Each year, since I started my business in 2012, I have hosted one big event to ellevate the women in my community. One of my favorites was a 2015 fashion show featuring professional women in STEM. It was elevating the designer, it was an exercise in sustainability.
Today I’m going to show you how I put on a large scale event in New York City. It comes very second nature to me, but as someone said to me after I managed 30 people getting across the Atlantic for a yacht charter, “How do you do what you do?”
If you have ever had a desire to host your own big event and don’t know where to start, here are my key steps:
Step 1: Venue
I start with the venue first. It’s foundational. Everything else anchors to this decision.
As you can imagine, renting an entire theater in New York City is EXPENSIVE!!!!!! I have a few websites I use to source event spaces:
I ended up choosing a private school on the Upper East Side, that rents out the stage to outside stakeholders. I couldn’t blow the budget on just the stage, because next line item is the hire of the production company. If the space has good bones, it can be transformed in the video. The contact for the stage has been very responsive and communicates within a few hours when I have questions.
Step 2: Production Company
Then I hired the Beverly Boys, the team that is going to film the TEDx Style talks professionally. They have teams all over the country, but feature one producer who remains my contact all year as the production evolved.
It’s going to be a 3-camera shoot. One camera trained on the wide shot. Two cameras trained close, that move with the speaker.
I hired my “go-to” Christian Fiore, who does all of my event photography throughout the year to capture photos for marketing and behind the scenes footage.
Step 3: Team
The bigger the dream, the bigger the team.
I made the mistake in the early days of being the only point person. Every 5 minutes, someone was coming to me to ask me a question about something.
On event day, I will have my hands full, with speaker intros, executive producing the entire production.
Today, I clone myself.
I hired an able bodied #2, who is capable of making executive decisions. I have a team that has minded the front of house for me for years. Guest check in, Here’s the bathroom, etc. They are on board. I’ve never been sorry by having more hands than less event day.
Step 4: Training the Speakers
The members of the Mastermind have been building a personal brand all year around one key word, and harvested stories related to them at the May retreat in Tuscany.
In Q3, the ladies entered into an 8 week storytelling intensive with me. Each week, they present their talks at a workshop space at Ripley Grier Studios, get feedback from their peers, feedback from myself and a guest judge. They go away and revise, iterate, present again next class.
Step 5: The Audience
In order to communicate externally, i.e guests, I use Eventbrite for folks to buy tickets. It’s also how my front of house team does guest check-in.
In order to communicate internally, I create a landing page that is central holding for all of the questions the members of the Mastermind ask.
Conclusion
You don’t have to be an “expert” to create a big event in New York City, but it does
- require being super organized.
- constant communication about what is expected of each stakeholder
- leverage third party platforms and technology to make life easier.
Whenever you’re ready, there is an application process if you wish to join the Samita Lab Mastermind and give a TEDx talk on a New York City stage November 14th, 2024:
1. The application. This form helps you to distill your thoughts and helps my team when we sit down to review candidates for the 12-month program.
2. Don’t have 12 months, but still want to give a powerful talk? Check out this link.
Now onto this week’s newsletter:
One Leadership Tip
How to stay focused. I found this in Justin Wright’s post.
One Public Speaking Tip
I found this in Codie Sanchez’ twitter feed.
One Adventure Tip
I want to share a story about E.
She had been CEO of a large healthcare concern. That followed by years of executive roles in the industry. But it was time to go out on her own. During COVID, she made her decision: She would launch her own consultancy.
But now what?
She no longer had the big name title. She no longer had the big staff. She just. had. herself.
It’s during this scary time when business development is the most important thing. She and I did a one day intensive together.
We got clarity on her brand and how she would start sharing it. Either in person or on line.
Rather than whiteknuckle it, she then signed up for my Mastermind. She welcomed a sounding board that met each week so she could crowdsource solutions as the issues came up.
Because solopreneurship can be lonely.
Plus, want to sail from Nice to Cannes, France June 2024 and snorkel in this stunning underwater Stonehenge? Apply for the 2024 Class of the Mastermind here.
