Technology Trends and Challenges in Corporate Events Production

Feb 2

featuring David ferris, Head of live events at epmc

David Ferris is the Head of Live Events at EPMC, a cutting-edge event management company focused on corporate and Esports event production. As a creative professional, David has experience in project management, production, event planning, editing, visual arts, and graphic design. Before EPMC, he was the Executive Director of the Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project, where he negotiated and organized major museum exhibitions and gallery installations, helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for elephant conservation.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

David Ferris shares his background in technical production and his conservation work with elephants
How EPMC pivoted to serve clients during COVID
What are Esports events and how does David facilitate them?
David talks about EPMC’s services and event projects
Key considerations for planning and executing events
Keeping up with technology trends in the events industry
Technology’s role in audience engagement

In this episode…

When producing corporate events, reliable technology is key. Yet recent developments in the space have presented unforeseeable challenges that impede seamless event production. So how are event companies pivoting, and how can you leverage new technology to continue producing events?

David Ferris’ company EPMC has adopted a hybrid model for event productions. This can cause virtual audience members to feel disconnected, so EPMC has leveraged presenter screens and chat features to increase interaction. With technology, innovation comes potential glitches, so it’s important to prepare team members to streamline the process and ensure a positive experience for the audience.

In this episode, Paige Buck invites David Ferris, Head of Live Events at EPMC, to discuss innovation and pivoting in the corporate and Esports event space. David talks about how he facilitates Esports events, the key considerations for planning and executing events, and technology’s role in audience engagement.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events.

Kennedy Events creates stress-free conferences and events, providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs — from in-person to hybrid and virtual events.

To learn more about our services, visit our website at www.kennedyevents.com and schedule a consultation today to find out how we can guide you in making your event successful.

Transcript

Below is an AI-generated transcript, full of all sorts of amusing foibles and mistranslations. Take it with a grain of salt!

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the Kennedy Events Podcast where we feature top marketing, communications and future of work leaders and share their biggest takeaways and insights. We love these conversations and hope you will too. Let's get started.

Paige Buck 0:24

Hello, and welcome to the Kennedy Events Podcast. I'm your host Paige Buck. past guests include Kim Alpert of Udemy Sara Razavi of Working Solutions and Elaine Honig of Studio 4forty and today's episode is brought to you by Kennedy Events. We create stress free conferences and events providing expert management and design for all your corporate event needs, from in person to hybrid and virtual. You can learn more about us at Kennedyevents.com. And today I'm delighted to be with David Ferris, a creative professional with an extensive skill set that includes project management, technical production, event planning, visual art and graphic design. He has excellent communication focus and multitasking ability and excels in creating dynamic environments for client events. As head of live events at EPMC David is focused on creating opportunities that draw drive long term event and business sustainability for both company and clients. Dave, welcome.

David Ferris 1:30

Thank you for having me.

Paige Buck 1:32

Super happy to have you here. So I was digging in a little bit on your background before we got started. But I would love to hear how did you come into this broader events world and into technical production in particular?

David Ferris 1:47

Very good question, hey, go winding path to get here maybe a bit different than others. But I'm all the way back to used to DJ and started a portable DJ service in high school. And so that was like the beginnings of you know, liking to throw a party and essence. And then in college, I majored in inter Arts and Technology, which is using technology and art and worked a lot in the theater and dance program there. And so that got some experience, working in theater and getting light stage lighting and things like that. I've always loved photography, so that lent itself to kind of framing and light and graphic design as well. As far as the production as kind of a side hustle. I had a grant a nonprofit art and conservation project, working with elephants actually. And so that kind of lends itself to contract negotiation and customer you know, working with customers and organizing events in a more corporate angle. And then moved to San Francisco and started in full time doing production work and kind of quickly rose the ladder and became senior senior senior production managers, the last company and then broke off on my own. And yeah, just kind of meandering way there. But it wasn't necessarily coming from a hotel, corporate ballroom or anything like that.

