Event Production in the Time of COVID - with Bridget B Sullivan

Event production right now is like a moving target; rules, restrictions, protocols and formats can change by the day. BRIDGET B SULLIVAN gives us her decades of expert insights into how we need to be moving forward, how an organization can work with professionals like Bridget to navigate the ongoing complexities, and gives us an idea of what you need to consider when undertaking a large event in the current circumstances.

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐆𝐄𝐓:  Bridget B Sullivan is a seasoned event producer, and founder of Creative Canvas Productions, an animation, video production, and event management company located in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a former radio show host who took her passion for audio production into the world of podcasting as a producer, host and now educator. You can find her on Instagram as @AskBridgetB where she shares all things related to Events, Podcasting and Social Media.

She says: "My world revolves around events; virtual events, hybrid events and in-person events. I love working with medium-sized businesses and large corporations who are at the starting point of creating their upcoming conference, webinar or leadership presentation. Most of all, I love hearing people say Wow! That was a wonderful experience. If you or someone you know has a need for a passionate event producer, may I give you my card?"

You can find Bridget at:
https://creativecanvasproductions.com | https://instagram.com/creativecanvasproductions | https://creativecanvasproductions.com/askbridgetb | https://instagram.com/askbridgetb | https://linktr.ee/askbridgetb

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Transcript

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She's All That! Welcome to the She's All That video podcast. I'm your host September Smith, and this week I am talking to Bridget B Sullivan. Bridget is a seasoned national and international event producer and she's the founder of the B2B Enterprise Creative Canvas Productions, which is an animation + video production and event management company located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bridgette, welcome. Thanks for being here today. Yay, September. Thanks, great seeing you. And you. So now, what I what I said about what to do Sure, Creative Canvas Productions - doesn't even begin to cover what you do and your background in events production. You've been doing this for more than a few years, give me a bit of a sketch about some of the cool stuff you've done! Well, for more than a few years, you can see I got gray hair, right? So that will pretty much tell you how long I've been in the industry. Well, not really. But I actually got started in the industry. When I was in my teens, I actually worked in the hotel industry starting at the age of 18, and 19. So it gave me the opportunity to really understand what the hospitality industry was about. And I actually went to school at community college and studied hospitality. But the fun things that I've had the great pleasure over my many years of being in the events industry, include some work with Adidas, we did this really fantastic conference, which was a sales conference for them. And it was in Scottsdale, Arizona. And the reason I'm bringing this one up is because I just found out like maybe two months ago or a month ago, that the event that we did for them, which was a sales conference, actually won an award. And I was like, wait, nobody told me I'm an award winning event producer. Now, way back in the day, or just recently, you were like - back in the day- and they didn't even tell you. They didn't tell me those little booboo heads. But yeah, The fun thing about that one is I was making my way up the ladder in the events industry, I started out as a meeting planner, as most people usually will. And then I moved into the production side of things, which is all the technical parts, bits and pieces. And what I wound up doing is securing a contract with an actual event agency, a company that solely focused on Well, not solely, but primarily focused on event production. So I learned everything that happens in the ballroom to get it ready for the doors to be opened in the attendees to walk in. And that means the lighting, the staging, how the speakers they're going to deliver their presentation what those presentations look like, well, what sound is coming through, are we playing music? Do we have videos on the screen? And what are those videos look like? How did we treat them all of that stuff, though, that's the production aspects of things. So this particular one with Adidas was super fascinating because they came to us and they said, You know what, we are at the halfway mark, just like you would be at a basketball game. And what we want to do is we want to bring in all of our sales team. And we want to huddle around, and we want to get them pumped up to go back out on the field or back out on the court and drive at home all the way to the end of the year. So we literally took that thought process that vision, that idea, that desire that goal, that objective and we turned it into a full on basketball experience. We built out a locker room. We had the executives go to an actual basketball game, and we recorded one of their sessions right there at half court during halftime of a real basketball game. Yeah, it was so friggin awesome. Like I think I could say friggin It was so friggin awesome. So and then on top of that it had fashion show elements and then your usual sales conference oriented stuff, but it was so much fun. I think like the day before we we opened the doors to the conference. I had to go search for cheerleaders and at that time Craigslist was really a big deal so you're on