you guys, EideCom, were so onboard with our MRI idea and you made it possible. There was a lot of things that could have gone wrong!

THERE IS SOMETHING REALLY POWERFUL ABOUT KEEPING UP WITH EVENTS, LIKE WHAT YOU DID WITH THAT MOTHER SHARING HER STORY. HOW DO YOU GUYS STAY UP WITH ALL THE STUFF THAT’S GOING ON AND FIGURE OUT WHAT IS RELEVANT TO YOUR CAUSE?

It’s about relationships. Great relationships with the researchers. Then, collaborations. We have a great collaboration with a group of moms called Momcology. This group is made up of 6,000 women across the country that have the unfortunate common ground of having a child with cancer. We have people on our team involved with that, listening to what is going on. The first thing in sharing a great story is that you have to listen. Then, we think how can we effectively share that story. One thing we are being more cognizant of is utilizing digital and social media, figuring out how we can tell these stories before we get into the ballroom and how do we continue the conversation after they leave the ballroom?

The other thing to add is that we have invested resources into relationships and listening. You can’t just go out and find a great story. You have to have relationships with families, researchers, caretakers, and then those stories bubble up over time. So that is the number one thing I recommend a lot of marketing teams to do, invest in an outreach person.

HAVE YOU GUYS EVER GONE BACK AND RETOLD A STORY, LIKE WITH AN UPDATE?

Definitely! One that we have retold and has new chapters to expound on is Mindy. Her son, Connor, has a brain tumor and she now works for us, but in the mid 2000s we featured her story at Dawn of a Dream and a few other marketing places. Connor was a baby at that point and had a few treatments for his cancer already. Then, a decade later things started to change. The after effects of all the treatments cause him to start having seizures. And for the past ten years his family was thinking they had conquered the cancer and they would be fine, and all of sudden the reality hits again. We shared that story.

WHEN YOU SAY FOCUS ON THE THINGS YOU NEED TO CHANGE, BUT DON’T CHANGE EVERYTHING, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

This is about guest experience, not necessarily story telling. We look at everything about the event afterwards and we see what worked, what should be tweaked, and what didn’t go well. So for us, we will always have a live auction because it works. We really want to focus on the things that will have to most impact because again we don’t have a lot of money. Some organizations like to do things new every year and go to a new venue every year. And for us, well next year we are going to a new venue, but it has been 15 years at the same place! To us it is important to have consistency with our partners so you can make those impactful changes. One thing we try to change-up is how we tell the story. So not just through video, but through live interviews, live talent, etc. We try to switch it up so you have a variable of experiences throughout the night. We have found that in person story telling is something magical. The thing about focusing on the things that work, know who your audience is. It doesn’t matter if we are bored. Just because we might be bored with it, doesn’t mean our audience is!

We also think about the morning after. I call it “the Caribou experience.” I want someone who has attend our gala for the first time to talk about the event they were at last night when they go to the coffee shop the next morning. If they say, “I was at a great event last night,” that’s good but I’m sure they say that about a lot of events. I want them to explode with passion. So we really think about what we want that Caribou conversation to be when we are crafting the message and planning the event. If all they can recall is the dinner and drinks and not the actual message, we had them there as a guest, not a donor.

Awareness and story telling is all a way to get funds raised. Raising as much money as we can is the key to all of this. Experience matters to fundraising, so when we have a new team member or partner I talk about the guest walking into the room. Say that guest has $500 in their pocket. Every time they have a bad experience, like valet takes too long, there goes a $100. So we don’t play games like that. It takes the whole team to be involved in making every experience matter. Registration has everything to do with revenue. All the little things combine to make a major difference.

LET’S TALK ABOUT DOING YOUR HOMEWORK ON WHO IS IN THE ROOM.