Paige Buck 3:33

You know, it's funny that it feels like meandering and uncommon to you. But it feels like a really obvious path to me because I was a theater major also. So um, theater is like even more, I guess vague than your really specific inter arts degree, which is fascinating. I love that. And I the last time I still have my wrench with the black line on it that I used like for being up in the grid. It had to always be tied to yourself so that the wrench could not fall in someone's head. valuable lessons learned valuable lessons learned. And I like refuse to take the black line off of it just because, like, yeah, the momento of those days. But you're the path that I thought was really interesting was the conservation and elephant nonprofit that you ran, tell me a little bit about that.

David Ferris 4:29

Work with and manage the lease to teach elephants how to paint and then market and sell the paintings to raise money to help the elephants. So essentially, elephants helping themselves as artists. They paint an hour a day and we have gallery and museum exhibitions and all those funds goes to provide them with proper veterinary care and

Paige Buck 4:51

how did you create this nonprofit?

David Ferris 4:53

This started by two Russian artists in 1990, as a kind of a conceptual art project And then I took over and kind of built it into a proper functioning nonprofit organization. So worked with and helped elephants all over Southeast Asia.

Paige Buck 5:10

I love that that's beautiful. I'm gonna have to, you're gonna show me that artwork. I think it's beautiful. I share some of it in this post. But I also love that it sounds like it's like your nonprofit business background that taught you all of the like, the Business Essentials to like, oh, I can absolutely run this thing by myself.

David Ferris 5:32

Yeah, definitely. So VO is kind of built my own path versus working for a very corporate structured company or something like that. So there was a lot of figuring it out as you go. And, you know, if you don't know how to do something, you read up and learn how to do it. And I think that lends itself as well to event corporate world. You know, each each event is unique. But it's like, oh, what does this cost? Well, it depends on the venue depends on the circumstance depends on the timeline. So there's a lot of kind of working through the details to figure out how to execute something.

Paige Buck 6:11

Well, it sounds like some of the qualities that are important are like being that like, resourcefulness. And also, like, it's all figured out hobble, like, I don't know, but I'm not scared that I don't know, I'm gonna be able to figure it out. 100% That must have been really true for you in that, like, you know, the moment we feel like is now long behind us. But the COVID moment of like, how are we going to do this when we can't do anything? We know?

David Ferris 6:39

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, in that regard, we, you know, we, there was that moment, I think, when everyone was kind of sitting on our hands, and it was like, okay, nothing's open. There's nothing we can do. Which held true, but then I felt like, at some point, there was a moment where it was time to make some moves. And, you know, if you were going to come out ahead, or it was a time to beat yourself something New Orleans, and, you know, yeah, I mean, something and you could, you could make some moves to come out the other end, in a better place, rather than sitting and waiting for the world to go back to how it was. And for us, we had a lot of experience doing broadcasts and live streaming with the eSports business that we tournaments that we had did had done pre COVID. Mm hmm. And so when COVID happened, everything went virtual and live stream. And so we kind of had a leg up in that regard. And so I think that really helped us get through those, you know, rough few years is that we're a bit ahead of the curve, and everyone trying to figure out how to stream and how to make things look good, virtually, and everything like that.

Paige Buck 7:47

And just being able to express that probably, from the eSports background, being able to bring that to the corporate client and say, this is doable, we can figure this out. This is what it could look like. Right? Yeah. So that

David Ferris 7:59

yeah, a lot of that was like, you know, cutting things like a broadcast news cast, or like ESPN does with graphics and things like this. It's not, you know, so we just want to do a zoom call, and like, it could be so much better.

Paige Buck 8:11

Yep, well, your team were essential to helping us shift and expand in that moment, like, we were like, pretty sure we can figure this out. Pretty sure we can make virtual happen and be a resource, but each project is going to require something a little different. And then being able to express what that looked like, you guys were able to say, Oh, here's what the back end could look like that's better than a zoom, that's better than a Zoom meeting, worth it is a Zoom meeting, it doesn't feel like one of those zoom meetings with no safety net, like, you know, your persona knows whether that thing is going to display on screen, who knows whether people are going to start popping off mute in a way that really uncomfortable where you're just like, but you know, like, gritting your teeth the whole time, right.