Craigslist looking for cheerleaders and people and we did we got a team we got a you know, like an actual cheerleading squad. I think pictures of that you posted about that on LinkedIn, I think Yeah, look like quite the event. Yeah, that's like one of the fun things that we get to do in the world of events is we get the opportunity to take a company's or an executives goals and objectives and their vision and actually help them realize it in an event space. So that's one of many wonderful experiences I've had including the opportunity to work on three Olympic Games. Saying that as well. Wow, that is so cool. Oh, I mean the Olympic - the Olympic Games. They're huge Adidas huge, but um, right now in the whole thing of the events world, or anyone thinking of throwing an event or not putting on a conference, there's some huge things that we've been dealing with for the last year. But right now, like everything's changing day by day, with with the pandemic with COVID, we think it's over and then a stock fight over is just like, what are some of the biggest things that are happening right now in the world of events, people need to know about, Hmm, well, everybody is ready to go back into in person events and in person events are slowly making their way back into our purview when it comes to conferences, or sales, conferences, sales meetings, for instance. And one of the things that we as event professionals are really taking a beat with when it comes to in person events, is making sure that we don't throw out the protocols, we're still in a state of unsure at where we have a lot going on with COVID. And that's going to go on in the rest of this year, where we're not quite sure with this second wave, this new variant, the Delta variant, if how that's actually going to affect us whether people are vaccinated, but not vaccinated, whether there are people who have a break, I think it's called breakthrough situations with COVID, where they're actually vaccinated, and they're still getting COVID. And they're getting sick from COVID. I think it's called break through, forgive me if I'm not saying that correctly. But protocols and what we mean by that, when it comes to in person events, remember, you still got a social distance, at least set it up that way. Remember that you want to have hygiene stations, you want to make sure that people have access to antibacterial soap, or whatever it may be in order to cleanse their hands regularly. You want to even employ in some instances, if you're not in a hotel, bathroom attendance, because you want those bathrooms as clean as possible as people are in person going in and out of those rooms and touching all everything that's in those rooms, right. And then you know what happens in the bathroom and all of that other stuff, you want to have someone that can go in there. Maybe after 25 people, maybe after 30 people, maybe after 50 people, I don't know what the number will be until you determine how many people are going to be at your event. And then you decide, okay, well, we need the bathroom cleaned after every 30 people or every 40 people or every hour on the hour, whatever it may be, don't forget those protocols, because we as event professionals have a duty to make sure that anybody who comes to our events that they're going to be very well cared for. And we are going to do everything that we possibly can to not only make it a magnificent experience, but maintain those health and safety protocols. So when it comes to in person events, don't throw away the protocols. And those are just a few of them. There are several other protocols that that come to mind. But I want to really emphasize those because we're still in a state of of unsurity about this delta variant oh - it's total flux. I mean, I was really shocked. But Los Angeles went back to mask-wearing indoors. And we're, you know, I think that's a real indicator that we just have to stay really flexible. And we have to be diligent. Yeah. And so for somebody who's trying to plan an event right now, whether it's in person, which I would think a lot of people might still be a little uncomfortable about. Yes, sir. We all want to get back to it. But a lot of people aren't quite there yet. So whether it's in person or a hybrid event, what would you advise somebody to do? to kind of be ready for it's gonna all go hybrid? Like, what's your advice? Yeah, well, from the in-person perspective, I've already mentioned the protocols and make sure you have plenty of time to plan your event. You know, when we talk about large conferences, 200 300 1000 10,000 this than the other like trade shows, and all of that, we're talking about planning those a year out, nine months out, it's getting really like super, super tight. When you're six months out, it can be done, but you have to remember that we're dealing with very tenuous times with everything that's going on. So that's on the in person side. But let's say that you're thinking about doing hybrid. Remember, hybrid is a combination of in person as well as virtual. If you decide that you're going to go in a conference mode or if you're going to rent out a conference center or a hotel room or the setting the other and then do live streaming because that's the that's the other part of the hybrid element is Live streaming, but you are really creating two events, one, so that people who are in person experience what they experienced. And then the other portion of that is what the virtual viewer is going to experience. So so it's it's sometimes people think, oh, okay, well, I can just do, you know, go in person and then just do a live stream. And that's a hybrid event, yes and no, that in the totality of it, it is the experience someone is going to have, while they're virtual, and the experience your attendees are going to have while