In gala situations, talk to your table hosts. Who is it they are bringing? We are working on personas of our gala guests. There are a few assumptions we make, like they are from the Twin Cities or the west metro and they probably go to a gala a month. So we need to step up our game. But what excites them? What are the types of things that they want to do? This is a group of people who, for the most part, can buy what they want. But maybe they weren’t thinking of going on a trip to Australia, but trips sell! There is a lot of talk about balance, like there has to be something for the sports person or this or that, but for us we know trips are going to do well. So I’m not going to put in a Nascar experience, because there might only be one or two people in the room that care about that.

TELL US MORE ABOUT TRIPS.

We know about our demographic. They like first class. If you don’t include it, they will probably upgrade anyways but be crabby about it. So it’s all about knowing your audience. If we were doing an event at a school or a smaller event, we wouldn’t do luxury trips. Also, it’s about collaboration like we said. We have an amazing partnership with a luxury travel company, Travel Beyond. Since 2010 we’ve been working with them to curate these trips. We trust them and they are excited about what we are doing. We sit down with them and they tell us what is hot and trending. They also do such a great job at selling the trip that night. They come up with the description, they will speak about it, they truly work with us in our event.

A LOT OF NEW PLANNERS ASK, “HOW MUCH DO WE NEED TO RAISE THE NIGHT OF AND HOW MUCH  SHOULD WE RAISE BEFORE THE EVENT?” CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT?

This is something I’ve grown on. Raise the money before you get in the room. You don’t know what is going to happen that night. We raise the most money through our Fund a Need, a direct ask. So as a fundraiser and human, that makes me feel really good, because the donors are not getting anything out of it. These people are giving purely philanthropical. But that doesn’t happen without us doing our homework and building relationships and asking for that money. We can try to control the experience and event, but we can’t control the weather. So what if we had an event on a snow storm and people didn’t show up? You have to build your relationships and get as much money raised as possible beforehand.

I would say we raise more than half of our goal beforehand. Our live auction does do really well but we know some people like to donate privately. We are very conscientious about that. We have a rule with our auctioneer, never call out a person’s name. We want to give recognition, but not too much.

TELL ME ABOUT THE NEED TO VARY YOUR OVERALL FUNDRAISING PORTFOLIO?

So this is more than just what’s happening with the gala. As an organization, we are getting about 50% of our revenue from partnerships and events. So it can’t just be the gala. One of the biggest things we did is we invested in this peer-to-peer fundraising. That is a whole different fundraising conversation. It is not about logistics or people in the room, it is about where we are with fundraising. We created an opportunity for people to not have to be in the ballroom. It is the Great Cycle Challenge. They ride their bike anytime in the month of June and they set their mileage and fundraising goal. We engage volunteers to fundraise for us all over the country. This started in 2015, and in the first year we raised 1.7 million dollars. It is extremely effective and it allows us to play and be a little more creative on the other events. It is all possible because of digital! We leverage Facebook and social media. 10 years ago this would not have been possible. It is really cool to be able to take advantage of the new audiences. We get to expose ourselves and give other people the chance to know us all over the country, which is really cool.

The funds are raised all digitally. For scope, the first year we raised that 1.7M and this last year we were at 6.8M. We had 50,000 people participating and of that 15,000 fundraised. We couldn’t employ 15,000 people across the country, so we are now engaging volunteer fundraisers to do the work we couldn’t do. As an organization we pay attention the trends. Our legacy is the gala, we started as a gala, and could easily be a nice organization that does really great events here in the Twin Cities, but the trends led us to opportunities else where. We are now a national event organization. That was four years ago and now we are asking, “Now what? What’s next?”

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE OVERALL EVENT EXPERIENCE, GALA OR NOT. HOW ARE YOU TAKING THE GUESTS ON A JOURNEY?

From the moment they get invited to the event, we want the experience to start there. For us it is a lot of careful planning and making sure it is authentic to our brand. So before the invitation even arrives, they are hearing from us via email or social media or whatever. We want to make sure that when that invite arrives it is consistent to what they have been hearing from us throughout the year. So that to us is the most important thing. We want to set the tone for what they will be experiencing. That is something we want to build on for our next gala. How can we get people really excited? We want to set the theme. Right away there needs to be a key message. When they walk into the room that night or pull up to the valet, we don’t want them to be surprised. We want them to be delighted, not shocked that they walked into this thing they weren’t expecting. So it starts long before they purchase a ticket.