David Ferris 8:57

And what's fascinating about that is that it became our role became almost more of an IT situation, providing IT support to the remote presenters or things like that, versus, you know, building lights and building a stage and screens and things like that. So it definitely evolved as far as what the expertise or what the necessary skill set and a lot of the crew was required as well. So adaptation that needed to happen, for sure.

Paige Buck 9:28

Well, I mean, so that kind of goes back to some of the kind of keywords in your bio, like communications is a big piece of this. We and you have to be able to talk to, you know, people at every level in the business and express things to them in a moment when they might be nervous or uncomfortable about to take the stage for the first time and have they rehearsed and what is this confidence monitor and how do I look at it and I'm sure those were some of the skills you guys had to draw on and that moment to explain.

David Ferris 10:02

And it's that much more difficult when you're not in person and you can't, you know, you can't see somebody a lot of times, we're just we just be in a in their ear, you know, they couldn't actually see us. But I think in general, it's particular skill set that, you know, to provide reassurance and do the clients and have them feel comfortable and that they're taking care of, while navigating the technical aspects that need that are required to execute this a lot of times can be very complicated. And as much as you plan and a lot of what we try to do is minimize the number of things that can go wrong. But nevertheless, there's always some similar, unforeseen obstacle that needs to be overcome. But those navigating those two things, and I think that some people have a amazing technical mind and can dive into any new piece of equipment and build a computer from scratch and these things, but then they also like not that I can do that, but navigating that world, while actually, you know, client facing with, you know, sea level execs and things like that, and just kind of like, do different realms and worlds being bounced there,

Paige Buck 11:25

do you find you have do you have teams where you have a people on your team who are great at bridging that divide, and then folks who fall into one or the other bucket, and then they sort of like have to, I don't know, form a web and support one another,

David Ferris 11:44

absolutely 100% 100% a team effort and all this. And a lot of the guys on our team can do things that I couldn't even begin to understand. And so I definitely rely and lean heavily on those individuals. And so that's, you know, being a producer or production manager is managing, you know, which was never something I, you know, aim to aim to strive for, but it's the skill and a talent set that I found, have developed over the years. And it really is managing the crew, it's managing the timeline, it's managing the budget managing the client, you need to be aware of all these things.

Paige Buck 12:28

Yeah, yeah. So you have this whole big line of business in eSports. And I imagine both our audience and I are probably in a similar state of like, relative ignorance about what those events look like, can you kind of paint a picture of what takes place at these events and what your role is in in making them happen and making them shine?

David Ferris 12:57

Yeah, of course, using the most recent event that we did was for ESL gaming, which is a large gaming entity and produce a game titles and things like this. And they had a large booth stage presence at PAX West, and Pax is a convention that they do around the US three times a year. And, and so it's, in a lot of ways, it's like a sporting event, and they present a game title and pro players will come and compete for a cash award. And the competition can get very, very intense and very, very real for a lot of people. And there's global events going on all over this big business, there's a lot of funds behind even though it's not always visible to a large percentage of the population, I feel like

Paige Buck 14:00

it's like a niche sport. If you're really into rugby, then you know everything about rugby, but if you're not really into gaming, you have like, 00 insight into what that experience looks like. So when they're when they're competing, or is there also a lot of like a spectating of the competing, both, like, live and online?

David Ferris 14:22

Absolutely. So in this tournaments kind of layout, so we build out we have a stage, usually large LED walls, the players are, are competing each other against each other on stage where we have that up on the screen for the general audience. And then there's also a very large, remote virtual audience watching on twitch or something like that. And it can be, you know, the millions or hundreds of 1000s of viewership. So you know, and just like pro sports, a lot of them are sponsored and they, you know, that's sponsored events and there's a lot money going around in terms of supporting this process, and there's fans, and you know, they follow each individual player and things like that. So it's very real. It's amazing once you kind of scratch the surface, because I admittedly early on, I was not a not a big gamer myself. And so it's been a learning process in that regard.