they're in person, so you have to be mindful of what those experiences are going to be like and what you ultimately want them to experience. But then let's talk about virtual, virtual is not going away, cuz I just got finished making reference to hybrid. And that's a component of live streaming as a component of the hybrid event. But virtual is is going to be here for a really long time, because of the global reach. We were in COVID mode in 2020. And we got on telecommunication devices, video conferencing devices, and discovered that our global reach is just massive, the word global, you don't want to throw that out as well being on zoom all the time, we did discover that we can now be connecting with 1000s 10s, hundreds of 1000s more people. Exactly. So if you decide that you're not ready to do an in person event, and maybe you might really not want to spend the money for a hybrid event, because that comes with an additional cost from time to time, you can still focus on the virtual aspects of your event. But keep in mind that broadcast style for a virtual event is here to stay. That's what people want to see. They want like you know how you watch a television program. And they've got these like little lower thirds that come up to tell you who the person is, they might have like somebody over here that will pop in, and it'll be like what we call tip picture in picture. And then maybe you'll see the slow transition from one person to the next person. And then maybe you might see a video clip, and then that fades away. And then somebody else comes in and talks or you have somebody doing what you know. So that's the broadcast style approach that doesn't have people thinking, it doesn't have to be like, I have heard some people think, say, you know, like, Oh, I can't wait to get away from the virtual because I just don't it's zoom, zoom, zoom zoom. It can be so much more than that. Oh, yeah, there's so many other platforms out there other than zoom, I mean, we were just on swap card, which I absolutely love swap card just recently. And the beauty of utilizing these virtual platforms that have integration integrated tools, is that you can do so much more with it than just zoom. Now granted, zoom has been making great strides to add various elements whereby you can take other applications and integrate them into the zoom experience. So for instance, like you and I could probably go into what we call annotation mode, where we call white, but they say, Oh, yeah, yeah, so we could have captions. Yeah, well, no, it's like you and I can like collaborate on something, we throw up a whiteboard, a literal whiteboard, and you could be writing some notes on the whiteboard. And then I could come in behind you and write some other notes on the whiteboard. So annotation style or whiteboard or brainstorming methods that you use your intellectual or academic sharing of knowledge. But I mean, when harkening back to what you were described with your ideas event for which you didn't know, for so many decades, you actually won an award. I'm thinking like, I'm trying to imagine if I was somebody trying to think planning a comprehensive, it's gonna be hybrid. But what if it had to all go virtual? I would want to make sure that my virtual not just for the hybrid attendees, but just in case that becomes the entire event. Yeah. kind of exciting. While Yeah, is how exciting can you actually make a virtual event, oh, you can make it very exciting. But you know, you want to have some key people on your team, you want to have somebody who is going to do the virtual production as so. So let me make sure that I cover off on the hybrid part, you mentioned hybrid. So again, that part is going to be in person or you can decide which the people that need to be like in a studio to deliver the presentation. So it's basically people in a studio delivering whatever it is that they needed to communicate out. And it's a live stream. And that still makes it hybrid because you have a very small audience in the room with you with the executives and this is something that we just did. Recently, I think we did this back in June. And we have the executives in the space and we have a couple of their team members in the space that are experiencing what it is that they're communicating in the space while those online in the room. virtual space are also experiencing the same thing. And we did this all on zoom, but we utilize the broadcast format. So what are the things when we talk about virtual how to jazz it up, so to speak, like I'm making reference to zoom. Zoom has a lot more bells and whistles that a lot of people that realize you've got your breakout sessions. Well your breakout sessions can be real interactive experiences, if you are creating the experience far enough ahead of time, that the people who are going to be moderating those breakout rooms understand how to create that interactive element, it could be that they're doing their presentation, and they want people to chime in and utilize the whiteboard. Or they may take surveys within the space, or they might play a game. And you can integrate these additional applications into zoom that will allow it to be far better than just you know, we're in chat mode. And we're in chat mode only. There's several other ways in which you can integrate various tools. Now let me take you outside of zoom. There's platforms like Cvent, many of us are certified Cvent event planners, or meeting planners or event producers who understand that particular platform because it's very robust, it allows you to do registration, it allows you to upload video, it allows you to integrate some of the other tools that will allow you to drop in lower thirds, there's so many different things that you can do swap card to allows you to have a back greenroom