In this episode of the “Solution Seekers,” Paige Buck joins Avital Ungar, Owner and Founder of Avital: Food + Drink Experiences, to talk about cultivating relationships in the food tour industry. Avital reveals her mission, how she transformed her business amid industry changes, and how her company encourages a deeper human connection.

Adults come to your event with high expectations, an existing knowledge base, and fixed ideas about what does and does not work. When creating learning and retention events, it’s imperative that your event sessions inspire attendees, change their mindsets, and drive performance. While there are multiple methodologies to make this happen, creating an effective learning experience for adult learners can often feel like taking a shot in the dark. Learn how to gain the attention of your customers with these four proven strategies.

Internal events are an investment in your overall culture, providing a valuable opportunity for you to show where your priorities lie—with your people—and that you have a vision for more than just the month ahead. For Bay Alarm, the challenge was taking the tight-knit, family-like culture within the company and translating it to the virtual realm without losing the sense of connection the company has intentionally cultivated. Businesses like Bay Alarm realize the immense importance of company-wide gatherings for the development of an organization’s culture and future. Here are the key strategies we used to structure their successful internal agenda.

Are you planning an event for the fall season? Look to book now. We’re bracing ourselves for a big comeback this fall and the floodgates have already opened. In-person events were canceled left and right over the past couple of years and now both clients and attendees alike are eager to return and make up for lost time. In fact, many venues are already at capacity for the coming season.

With inflation rising, supply chain challenges continuing, travel costs increasing, and salaries ballooning for top talent, things are getting more expensive on all fronts. When it comes to live, in-person events, we are seeing a 20% increase across the board and we are cautioning our clients to plan for that increase; even before layering in the cost of hybrid technology, more facilitated community building, and flying in a now remotely dispersed workforce. Kennedy Events is armed from the beginning with a new-reality budget to make sure there are no surprises around the corner.

We are going to gather—in person—again! The live events industry is poised for a comeback, and while there’s no doubt that the road back to in-person events will be uncharted territory for many organizers; paved with puzzling new obstacles like fluctuating health and safety regulations. The key to navigating the uncertainty is acknowledging possible challenges in advance and adopting a community-first approach to planning and building connections between your attendees and your organization.

United by a vision to continue connecting audiences while delivering engaging—and delicious!—events, Kennedy Events and Foxtail Catering have teamed up to create a customized culinary and virtual party experience. KE Senior Producer and Creative Director Marianne Jackson recently sat down with Foxtail’s Business Development Manager Patrick Hamilton to chat about the Picnic Party Packages. It’s all the summer party fun without the ants and the sunburns!

Company-sponsored social events have always been an important predictor of how high employees assess culture and their desire to stay. Intentional work-sponsored events will become even more important in the coming years. With limited social gatherings during the pandemic and a future that’s leaning toward hybrid work, leaders will need to be more conscious about structuring events to build team cohesion and culture in order to retain top talent. We know the alternative can leave you overwhelmed, stretched thin, and focused on securing a new workforce rather than your bottom line. Find out how you can make the case to secure the necessary budget for your next internal event!

While offsite meetings are a great opportunity for teams to come together and collectively solve a larger problem or plan out a period of work, you’ve likely also discovered that loving the idea of a company offsite and implementing a company offsite are wildly different. An offsite’s success is largely determined by what takes place before it convenes. Use this checklist to make sure you’re ticking off the big-ticket items for your offsite.

We’ve all been there: you’re watching a virtual event when suddenly the speaker's WiFi starts to fade in and out, or their lighting is so bad that they appear as a dark silhouette against a backlit window, or (maybe worst of all) the audio is so poor, even the wisest words can't be heard. Just one of these issues is enough to make you want to move on—and chances are you aren’t the only attendee who’s given up and moved on either. So, how do you avoid these easy-to-make mistakes during your own virtual event? Check out this video featuring KE Partner Paige Buck and our go-to videographer K'Dee Miller as they discuss how to make your virtual presentations and events shine.

It’s not always clear what the ROI is when an offsite is said and done. If created intentionally, with the right people in the same place at the same time —whether virtual or in-person or both— with clear heads and sustainable mental energy, offsites can provide space for everyone to focus on big picture issues that will drive the needle for your business the following year. If your offsites have felt sluggish or lacked clear indicators of ROI, use these key strategies to build your next winning offsite format.

Maggie Kennedy founded Kennedy Events in 2000 and has been Chief Everything Officer ever since. She loves any occasion to celebrate and she brings fun to every function. While she now leaves the event planning to her talented team, she is busier than ever running the business side of Kennedy Events. We’re excited to introduce you to the fierce redhead at the helm.

With so much uncertainty and an ever-changing landscape regarding safe events, Kennedy Events has been directing focus towards future-proofing events for safer gatherings. Implementation of COVID best practices and safety measures in every part of the planning process continues to be a vital measure to ensuring client and attendee safety. Here are just a few of the important issues that you might need to address if you’re considering an in-person event.

Finding, sourcing, and vetting platforms to determine which is the best for your virtual or hybrid event needs can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Technology has become increasingly integral to events; between the rapid shift to virtual over the past two years and the addition of hybrid event elements, identifying and assessing new technology has become even more critical to a successful event.

You probably have staffing for your face-to-face conferences and events down pat, but what about the staffing structure for your virtual events? It’s hard to plan when you aren’t certain what your event staff is supposed to be doing, and what roles are critical for a virtual event. The value of face-to-face interaction will never go away, but there are times when going virtual is a necessary part of your event program. With these top seven positions, any robust virtual event should include, you’ll be positioned to have an outstanding event.

Though she may be working her magic behind the scenes from her home in Vermont, Jess’ presence is never far from notice. Whether through an enthusiastic email or a timely response to a request for help, you can rest assured that every last detail is accounted for with dedicated systems to boot. Her savvy and attention to finessing the finer points of any project keep every event running smoothly and that’s why Jess is our indispensable organization maven, workflow wizard, and juggler of logistics.

A virtual event is vastly different from an in-person event. It can be fraught with pitfalls for planners who are inexperienced with the format. All the logistics—and potential glitches—of pulling off a virtual event can stop even the most experienced planners in their tracks; especially as attendees’ expectations for elevated experiences and content production continue to grow. We understand how stressful it can be to navigate the realm of virtual events as that bar is set higher and higher. We’re sharing the five biggest issues standing between you and success.

The pandemic created a plot twist for just about everyone, but the truly remarkable stories are how the obstacles were overcome. For Hamilton Families, the challenge was how to pull off their fundraising events while elevating the donor experience for a virtual realm.

Whether she’s creating a branded winter wonderland out of a blank slate venue or bringing a Bali-esque dream to life on an open field overlooking the San Francisco Bay, you can bet that Senior Executive Producer and VP of Strategic Partnerships Marianne Jackson has tackled every last event detail with creative flair. Her zest for travel and adventure, cuisine, and aesthetics is visible in every event—whether in-person or virtual—that she produces.

On a tight deadline to produce a virtual event with minimal budget and no clue where to start? You don’t need to throw the towel in just yet. Today, we’re sharing personalized, simple solutions that won’t break your budget, or force you to learn an entirely new set of technical expertise to build the engaging, virtual event experience you’re envisioning.