Once they are in the room, it is utilizing decor in different ways to lead them on that journey. We have been partners with BeEvents for years and they know how to create a space authentic to what we are looking for. They create focal points, not just little things all over. Sometimes it is using the stories to fill the room with decor. Some years we’ve had like an art gallery of children’s faces. We’ve turned technical problems into an art installation. It is really important we have great partners out there doing amazing things because they bring back new ideas to us! We do a good job of asking our partners to do that. We don’t have a laundry list of what we need. We like to empower them and give them creative freedom, because they are the experts, not us.

WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?

This all started a little while ago, and it started as a resource conversation. We ask a lot of our marketing team and donor services, so we were looking at our calendars to see what we could move around so they weren’t feeling such a crunch. We want to allow the marketing team to have the time to do everything well. So I was trying to figure out what we completely control, because we do a lot of partnership events that we don’t have full control over, like golf tournaments, radio shows, etc. And the thing that came to mind was the gala. We decided to move the gala from November, which it has been for 15-20 years, to the spring. This can be a bit risky, because it is a more competitive season, but makes more sense for us and our resources. Then, we though about our venue. We have been at The Depot for a long time, it’s great and we love it! But we heard of this great new venue that people are really excited about and we wanted to be part of it, so we started the conversation with The Armory. So I went to the space and I realized it might not really work for all the things we usually do, because it is more of a concert space. So I thought maybe it’s time for some national entertainment. I went to The Armory with the idea of doing dinner and then a concert, and they weren’t really onboard. A few weeks later we were talking and they brought up the idea! It was great. We started talking about it and I realized I had no idea how we were going to do it, because we are bringing in now two different groups of people. We have our core audience that will attend the dinner, but then we want to bring in up to 5,000 other people for the concert! We now have the former producers of Macy’s Glamorama that are working with us to produce this! We feel comfortable with them and their experience.

We are so excited, because our audience for the gala is getting younger. We see younger people in the room and in the analytics. We wanted to be able to build a new experience to match the new generation of donors and attract new people. I believe this plan that we have is going to help us achieve those goals.

The last part of our transformation was the name. Does Dawn of a Dream still make sense? So the team got together and brainstormed. We realized there are a lot of hurdles and sensitivities we have to be aware of with changing the name, but at the end of the day we are producing a new event. So on Saturday, April 27th, at The Armory you will see the debut of Dream.

HOW DO PEOPLE FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT?

We still have the website, dawnofadream.com, which would be the place to go. We will be announcing talent around December or January. It’s challenging because we are a non-profit producing this concert so we have to get the right price. Cost per dollar raised is the key we go by. We do have a dream team put together that have good connections though! So be on the lookout for that.

This is an event you will not want to miss! Check out dawnofadream.com for more info and childrenscancer.org for more about Children’s Cancer Research Fund.

 

Meeting Minds by EideCom

Episode 5: Making Events that Matter

July 20, 2018 EideCom Inc. Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Event Production

Cole Hatter is a world-renowned speaker, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. In 2015, he started the event Thrive, a conference for entrepreneurs focused on not only making money, but Making Money Matter. In this quick, 30 minute episode, Cole shares with us his inside tips and tricks.

HOW DO YOU GET SUCH AMAZING SPEAKERS? Like Grant Cardone, Les Brown, Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Herjavec, Jack Canfield, Kevin Harrington, Eric Thomas, Ed Mylett, Tai Lopez, Naveen Jain, and Jesse Itzler.

We get 600 speaker requests a year and many are doing well financially, but you also have to be a pretty rad person to be speak at THRIVE. We have to be selective.

HOW DO YOU TAILOR YOUR CONTENT AROUND SUCH A MEANINGFUL MESSAGE?