door. Backspace, hoppin allows you to do the same thing we classified as the back channel, when you're having conversations or if you're in the green room, so to speak, before you come out on stage, there's so many different tools that you can use don't feel as though you have to go in person. And you're just going to forget about virtual because virtual can be done in a magnificent way. If you have production people like our company, or other companies, but primarily, I'm going to just say our company, because we spent a lot of time figuring out how to utilize the broadcast style format, within zoom, we do that. And then these other formats or these other platforms that are out there that can be used, there's so many tools out there, it's just a matter of having a team that understands one, how to design the event experience, how to design the virtual event, how to manage the production aspects of it, and then how someone who can really work with the speakers, and the moderators to make it a really enjoyable experience. And then if that cost is too high for you, you can, you can pre record some things. But I really would like to encourage people not to do too many pre records. Because you lose the authenticity in the moment, you lose the experience for the attendee of what's happening and taking place. And we're just getting to that, that live interaction and people being able to go Oh, but what about this? Yeah, like we're really getting accustomed to that via the tools that are regularly available on social media. Yeah, and you want your attendees to actually participate in the conversation. So why not allow them the opportunity to ask a question, you might be able to bring them right on screen, and they can ask a question, or they can use the question, I think it's the q&a, or the chat button that the chat feed or the q&a feed, depending on if you're in webinar mode, or if you're in meeting mode on zoom, for instance. But there are other platforms that allow you to do q&a and chat all within one platform. So just depends on how you wanna do it. So even before the world had to start moving so rigorously towards virtual events. Yeah, just what you had listed, like what you learned when you first moved into event planning, you know that it was the lighting, and it was the sound, and it was like, all of these systems, which we think most people don't really think about, if they're not in event production, that in itself is a huge load for some corporation or an organization to be putting on an event and covering that. Add to that everything they now need to know, to run it as a hybrid or as a virtual. Is it even feasible for a company that's not an event production company? to just go like, yeah, we'll just DIY this. You can go ahead, but you get what you pay for. Yeah, I would think you'd have to almost dedicate employees for six plus months, who weren't starting out as professionals just to make this thing happen. Yeah. Like the lot. A lot of the times when we are We work a lot with corporations. So majority of the time corporations that have like a mark, a dedicated marketing department and some of them even have dedicated event departments, right. And that usually falls under marketing communications. They know the difference between Lean In event planner at an event producer, the producer is usually the one that in a sense, you could kind of classify them as the project manager, the one who is going to be managing all of the, I guess I want to say that the higher end ticket items, meaning managing the vendors that are going to provide the services needed in order to do the staging, the lighting, the the video treatments the slide, sometimes we say keynote presentations, more so than PowerPoint, the keynote presentations, that's the production side of things. But then you've got maybe one or two folks on the internal team that will manage the logistics aspects, meaning that they will manage all the registration elements, they will manage the food and beverage elements, which we call figuring out what the Bo orders are going to be banquet event orders are going to be, you may have an internal team member that will cover off on securing all the speakers and making all of their travel arrangements and all of that. And then someone who is going to negotiate the contract for the hotel, or the conference or the the conference hall, or the tradeshow hall or a separate studio, depending on what it is that you're going to be using. So the event producer more times than not will have that production level experience to go into a ballroom and say, Hey, what is the rigging look like up there? Let me look up and let me see what it's gonna be like and then ask the question, well, how much can it weigh? And then what about the wattage? And then what about Wi Fi? And what about a drop for our Ethernet cable to make sure that we've got a dedicated line for a live stream, if we're doing hybrid mode, you know, so the producer usually can have those types of conversations. If they understand the production aspects of things, the event planner, I like him to be someone who really focuses on the logistical aspects of it. So and do you Is that something that you have to kind of like collaborate with another entity to do, or like, you're just all the production, we do both. However, the corporations that we work with nine times out of 10 will have an internal team, and we will be the ones that will come in and fill the gap from the production aspect of it. Now, mind you, I've been in this industry for a really long time. So I have the logistical aspects, basically with, you know, blinders on, I know how to do all of that. And that's the event planning event management aspect of it. But I also come with event production. So the corporations that we work with, which are