It may be hard to believe, but we really already have three months of the year behind us. It feels like I was just penning this quarterly recap to close out 2022 and head on holiday break. From the beginning of January through March, our event management team executed 26 events across the Bay Area, LA, NYC, Vegas, Denver, Miami, Switzerland and Singapore. We did not get to be on-site for all of those fantastic destinations, but are grateful for the on-site opportunities we did have thus far in 2023!

Diving straight into the first work week of the New Year, longtime client SaaStr kicked off its Workshop Wednesday series yet again. These virtual webinars go live each week and our team has the pleasure of owning speaker management & prep, as well as moderating and producing the virtual event via Zoom each week. If you haven’t yet, we encourage you to check these out as the Workshop Wednesday community is strong!

We kicked off the year with events in early January for clients Tatari and Lightspeed Venture Partners. We work with both clients to oversee venue & vendor sourcing, attendee management & comms, print & design, and more. Their intimate client dinners, experiential events and more have given us such stimulating projects to involve ourselves in!

A few weeks into February, two of our own flew halfway across the world to be onsite for SaaStr APAC. An event that brought founders, executives, and SaaS-enthusiasts together in Singapore for their inaugural SaaStr APAC event. Our team was there to assist with speaker and content management to ensure that SaaStr’s well-known standards were upheld and quality content was delivered to their APAC audience. Read more about that event here.

Where else have we been this quarter? 

• Tatari events:

• CES Happy Hour // Las Vegas

• Grow LA Dinner // LA

• ShopTalk Dinner // Las Vegas

• Tatari PDMI East Dinner // Miami

• Lightspeed Venture Partners: 

• JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Biotech Dinner // SF

• JP Morgan Healthcare Conference HealthTech Dinner // SF

• Enterprise Product Leader's Happy Hour // SF

• Climate Expedition 2023 // Switzerland

• Gaming Founder Party // LA

• Lightspeed x Greycroft LA Investor Bowl // LA

• ETH Denver Dinner // Denver

• NYC Office Opening Party // NYC 

• Goldman Sachs x Lightspeed GDC Mixer // SF

• Meraki Sales Kick Off FY23 2H // virtual - We had the opportunity to bring to life our third virtual SKO with Cisco Meraki in early March. We followed an around-the-sun agenda that kept us awake at odd hours but nevertheless enthralled in the content focused on Marketing, Culture, Product, Supply Chain updates and more. The ‘Recipe for Success’ theme allowed for refreshing content as well—speakers donned chef hats and shared heartwarming stories about their own family recipes. 

This quarter, we had a chance to work with 98 marvelous speakers, including:

• Bianca Ho, Co-Founder & COO, WATI

• Chris Cosentino,  Celebrity Chef, Cyclist, Philanthropist and Winner of Top Chef Masters

• Christine Edmonds, General Partner, ICONIQ Growth

• Damien Tampling, Global Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer, Xero

• Dan Stratton, Director, Sales Transformation, Cisco Meraki

• Denise Thomas, VP, Operations, Cisco Meraki

• Ed Lenta SVP and GM, APJ, Databricks

• Eynat Guez, CEO and Co-founder, Papaya Global

• Jason “JP” Pernell, WW VP, Sales, Cisco Meraki

• Jessica Bartos, Investor , Salesforce Ventures

• Juan Vela, Global Head of Market Strategy, Cisco Meraki

• Justin Barney, VP, Global Enterprise Networking & Software Sales, Cisco

• Lawrence Huang, SVP/GM, Cisco Networking Experiences - Meraki & Wireless, Cisco

• Mary Piontkowski, Head of Product Design, Cisco Meraki

• Matthew Landry, VP, Product Management, Meraki Networking & Cisco Wireless, Cisco Meraki

• Mike Yin, WW SED, Cisco Meraki

• Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Sales & GM Routes to Market, Cisco

• Prashanth Prakash, Founding Partner, Accel

• Rebecca Stone, SVP, Customer Solutions Marketing, Cisco

• Scott Pugh, VP Sales, Figma

• Tiffany Luck, Partner, GGV Capital

• Tim Soulo, CMO, Ahrefs

• Yamini Bhat, Co-Founder & CEO, Vymo

The events industry is always changing, and with this, we’re always learning. Here are a couple of biggest takeaways from the past 3 months:

• With a more remote workforce than ever before, the focus shifts to Internal Events. It’s no secret that we’ve all had to change how we meet and interact with co-workers. According to the Amex 2023 Global Meetings and Events Forecast, nearly half of all organizations have taken on a hybrid or remote working policy. Company culture is now a bigger priority than ever before. Internal meetings and events are one standout way to keep employees engaged, excited and motivated. While these types of events don’t generate leads or produce direct revenue, they absolutely pay off in the long run with employee satisfaction and retaining talent.

• Embracing digital event elements is key to staying current. We can thank the pandemic for one thing: the increase of digitization and data available at our event-organizer fingertips. Including digital touchpoints at your next event will not only help you capture clear audience insights (e.g. how much time spent at sponsor booths, when do most folks check-in, which sessions garnered the most attendance, etc.), but also less physical touchpoints will ensure your attendees feel healthy and safe from the spread of any viruses.  

• Sustainability efforts are noticed—and more, attendees are now looking for it. Demonstrating your commitment to the environment is key in today’s climate when planning. But we all know it’s not easy—the 2022 ICE report shared that 59% of planners see sustainability as a challenge for planning. Tracking factors like catering, energy consumption, signage, swag, and even attendees’ travel to your event will allow you to measure your success. Bonus points if you actually report on it! The best example we can share for the blueprint of a sustainable event is our experience at Slush this past November. Use them as your inspiration!

• Don’t miss an extra opportunity to create buzz around your event with a pre-conference dinner or happy hour! Who doesn’t want to kick off networking a bit earlier to ensure folks are engaged and comfortable? Attendees are just itching to get back out there! Give them an occasion to get jazzed up for content days. You could use this as an opportunity to hand out conference badges early as well. You won’t regret saving your event from an even longer registration queue the next morning—less time waiting in line, what’s not to love?

In all our projects, we continue to prioritize exposure for women and underrepresented speakers on stage. Fifty-two percent of the speakers we’ve worked with this year are from underrepresented groups and 37% are women. We look forward to continuing to work with our clients towards achieving at least 50% for both categories throughout the year. 

In Q2 we’ll be onsite in SF, NYC, Napa, and London and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store! 

Have an event you are looking to bring to life? Let’s get in touch!  And if you want to stay updated on industry trends like this, make sure to sign up for our newsletter.