Bringing your Hobby into your Event
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Speaker: [00:00:00] I'm here to shake up what you create and how you create it, and what you deliver to people, what, what experience you create for the audience that you want to bring together.
And the reason I want to do that is because I think we're sitting in a moment right now where people are certainly desperate to connect with each other in person. They really want to hang out in rooms together. I know that the spaces that I'm going to, the events that I'm going to, the connections that I'm making in those uh, environments are really robust. Like, uh, the conversations are not light. The conversations are deep and meaningful, even with people that I'm only just meeting, which is really interesting.
I think we were in a, in a really interesting time, and what we need to do though is we need to provide environments for people that allow them the safety and comfort to be [00:01:00] able to feel like they can have these conversations with people that maybe they've only just met.
And we can do that through a variety of ways. And I want to tell you a story about a conversation I had a couple of days ago with someone who was celebrating their milestone birthday as well as their company's milestone birthday.
They got in touch with me because they wanted to celebrate both of these occasions and they were brainstorming whether they should do them together.
So my advice to you about this, and I was about to do this myself. I have a milestone birthday next year. It's also my company's 20th birthday at the same time, and I was actually going to put a combined event on, but I think there's a different experience that I want to give to the audiences that are going to come to those separate events.
So what I said to this person was, look at the end of the day when it comes to your birthday, that's [00:02:00] going to be full of yes, certainly you might have some clients that come, you might have some potential clients that you might like to invite, but the majority of the people coming are friends, family, that kind of thing. And they don't really want to be, um, you know, they don't want to be in a business context. Yes, they want to help you celebrate your business, but you know, they want to celebrate you. They want to celebrate you as a person. So I think these two events need to be kept separate. I'm going to, I'm going to do that for myself at least anyway.
But we had a really interesting conversation about their business celebration and something that came up for me through this conversation, and I think is a great idea and I can't wait to implement it, is creating an event around something you love.
Whether that be something in your business that you love, something you're really passionate about. Maybe it's something that you do every week, and it could be a hobby, it could be a [00:03:00] sport, it could be travel. Presenting, um, eating out, dining out, the kind of food that you love to eat. Maybe you're a great cook , or if you're like me, you just love eating other people's food. Other great cook's food. That's what I love to do.
But what can you create in your event environment that. Is sharing with people the thing that you are really passionate about and how can you bring that into a corporate context?
So for this person, for example, their business birthday milestone, they're a photographer and they partner that photography with empowerment coaching.
And so we talked about instead of the stock standard cocktail party or sit down dinner, or one of those things where you know you would invite past clients, you would possibly invite potential future clients, and I recommend you do that because obviously your past clients are [00:04:00] great advocates for your future clients. So the conversations they will have, you know, they will sell for you essentially.
But you've got a room full of people who have helped you get where you are, plus a room full of people who are going to potentially get you to the next level, and you've also got friends and family in the room, of course. You don't want to, exclude your friends and family because they've certainly supported you along the way and they've helped you get there too. But what can you do to take it outside of yourself in terms of the audience experience?
So if you think about a cocktail party or any of these kind of parties you've been to before, they've always really been about the person who is hosting the do. And it's not that people don't. want to celebrate you? They do. They'll love it. They'll still, they'll come, they'll enjoy it. They'll love hearing your speech. You might have some stories there from past clients who might, you know, share some great examples of things that you've [00:05:00] done for them, but it's still really centered around you.
What can you do to help people come, actually come into your world? What is it that you are passionate about and care about, um, and have fun with? I think this is the thing I want, I want to bring into my events at least, is what can I create that's really fun, that super immerses people in what I'm doing and they have a really great time doing it.
That's kind of what I was thinking about and so for this person that I was talking to a couple of days ago. They're, as I said, a photographer and they're an empowerment coach. And instantly, as soon as they said, I want to do it in a warehouse, as soon as they said that, I could see exactly how this would work.