usually you know, large companies, they already kind of know what those two areas of concentration are. And they'll either have an internal team that we work with, the internal team will handle all the logistics, and then we'll cover off on all the production aspects of it. So it sounds like it'd be a really easy integration with all the experience you've got, ya know, they know what you can do you know what they can do, and you just kind of mash and collaborate on that. Yeah, and there are times where they may not have the right internal person to like what you're just about to say, in reference, you know, it could just be somebody who's going to have to take on this role for six months, in order to get this event off the ground, right, you're, you're going in that direction, you have to educate them. Yeah, and there are times that we do have to come in and educate them, especially in the contracting phase. Because sometimes, internal event planners may not be as seasoned in some situations that we have actually had. So they didn't understand the complexities of the contract. So we would fill that gap in and we come in, and we would assist with either the negotiation of the contract, and or say to them from the production aspects, we need you to make sure that this this, this, this, and this is in the contract, so that when we load in our trucks, and when we load an equipment, when we do all of these other, you know, technical things, we want to make sure that that is in writing in the contract. So we as a company come in from an event management perspective, which is all encompassing from the logistics side, as well as the production side. So if a company is not a large organization that kind of has this, this whole routine on lock and has people in place, they're new to it, especially now with the things having changed. And they're just kind of having to explore how does this work? How do I work with a production company? What are some of your top recommendations for anyone that is thinking of putting on a conference right now or into the foreseeable future, if you're somebody who's wanting to put on a conference right now and you don't fully understand what a production company can do for you, to help you with your conference. The one thing that I will recommend that you do is First figure out what your in team internal team structure is going to be like who is going to be responsible for overseeing the logistics? Who is the one who came up with, let's say the theme? Who was the one that came up with the goals and the objectives? Well, once all of that is figured out, now you have to say, well, who's going to manage all of the parts and pieces in order to bring this conference to life? This is the point oftentimes, where people say, Well, we need an outside event producer, or we need an outside event management company, or we need an outside event production company, and then they will be ringing our phone or sending us an email saying we need assistance with this particular conference. So I recommend that you first figure out internally who all the players are and who the stakeholders are, to determine what your conference is going to be, what are the goals and the objectives? and What experience do you want each attendee to have, whether it's an in person attendee or a virtual attendee, and then when it comes to the things that you are not well versed in, seek out an event management company that can fill the gaps, seek out an event production company that can fill the gaps, nine times out of 10, when you reach out to someone like us, we will know both sides of the fence, at least are the players that we work with in our company, we know both sides, we know the event planner, side, and we know the event production side. And then the other key element that I think that everybody should look for is somebody who really understands how to work with your leadership, are they somebody who is just a total techie, and that's all if they talk, and you don't understand what it is that they're talking, you want to make sure that you're partnering with a company that can give you what you need from an understanding, from a technical perspective, as well as just a logistical perspective, we need to all when we work together, be able to understand one another. And that's like really, really important. A lot of times with these production companies and in my personal opinion, there's there's not someone who can break down all the technical aspects, because that's their core business is they know the technical part, but they may not know the logistics part. So I will encourage somebody who wants to put a conference together to look for two things, someone who is going to speak your language and understand your business that's like one and a half. And then someone who knows both sides of the fence, the logistical side, as well as the production side. previous conversations you had mentioned to me that one of the issues that you have with new clients is that our new to putting on events is the whole issue around budget. Yeah. And knowing your budget sharing your budget like yeah, to that a little bit. I know that's an issue. Yeah, it was a hard lesson to learn in 20. Because we would get into the mode of trying to respond to a request for an estimate from a client who wanted to put on a conference. And then when we did the initial due diligence, we come straight out of the gate by saying, Okay, this is great. What is your budget? Well, we don't really know what our budget is yet just yet. Okay. In order for me to be able to help you, it's always ideal if I have a sense as to what your budget is, because then I can begin to think, Okay, well, if you only have a$10,000 budget, okay, well, maybe you're in person event needs to be at not the venue that you are