Paige Buck 15:24

Wow. And so it sounds like there's a lot of like creativity and innovation in these two because of like the, I don't know, the intensity of like the, or the immersive visual experience for the, for the spectator for the attendees. What, how does that compare with some of the corporate stuff you and I do?

David Ferris 15:52

There's some similarities. The this, the speed and energy of the esports is a bit heightened, I believe. And a lot of it, you know, there's just some corporate structure behind it. But a lot of these companies are trend towards the younger end. So there's a bit more thinking outside of the box, so they can take some chances are a bit the bit more edgy than we often get with some corporate clients. That being said, there are some, some corporate clients that like to push the envelope, and everybody wants to kind of outdo each other as far as going bigger and bigger and more, more kind of creative and wild. But

Paige Buck 16:35

in like the bigger creative wild, like, what's fun for you? Like, what's it good? Can you give me some examples of like, I got, I'm thinking back to a pre COVID project we did together where we did just a beautiful, ginormous, curved LED wall. But that's like scratching the surface. For you, I know. So and I know, that wall can be like a circle where you're brought, you know, or displaying inside it or outside it or you know, that there's just so many possibilities, like, Can you can you paint a picture for?

David Ferris 17:09

Yeah, absolutely. That's where the creativity and the fun part comes in. And I believe one of the kinds of important services we can provide is helping someone visualize it, you know, often meetings will start with a mood board or inspiration, or some, you know, some nugget, or we'll pull from the website, you know, what kind of theme and colors or what the, what they're going for, and then run with that. And then in terms of building out a stage, there's some certain fundamentals you need, you need a projection surface, whether it's an LED wall, or a projection screen, but otherwise, kind of the sky's the limit as far as shape and size and scale. And with projection, you know, we can, we can map different surfaces and the outside of a building and things like that. So you can really kind of expand and go from there. And then led walls. And also provide clarity and brightness, and you can do it outside inside. And the sky's the limit with how big you can go, and what kind of ratios you can choose and things like that. You can do led floors. And you know, it's it's it's kind of that's where the fun comes in? Is it pushing these boundaries, providing clients with some options, and then having that kind of back and forth and discussion? is the fun part of that. For me.

Paige Buck 18:37

I like that when, I mean, we get a lot of energy from when our clients are asking us like, I don't know, what should it be? How could it be instead of we just need x, can you make X happen, which is constraining? What do you wish? I guess like a new client coming in? What do you wish they knew about like getting the best out of you or getting the best out of the experience of producing the event.

David Ferris 19:07

Um, some clients have a very clear, concise idea of what they want. And that can be can be nice in terms of, they have some understanding of what it takes to execute something. But that can also be limiting as far as like this, this is what we know, this is how we want it done, versus thinking a little more creatively or there's some new technology that came out or something that's really helped us kind of advanced that. But it's not I think having a client that's open and willing to have those conversations, those creative conversations you know, having the runway to have that creative development right rather than, you know, or shows in three weeks like can make this happen.

Paige Buck 20:02

Yeah, there's the time component we wish they knew. What's an ideal, like, minimum for you know, like, you feel comfortable when you have at least how many, how much time

David Ferris 20:16

depends on the size of the event.

Paige Buck 20:20

One of these larger one of these larger eSports engagements where, you know, there's going to be a lot of like, refining and idea generation. Yeah, probably three months. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's even I'm, I'm pleasantly surprised. Because that three months for us, because we're like, were earlier in the, in the process and planning is like, is coming up on a minimum, as opposed to, like a comfort zone. But that's, that's good to hear. You're like, wait a minute, can I imagine that?

David Ferris 20:59

It's doable? I'm not saying

Paige Buck 21:01

it's doable? Where did you were just talking about new tech and new, you know, so many new things coming on the market? Where do you go to stay on top of trends, or, you know, discover new tack, although I'm sure people aren't, you know, sending these things all the time. But,

David Ferris 21:17

um, yeah, don't have any one particularly resource. Just kind of just having being in the industry and having your finger on the pulse of it. The network and then the community that we've built up with the crew and the team, you know, a lot of it just kind of leading on experiences, or somebody heard about this, or write about this, or is researching or testing this, and you know, though, there's a lot of creative individuals within the industry, which is great.