And instantly I said, oh, you've gotta do a photographic exhibition. That's what you've gotta do. Even though they are a what would you call a portrait photographer, I guess? They're like, I, I know they do more than this, [00:06:00] but if you imagine someone who's a brand photographer, they take photos of people for their for their websites, all that kind of stuff.
I'm sure they do more, much more than that, but essentially that's what their business supports as well as being an empowerment coach. And so, rather than just have this cocktail party, I thought, gosh, wouldn't it be amazing if we could come to this event, see these incredible photographs that she takes because she does take really incredible photographs. Very, very different.
But also hear the stories behind the people of the photographs that she's taken. , So that was one element. So instantly I was like, oh, I would totally come to a photographic exhibition that just happened to be a celebration of the business.
Secondly, we talked about, well, you know, that's going to cost a lot of money to produce. High quality physical photographs, have them framed and hung [00:07:00] as if we're doing an exhibition. You'd want a professional to help you curate that exhibition, right? If you want it to look like an exhibition. So then we talked about, well, why don't we use projectors and project the, um, why don't we project the images onto the various walls of this warehouse?
And I've done a gig in a warehouse where we've done this and it was really cool. It actually shows up beautifully. But instead of just like, I'm not talking about one projection on one screen per se, in inverted commas, I'm talking about having multiple projectors in the room. Imagine if you had 12 projectors, for example, all pointed towards different parts of the walls.
Not only were they projecting the final photograph of the person, they were also projecting perhaps a video with captions. So obviously you don't need the audio there, but maybe it [00:08:00] cuts into a video with captions, and it's the person who's photograph it, is telling the story about what impact this person has had on their life. What impact did their coaching have?
So as a guest. I get more and more immersed in your world. I get to see what you really care about, what you really love, and I kind of get to know you a little bit more and I'm, I'm much more connected to you then. Not to mention the story, I get to tell the next day when I go back to my office or go back to my workplace or you know, go out for dinner with friends and they say, oh, what have you done last week?
What's the first thing I'm going to talk about? Oh my gosh, I went to this celebration of my friends corporate birthday and it was amazing. She had this photographic exhibition and we got to, you know, walk around this exhibition that was brilliantly curated and see the different stories of the people that she's impacted. I can't wait to work with her. It was really incredible. I [00:09:00] can't wait to get my photographs done. Her photographs were incredible.
And so you can kind of hear that story that people are talking about, right? So that you, you're creating an event that is super memorable. It doesn't have to be your work, so I just want to encourage you to even think about the things your hobbies, think about your hobbies, think about the things you do on a weekly basis.
Maybe you do pottery, maybe you play a sport, like you can even bring sport into this. So imagine, imagine for example, um, maybe you're a pickleball fanatic. There's plenty of pickleball fanatics out there, and you're like, I really want to show how passionate I am about pickleball. How can I bring pickleball into my corporate event?
Well, you could have your event on a pickleball court, for starters. You could actually host your event at a pickleball center, and you could, you know, hire the court and you could have a cocktail party on the [00:10:00] pickleball court, but you don't have to even go that far.
You could hire, even if, for, take for example, this warehouse space that we were talking about before and having a pickleball court in the middle of your function, that people are playing. How fun would that be? Like that's your entertainment. Your entertainment is this actually a pickleball game going on in the middle of the corporate cocktail function that you have created for people?
So think about that. Um, you know, if you're a potter, maybe you can have, um. Not to mention, you know, you should curate an amazing exhibition of pottery that you've created, but maybe you bring in a couple of potter's wheels as well, and people get to have a go at the pottery. They get to feel and see and experience the things that you love at your event.
So I'm going to challenge you to think about what can you bring into your event that really [00:11:00] shows your audience. What it is that you care about, what you are passionate about, what you love spending your week doing, and not necessarily in the business context, not necessarily in the work context.
What is it in your personal life that you could bring into an event that would make the experience really fun for your guests and completely memorable, and have them talking about it tomorrow.
So make sure that you share with me. Get in touch with me, you'll find me on all the socials and let me know what it is that you are creating. All right, off you go.