thinking about, but maybe it needs to be at a smaller event. And maybe we can negotiate something with the venue operator to get you in the ballpark of where you need to be with your budget. For me, when people don't reveal their budgets in advance, I now know that I don't necessarily want to move too quickly with them. Because I will spend a lot of time putting together a proposal and estimate and I'll miss the mark. And then they'll want us to go back to the drawing board. And then well we're like okay, well what what do we need to fix? You know, can you tell us Can you give us a general idea as to how far we're off or whatever. And that takes a lot of time to do so we learned in 2020 that we prefer that if someone comes to us and say hey, Bridget with creative Canvas productions, our company is interested in putting on, you know, a small two hour event and we want it to be virtual, but we only have like maybe a 15 $100 Okay, well let me put together a package that will meet that 15 $100 budget of yours. And then it's like hey Bridget with creative Canvas productions. In 2022. We have a conference that we would like to produce and here we are in July 2021. And we need an event management company. Need to give us anything and everything that we need in order to bring this magnificent conference to life? Okay, great. What's your budget? When I'm talking to corporations, the corporations that I've had the luxury of working with, okay, we've got $750,000 for this one, or we've got this is our first one. So we really only want to spend about $250,000. But what we intend to do is get sponsors. So the conversation begins to unfold when you tell me what the budget is. And then I can say, Okay, this is something that we can do, or thank you for contacting us, I don't believe that this is something that we can do based on your current budget, but we have some people in our network that might be able to assist you. And I'm more than happy to send a message over to one of our colleagues that might be able to assist you better. So dude, was it all happening in 2021? Yeah, sorry, how many 2020? Because, of course, like if anyone missed it, you know, the whole panda thing. There were new people having to grapple with the idea of events. Is that why you suddenly had this aggravation? And were they coming to assuming that you would be able to tell them that their budget should be? Yeah, and no, we don't, we don't really operate like that, unless you say, Hey, you know what, create an event for us. Now, that's different, because I can create an event all day long. But in 2020, what we kept experiencing is that a few organizations would come to us and say that we want to put on our conference that we used to do in person. But we don't really have a budget, because we don't really know what a budget should be for virtual. And so I'll ask the question, well, what was your budget when you had it in person? So to me, you're saying that you've got the money that is earmarked for this conference that you did last year that you were going to do this year, but during COVID, you couldn't, so those funds are there and available, and now you want to do something virtual? Okay, well, let me know what the budget is, and then let me know what it is that you want to do. And then I can say, Okay, well, at least I know what your budget is. So this means I can go ahead and write up an estimate and give you a full breakdown, that is either going to meet you right at your budget come in under your budget, or I will say to you okay, with what you're telling me that you want to do, even though you have this budget, I want to recommend that you see if you can seek out another 5000 because here's why. Because this particular platform is going to cost you 20,000 just out the gate, or this particular platform, etc, etc, etc. So it's all about the communication. And I think for us, what we learned was, we need to have that serious conversation about the budget upfront, even before we take the time to write up a proposal or an estimate. And on our website, currently, we've been given some great advice from some of our key advisors is we make reference to all the work that we do starts at least at a certain amount, and then we go up there. So for us, we feel as though the the inquiries that we're getting right now, which are spot on with their their budgets are receiving the way in which we are choosing to operate. So they just kind of needed that foundational information to determine what the baseline is, and then go from there. And yeah, we just have an idea what your budget is, yeah, we get a lot of people who like to go fishing, but it's a lot of work for us. And we still have other clients that we have to serve and go after new business. And we can't really take, you know, weeks to work on a proposal, unless it's a government contract that's different. So in the experience that you've had through the pandemic, and you've been there, right from the get go and all the way through, is it possible to say ballpark figure? How much has it added to, you know, what would have been a corporate event? Like it's a percent, if they now want to go like, we've got to do this hybrid? What how much is that? added? Yes. To the to what would have been the price prior to this new incarnation of events? As far as like the cost to run a hybrid event, just so they can think, okay, we used to spend x now it's x plus 25%. x plus percent? Well, believe it or not, so we had a client that came to us and they during during COVID. They were going to there were they were hesitant as to whether or not they were going to cancel their in person event, even during COVID. And we're like, Yeah, okay. What they felt they should go ahead with it. They they, they were leaning quite heavily on it because they had a