The theme of Thrive is Make Money Matter. Make Money Matter is about making an impact. For example, TOMS shoes. We weave that into the event iN two ways: some speakers are just there to teach on how to make money. It is extremely tactical, not just some cool morning routine. We see Thrive as 70% How-To and 30% about what a difference your money can make. And other speakers are speaking to the heart issue of the entrepreneurs. By Sunday, you will have cried, laugh, and have several pages of notes about what you are actually going to do to start making money immediately.

WHERE DO YOU SEE THE EVENT GOING IN THE FUTURE?

The vision is to fill stadiums! Which is why we keep Thrive affordable. If you compare Thrive to similar events, they are usually 3x or more, more than that. Which can sometimes create confusion, like there must be something wrong with our event because we charge so little, but we want to get this message to the masses. Thrive gives its profits to a charity each year. Last year it was Claire’s Place Foundation and we gave $178,000. This year we’re partnering with Water.org, which is about providing clean water to people in third world countries.

WHAR WERE SOME OF YOUR CHALLENGES DURING THE FIRST YEAR?

Events suck, period. It was incredibly challenging and ,ore emotionally taxing than any other business I’ve ever had. Mostly, because there are so many variables and I have less control. I have 26 speakers that all have lives and every year there is one or two that have an emergency and have to cancel, etc. Also, hotels. They are such a rip off. Marketing is also very difficult due to all the free content online. What sets us apart is that all of our speakers bring NEW content. Plus, the networking and experience is unbeatable. You can’t network on a podcast. Despite the challenges, we keep doing it because we get to meet amazing people and for the stories of success we’ve heard come out of it. But, don’t be a seminar junkie! When are you taking the time to implement what you are learning? I would suggest going to one event a quarter and listen to podcasts always. Learning how to do push ups is one thing, but actually doing them is another. Get information and then implement.

HOW DO YOU CRAFT YOUR ROSTER TO MEET THE MISSION OF YOUR EVENT? BECAUSE EVERY EVENT HAS A MISSION AND A GOAL.

I like how you prefaced that. Our mission: teaching entrepreneurs how to start for-purpose organizations or convert their current organizations to be for-purpose. It is a combination of finding speakers that are just going to teach tactics, as well as some that have lived out the for-purpose aspect. Our goal is to have butts in chairs and to make it a huge success. So another consideration is finding people who have audiences. You need to have influencers on the roster.

HOW DID YOU CHOOSE LAS VEGAS FOR YOUR EVENT?

Thrive was created as a result of losing two close friends that died when I was on my way to Las Vegas. So I did this event to honor them. The next year we did it in San Diego and it was great, but the Manchester hotel was not available for Thrive 3 on the dates we needed. So we went back to Las Vegas last year and were at the Hard Rock. This will probably be the last year in Vegas because we are about to outgrow it. So it started in Vegas out of sentiment, and it’s now in Vegas strictly for production and it is a destination area. It’s easier to get some to go to Vegas than say, Minneapolis. Vegas is more touristy and fun.

ANY LAST THOUGHTS FOR ANYONE WHO ORGANIZES CONFERENCES OR TIPS ON HOW TO MAKE A REALLY GOOD, MEANINGFUL CONFERENCE?

Conferences are becoming extremely popular. You have to figure out a message or narrative, like Make Money Matter, and you need to have a massive following so people want to show up just to see you! When I first started Thrive I had no following and no email list, but I said screw it and did it. The reason it worked is because of the heart of the mission. No one there knew me or cared about me, but I did have big name speakers draw a crowd like Gary Vaynerchuk, Keith Ferrazzi, and Robert Herjavec. And a unique, special mission. There are probably more events now than ever, so if you want one that draws a crowd it has to be something people cant get somewhere else. If you come to Thrive, it feels like nothing else. We work so hard to make that happen, from the color of the lighting to having Bulletproof coffee in the lobby, etc. Put thought into the ambiance.

HOW DO WE FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THRIVE?

It is this September, the 14, 15, and 16. The website is attendthrive.com. Use promo code: MMM to receive 20% off!

 

Meeting Minds by EideCom