Paige Buck 21:49

Nice. So it sounds like your crew are bringing you things. Have you seen this thing? We could do this with it?

David Ferris 21:55

Yeah, a lot of times to be honest. Nice.

Paige Buck 21:58

Nice. That's amazing. What are you? Are there? Are there events that you are they attend to like to unpack that stuff? Or they're just always out there online? keeping their eye on it, or uncovering it when they are? At another event? They're, they're running?

David Ferris 22:16

Um, there's I was there, there's conferences and things like that. I tend not to attend those per se, but I'm usually too busy.

Paige Buck 22:29

Get out Ditto. Which is why I'm always like, wow, when when people do have that, I'm like, really? Tell me more. How. And why do those events happen during our industries? busiest times?

David Ferris 22:42

Exactly.

Paige Buck 22:44

Yep, yep. I went to one in Vegas in October, like right smack between two other big projects. And the entire time I was there. I was like, why am I here? Why am I here? Yeah, for your hotel room. Yep. Yep. Or like like leaning up against a wall in the convention center. Just like don't lie me. Yep. Um, are there trends that you see kind of on the horizon or places you wish the work would go that would make it more you know, exciting for you or your clients?

David Ferris 23:20

I think a lot of it's kind of behind the curtain advances that are or making things easier or making old tech obsolete, you know, that doesn't necessarily see visually per se but led like led walls alone, you know, we're a big advancement and the resolution is getting better and better and flexibility in that a lot of camera systems as well are are coming down from these big bulky broadcast cameras and getting much more more flexible and integrating into the new world much easier. The lighting is also led versus conventional lighting allows a lot more flexibility and wireless DMX and you don't have to have bugs and cables and things run everywhere and you can control everything so I think you know those general trends they've been kind of at play for the last 1010 plus years but that Yeah, I mean I don't have any like

Paige Buck 24:35

I there I like when you were just describing like the behind the scenes things that that people doubt like that. The audience doesn't see like the direct effect but you see what it allows you to build and and and create that's more like lavish or lush or add maybe a different price point or I'm wondering if there's a Uh, we were talking a little bit about, I'm curious about the actual like, either the broadcast studio or like the tech table experience and how that's changed or changing and evolving. We're all still on like, you know, clear, calm headsets. But there's wireless for that. Or were using, you know, at some point during virtual events, we were using discord in lieu of, you know, all being on like, a cell phone call together. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

David Ferris 25:36

That's other advancements as well. It's a advancements, but then you're, you're on email and slack and discord in here. And it's like, too many too much sometimes. But um, yeah, I mean, Discord has been great. We use that quite a bit during the pandemic days, and a lot of the virtual broadcast. vMix is a broadcast video program that also kind of transformed the that that table as well, if you will.

Paige Buck 26:12

Yeah, besides like the virtual broadcast studio, creating that, that new line of business, you know, just rethinking something you were already doing to apply it to, when we were all stuck at home? Are there ways in which the pandemic or remote work have shifted the way you do live events, or the type of events you are getting asked to do?

David Ferris 26:41

Absolutely. We still do some remote live events. But generally, everything's now gone hybrid. So they'll be in Rome audience, but also an element that is a streaming element was definitely become more common. And I think, a lot of clients if, if it was there, it was always an afterthought. And I think people have kind of become more aware of how important it is and what that reaches, if you have 100 100 people in the room or 5000 people in the room, you can reach 50,000, you know, streaming and things like that. And then it's, it's also that I think that's the aspect of it's changed a bit in this, especially in the corporate environment.

Paige Buck 27:29

What this is something I think we are we I don't want to say struggle, we are pressed to articulate to corporate clients, that there's that a hybrid event is like two or almost like two and a half events, logistics cost, you know, and all of the technology wise to not underestimate like, oh, it's not just one event with the stream, because then you then you risk that, that often after that experience where the remote folks are, like, Well, that wasn't worth my time. You know, or all I am is keenly aware that I'm not there. And if I were there, the experience would be good, but it's not good. From here. Yeah.