contract. And so they came to us and they said that Okay, now that we've decided that that's not the best route to take, because this was an early very, very early stages of COVID is really no yeah, it was very confusing. So they got their leadership together and said no, with everything that's going on right now, it's not advantageous for us to do that. So let's move into virtual, they already had a budget for the in person one. So with what we created for them, they said, Well, we don't want to spend all of the money. Because in person, obviously, we have to pay for hotel rooms, we have to pay for flights, we have to play pay for transportation, we have to pay for food and beverage. So if we do it hybrid, we should be able to cut our budget in half. And in a sense, they were successful in doing that, because they got rid of the hotel, they got rid of the food and beverage, they got rid of transportation, and they were local. And they didn't fly anybody in who was going to present, they didn't fly the men to come into the studio, they just did it all virtual. And they didn't have all the bells and whistles and the full broadcasting elements, we did have some broadcasting elements, but they didn't have the full broadcasting antennas. But But this takes me back to the point of you tell me what your budget is. And then let me see what I can do for you based on that budget when they came to us. And they said that they only had a certain amount of money. I said, Okay, well, that's a good starting point, this is what we can do for you. When it comes to hybrid, the thing that some people have to remember is, you're going in person in a conference, hotel, food and beverage, lodging, flights, the cost of speakers, the technical equipment, all of that other stuff, the swag, all of that swag, all of that other stuff. When you when you decide to go hybrid, you also have to tack on the virtual aspect. So let's say that you are in a conference hall and the whole package for what you're going to do for your conferences, let's say $65,000, because maybe it's only a one day event or a two day event or something like that, let's say maybe 65,000. But now you got to tack on the virtual aspect of it, the virtual aspect could mean that you want to make sure that the experience for the virtual attendee is very high quality. So let's say you're using a virtual platform that costs $20,000 out the gate. So now your $65,000 budget is 85,000. And that's just out the gate. That doesn't include all of the add ons, that doesn't include the way in which you are going to make sure that the virtual attendee is having a really good experience. Are you sending them swag to? Or is it just for the in person? folks? I have a question. You see, yeah, I'm imagining when you're, you're saying, Okay, and now we're going to add the whole virtual thing. Yeah, it's just for the platform is a 20,000. But then you've got all the production values that have to be incorporated and created the animations, the videos or overlays all that. Yeah. And somebody to run it. Yeah. So that's the other aspect of it. The beauty when you do hybrid, in a way, is that the production team that you hire, should know how to do all that and has all the equipment. And basically, what they're trying to do is maybe set up a little extra equipment, depending on again, what the experience is like, like, what happens when you go into a workshop? Is that going to be live streamed? Or is that just going to be recorded and available for playback? I mean, so you, there's so many decisions that you have to make. And that's why we always encourage people start a year out nine months early. Yeah, I recall you six months, at least. Now, with everything that you've told me six months sounds like no, that's well, you know, again, it depends on the size of your conference. I mean, I'm talking, you know, kind of high level, I'm not really digging down into really deep into all of the elements of an event. But this is this is just the high level of things that you have to think about. It's like, how much planning time do I have? And what do I need to plan? If I'm doing hybrid, I need to plan for two experiences, the in person experience and the virtual experience, and I only going to feed the virtual attendees playbacks. Now I don't know if that that's going to be a great experience, recorded pre recordings playback. So I should say, is that something you kind of have to educate people about when and now because it is new ish, this whole thing hybrid? And if somebody hasn't been playing with it themselves, it might not kind of be within the scope of their imagination of what's possible? Do you have to kind of walk people through and say, Well, you know, we could be doing this, we could be doing this, this, this is a possibility? Well, first, let me just correct you for a moment because hybrid has been around for a very, very long time. When when we do conferences there, especially if we're doing like sales leadership, or in conferences, and it's for their leadership teams. And the leadership wants to speak to all of their offices around the globe, that now becomes a hybrid event. And that's been that's been done for many, many years, because it's that live streaming element and the experience that the person is going to have on the virtual side of the fence. That's the element of the hybrid, the inner person as well as virtual, has kind of stepped up a notch at very least after last year. Well, I mean, that's kind of relative, because you got to think of, like, I saw, sometimes I like using the scenario, and sometimes I don't, but it should, it should drive the point across from a hybrid perspective, think about when you have an opportunity to see a concert, live on your computer. They're feeding us all of those camera views in the