David Ferris 28:17

legitimate, and I have that exact conversation with clients quite a bit.

Paige Buck 28:20

Yeah. Yeah. Whatever ways you you help, like the technology can help the livestream audience feel engaged, you know, it's not the same, but hit that you can develop a different and still special experience for them.

David Ferris 28:38

Yeah, and that is one of the obstacles and hurdles as far as how to how to cut the show and how to engage that audience. And it is innately kind of a problem to be solved and how do you know they're not in the room that we brought, you know, we brought the Zoom attendees up on the in room screens and things so that some interaction we brought, you know, with a bit of routing magic, make it so in Rome, and virtual can talk to each other. And, you know, a lot of times it's can be as simple as just taking chat questions and relating those to the presenter is the most basic form of involving the remote participants, but a lot of times people want to explore ways to to not have them be invisible and have them kind of be more participants. Yeah, yeah, holograms of everyone in the room yet, but no, we're

Paige Buck 29:33

not. We're not quite there. I've seen like, like staff dedicated to engaging that livestream audience in the chat. We've. We've played around with different techniques for having like presenters or MCs that are just engaging with them. Like when there's a live moment that you really have to be live for. Then, are we giving the streaming audience a different experience? That's where they're, they're watching or interacting with somebody just in that in that space. But it takes more resources,

David Ferris 30:08

takes more resources. And I think that, as you mentioned, rather than it just being a stream, and then not feeling part of it, in an ideal world is too different deeds or streams are the ones one's being cut for the screens, it's going into the room and the other is a different cut that's going to the stream and activates the program more than someone just sitting there. Because if you know someone's not on stage,

Paige Buck 30:36

watching C span, yeah, exactly. The room? Yes. Yes. They've just cut the mics. And you're watching everybody get up and water. Yeah, well, yeah, as well. And then I would say, like those that takes resources, and planning and scripting and consideration, and then you guys have the pressure of that. I don't know, what I would think of is basically like merging two experiences into one technologically, which is,

David Ferris 31:05

yeah, what's your experience with doing it for a good, good amount of years now. So it's, it's not a daunting task by any means. But it does take some additional thought.

Paige Buck 31:17

Any anytime I ever am like back at the table with you and your team, and I am impressed that if something is going slightly awry, as it does speaker is late speaker has turned off their own mic. Whatever it may be, there's been there's been a slight change. And, you know, we're not just like what we wanted to display that both your your team are like, heads down, intensely focused, but nobody's freaking out. There's definitely that like, duck that's column on the surface. How do you? How do you like discover those qualities when you're when you're bringing on when you're bringing on new crew? Pressure Test them?

David Ferris 32:06

Ya know, I mean, it's, it's a valid problem. But I, you know, on a personal level, I think I've mentioned before, but, you know, a lot of my work is done in pre production aspect, and trying to minimize the number of things that can go wrong during show and plan for it and have, you know, a fallback and have redundancy built into it. And so will always have a backup and always have these things. Whereas if something goes wrong, and then everyone's looking at each other, and they're like, Okay, you know, and so a lot of the systems that we built, are prepare, prepare our team for that. And then on site to try to establish kind of a hierarchy. And so it's not everyone just yelling at each other, everyone knows their position and their role. If there's a problem, you go to here and go here, and then it'll get handled in the appropriate fashion. And that ties into with, with making sure that the client feels that they're taken care of, and it's not, you know, the ship is on fire, it's like, everything is fine, and it will get handled. Because even though try to minimize the number of things that go wrong. There are always, you know, uncertainties that can happen and things you don't plan for or curveballs that come your way. And so it's kind of inevitable. And it's, try it's an incident of pre production that that allows you to handle those appropriate fashion.

Paige Buck 33:43

Yeah. So when you guys come on site, are you actually having like a huddle up, where you're establishing that hierarchy and that clarity? Yeah, that's impressive. I like that. I like that. I don't know if I've ever been like a fly on the wall for that. Maybe I should maybe I should try to be

David Ferris 33:59

well, it's, you know, our core team, everyone, we've been working together so well. And yeah. You know, 50 person union crew, then it's, it's added importance in that regard. But

Paige Buck 34:12

do you have like, sometimes have to have sidebar conversations with your, your TD about like, the, the credit, you're just getting introduced to for the first time, like, I see that guy strong, I see this person's a little, we're gonna have to keep our eyes on that person, we might have to help them out.

David Ferris 34:29

Ya know, this evaluation that goes along with it. If it is a union crew, it's communicating that with the steward and keeping an eye on it as it as it progresses, rather than it coming to a head at a later point. I think in my mind, more information is the better rather than keeping people in the dark and like this is, this is what we have to accomplish. This is the time we have this is where I want to be at the end of the day. And you know, trying To communicate that with all those involves, rather than everyone just kind of working in the dark towards a unforeseen goal. My personal approach is to provide people with as much information to, you know, make it a successful event and have them be successful.

Paige Buck 35:19

I was like naming the hard truth sometimes to like, is our limitations. This is the concern I have, let's name it now. And not like as something as you know, the fire builds. You're like, I knew that guy was gonna be a problem, but they didn't say anything about it. Yeah, that's really interesting. Are there? Are there folks that are work out there in the world that you like, really admire? And are like, uh, you know, I don't know, a pinnacle project? Do you wish you could get your hands on? It? We have some of those who want to work with this company, or I'll be so happy when I have a project that looks like this.

David Ferris 36:02

Right, right. Yeah, there's no individuals per se, but you know, look at the production or stage or budget behind some major, you know, musical act or a music festival or something. And it's just like, oh, oh, we had that budget. And you know, that scale that I find appealing. But yeah, like, Would you

Paige Buck 36:35

like to be producing? Would you like to be producing music festivals and things of that scale?

David Ferris 36:39

No, absolutely.

Paige Buck 36:41

Very cool. Very cool. Because sometimes I look at things and I think, Oh, I envy that. And then I have to remind myself, but I don't want to be doing that work. Where I'm doing, but the music festivals, and then that downstair, much doable. It's,

David Ferris 36:58

you know, tracing it all the way back to just throwing a good party. In essence, you know, whether it's a corporate stage, it's just having attendees have a good experience, and it's memorable. But in terms of a music festival, it's that you know, the lighting and the effects and the sound and everything, you know, that I enjoy as well. And that

Paige Buck 37:18

all lives back to your high school DJ gig. Yeah. Uh huh. Is there anything I didn't ask you about yourself or EPMC that we should cover?

David Ferris 37:32

We are ready and available to work with you on your upcoming event. And we? Yeah, well, I

Paige Buck 37:39

know our project teams always have an amazing experience with your you and yours. Yeah, you know, we trust EPMC with our our VIP clients, and always get the best. So thanks. Thanks for being a good partner and collaborator with

David Ferris 37:59

you. And it's been a pleasure working with Kennedy.

Paige Buck 38:04

Yeah, well, so I've been talking with David Ferris, head of live events at EPMC. You can learn more about EPMC at EPMCpro.com. And I bet we can find you on LinkedIn. David, any other social media handles you want folks to have?

David Ferris 38:21

No, LinkedIn will probably be

Paige Buck 38:24

very good. Alright. Thanks so much.

David Ferris 38:27

Thank you so much.

Outro 38:33

Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Events Podcast. Come back next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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PAIGE BUCK

Paige Buck is the co-owner of Kennedy Events, a large-scale event management company based in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Our team creates stress-free conferences and events with a positive impact, which allows our clients to resonate with their audience. Kennedy Events specializes in producing flawless product launches, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and multi-day conferences while keeping our eye on retention and engagement goals.

About Kennedy Events

Kennedy Events began with one goal in mind—to produce high-level corporate events with just as much strategy as style. Maggie founded the company in 2000, found her match in Paige, and in 2011 the two became official partners. Since then, these two resourceful and brilliant creatives have pooled their strengths to build one one of the most the most sought after corporate event companies in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.