broadcast style elements, and we're at home, watching it on our computers. Or maybe we've decided to plug our computer up to our large monitor, or we've got Roku or whatever those things are, that you can get the internet on and actually watch the live stream, there are several situations where you think see things play out, catch the live stream, while the live stream is the hybrid component of whatever is going on, on the in person portion of the event. So it's been around for a very, very long time. It's just that the events industry, because of COVID-19 had to pivot quickly, how do we keep our events industry alive somehow, some way. And we really focused in on video conferencing, but more so than anything, the proper terminology from where I sit anyway, is that live stream element, it took a long time to figure out how to make sure that as my lips are moving, the audio is synced up, right, or as somebody is playing an instrument, it's synced up, it took us a long time to figure out how to I'm gonna use a I'm not gonna I was about to use a technical term, but I'm not going to do that. But how to fix the audio in such a way that it is synced up with the person speaking, singing, humming, doing whatever, you know, it took a little while to do that. Because think about a television broadcast, like the news. These people in the news industry, they know exactly how to do all of that stuff. So we as event professionals, and event production folks in 2020 had to very quickly ramp up and start thinking, Okay, this is like TV broadcast. And this is like the like the news. How do we make it so it's like the news that anybody could be anywhere and they beam in and we can see that live stream with the lower thirds and the broadcasting elements and all that other stuff. That's that's what you know, took us to where we are right now. So as I usually as most of my guests, and I asked words, if anybody's been listening to this, and I think they're probably their head should just be like kind of blown up with Oh my god, there's so much to think about when it comes to an event. They're like, Hi, we're not even hybrid, necessarily. But if someone was just starting to think about getting into conferences, and thinking they should be hiring a production company like yours, what would be the last words you'd want to leave them with? Oh, somebody who's getting ready to do a conference? Okay, I gotcha. I thought you were about to say like somebody who's getting into the industry. That's that's a whole nother comment. No, that would maybe be your client? Oh, yeah. I would say that one for the types of clients that we work with, which are primarily your corporate client, and some nonprofit organizations, we highly recommend that you start planning your conference now. Something that is like nine months to a year out. I'm comfortable having conversations with you, if it's three months out, six months out, but know that that's going to come with a lot of hours to make it as magnificent as you would like it to be. Really think about your budget, how much do you really want to spend, most corporations have corporate spends, they have quarterly spends four, depending on the department and most of the companies that we work with are going to be or are going to have a marketing and communications department. And those are the types of conversations or people that we come in contact with in order to manage conferences. But we always recommend that you start at least nine months out if you can do a year, it's always better because it gives you an opportunity to go do site visits because we can do site visits now and start planning a year out and right now I've got to be very honest with you. It the venues are really booking up super super fast, because we've been in limbo for a whole year and a half. Now there are booked booked books. So you have to be very diligent to find the type of venue that you want. Then the other part of the equation when you come to us and seek out an event management and or event production aspect of the work that we do, we recommend that you at least have one internal person who we can communicate with that is going to be our liaison, the person who we're going to communicate the most with who's going to basically tell us what it is that the stakeholders in the least Your ship actually want to see happen with this conference and then allow us to become your partner, we will be your external vendor, and you will be the internal communicator for all things related to your conference. And we will be here to support you every step of the way. That's amazing. I think that would give somebody a really good picture of what they need to get ready and why you're the person they should be working with. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for talking with me today and going into this. It's a fascinating and very relevant topic right now with as you say, we're coming back to live at hybrid events. People need to know what to expect and how to do this. You help us with that. Thank you. Yay. Thanks, September. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. This was fun. Me too. She's right. Okay, the lie. Did you know that podcast guesting being the featured guest interviewed on podcasts is one of the hottest 2021 ways to build brand audience and your business to get your unique message and personality out there to those who need to hear it. As a podcaster. Myself and a business consultant. I help turn entrepreneurs into business people who can proficiently and profitably use podcasting as a powerful part of their marketing plan. Want to know more, you can download the five step guide below in the notes or if you really want to get moving on it, book a call and let's map out how we could make it part of your marketing plan. She saw that