This year CityEvents was honoured to be a part of the planning of the AMICA Helping Hands event which took place on November 2nd, 2017 at the Omni King Edward Hotel. Attendees of the event were happily seated in the beautiful crystal ballroom and looked forward to fundraising for such a beautiful cause.

The night was dedicated to raising awareness of seniors living in poverty in Canada and also provided insight and knowledge on not only the physical but mental difficulties Canadians face as they grow older, some without families to help and support them.

Guests were delighted with delicious food and great entertainment including a keynote speech delivered by Susan Pinker and a hilarious comedy skit by the talented, Jessica Holmes. There was also a blue carpet to showcase all guests’ dashing good looks.

Paintings created by AMICA’s very own residents were scattered throughout the entire venue as a part of an extra effort to show support and showcase the talent of AMICA residents.. Guests were able to participate in silent auctions throughout the night to purchase these paintings as well.

This year as always, AMICA Helping Hands was a success and thanks to the generous and kind Canadians who took part in the night’s festivities, AMICA was once again able to raise funds to help support seniors across Canada.

To see all photos taken that night click here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cityeventstoronto/? 

 Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller  

This year, The Honourable Dr. Helena Jaczek, Minister of Community and Social Services and MPP for Oak Ridges-Markham will receive the 13th Annual Canadian Helen Keller Centre Award at the April 5th luncheon at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.  Minister Jaczek has been chosen for this due to her enduring help and dedication to the betterment of the community. 

This year also falls on an important milestone for deafblind communication. On April 5th, 1887, Helen Keller was finally able to understand that everything has a name. When her teacher, whom later became her life-long companion, Anne Sullivan spelled ‘water’ into the hand of the young girls he life began to take shape. Helen Keller later went on to become the first deafblind person to earn a degree, she graduated with honours from Radcliffe College in 1904.

To help raise money to support the important services that CHKC provides free of charge to its clients, each year an annual luncheon is planned to help raise funds and awareness and to also recognize those who have supported the deaf-blind community and their families.

Special guest speaker at this year’s event is Gail Asper O.C., O.M., LL.D., President of The Asper Foundation and sitting Board Member of The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg Manitoba. Ms. Asper currently is currently the Chair of the Board of the National Arts Centre Foundation, is a member of the Board of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and is a Governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

2016 attendees wait for the Award presentation in the Concert Hall of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

As of July 2001, the doors opened to Canadas first and only residential training centre for persons with vision, hearing, and combined vision hearing impairment, The Canadian Helen Keller Centre is a place for the deaf-blind community to go for affordable housing, access to services, and training to live independently.

CHKC has been giving the award since 2005, past winners include York University; George Brown College: Canadian National Institute for the Blind; The Honourable David C. Onley; IBM Canada; The Honourable Vim Kochhar; ICICI Bank Canada; Microsoft Canada; Reverand Robert L. Rumball; Jim Sanders;  and Joan McTavish.

http://www.chkc.org/

Intervenor teaches a CHKC client the “two-hand touch” method of communicating

Written by: Paula McDines

Do you ever find it hard to keep your guests interested, awake and engaged at your events? Social media walls could be used by anyone from wedding planners to corporate event planners to community leaders onsite at their events and meetings. Social media walls provide their attendees with a great way to interact.

A Social Media Wall shows content, not only from Twitter (Twitter Wall), but also from other social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, or YouTube.

Top Tips On Social Media Walls:

• Hashtags: Create an easy to remember, short relevant Hashtag. Ensure the hashtag  you create is on your Instagram posts and in your tweets. Ask guests to use the same hashtag when discussing the event on social media.This hashtag allows you to search who else is talking about your event. Tag all of your posts with it, and encourage attendees to do the same.

• Tweet a lot and listen: Share those pre-planned Tweets, ask questions, pictures and videos as much as you can. Don’t forget that communication is a two-way conversation, so don’t just Tweet and Post and leave it there. Listen to the conversation and contribute when you can. RT or Favorite Tweets, Like and Share posts, answer questions and respond to comments. You’ll be surprised how it can encourage more interaction and build a connection with your followers.

• Display branded content: If you are sharing a lot of official updates during the event, social media walls are a great way to maximize the lifetime and reach of all your branded social media content via TV displays around the venue. Connect your Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram etc. and your attendees will never miss an update while walking around the event. Share announcements, prize winners, next speaker in line etc.

• Onsite Contests: Consider organizing a contest and asking followers to submit their own photos/videos — the winner could win a prize! Social Media Walls will make it more visual and will help you track the hashtag of your event and contest. You can display photos of prizes, tags and hashtags your attendees can use.

Watch our video below for more complete information and tips on how to market your event and create the buzz on social media.

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like this video, share it and subscribe to CityEvents to gain valuable knowledge about planning your future events.

If you liked this video you may also like our video on How to market your event on Periscope and Google +.

Everyone uses Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to advertise and market events, but why not try something new? Instagram. This social media platform is often under-used but most effective when it comes to promoting your event, building your brand identity and gaining a stronger following for your company. It is building in momentum and is a must have.

As Instagram is all visual, photos are always a great way to provide a visual to your event. An Instagram photo diary is a wonderful way to promote your events to your target market and audience. Instagram live is also popular.

Top Tips On Instagram:

• Get Posting: Just like other social media platforms, the key to be successful on Instagram is being active. This means taking lots of pictures or videos and posting them for your followers to see. Consider setting a posting schedule and stay on top of that, whether it’s five times a day or five times a week. Study your past posts to see when they got the most audience engagement.

• Create a Story: Let your followers and audience in on the details of the event.  You want to make them feel involved in the event right from the beginning. For timing it is important to create excitement before tickets are on sale. You can do this by making your posts tell a story, updating them regularly and let them in on the planning and preparation right through to after the event. Having regular updates will make people look forward to the next update and keep them wanting more!

• Hashtags: Create an easy to remember, short relevant Hashtag. Ensure the hashtag  you create is on tickets, website, signs, email reminders, facebook event/posts and in your tweets. This hashtag allows you to search who else is talking about your event. Tag all of your posts with it, and encourage attendees to do the same.

Watch our video below for more complete information and tips on how to market your event and create the buzz on social media.

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like this video, share it and subscribe to CityEvents to gain valuable knowledge about planning your future events.

If you liked this video you may also like our video on How to market your event on Social Media Walls and Facebook.

Social media sectors such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your surrounding neighbourhood are great ways to network and spread the word about your past, current, and future projects.  Today we are focusing on Facebook: one of the most popular social media tools.

Facebook is a powerful and cost-effective social media tool. Creating and promoting an event on Facebook is free and requires a series of easy-to-follow steps.  You can also enhance your facebook marketing with a custom facebook ad campaign.

Top Tips On Facebook:  

• Create an event on Facebook: Ensure to have any staff, ambassadors with permissions as a host. Once someone has accepted the invitation you are able to change their status to host so they can edit the event and update and post easily. Once you have created the event start to invite friends, ask others to invite others to increase the reach.  You will need to keep the event as a public event so that guests can invite others and people can find your event through facebook search.

• Facebook Campaigns: Many events have grown tracking or increased its exposure and attendees through facebook campaigns and Facebook Ads.  These can be useful as you can be very specific of the geographic area, age, status and other elements so you are only paying for advertising to your target market.

• Photos: Always a great way to provide a visual to your event.  This is a wonderful way to promote your events to your target market and audience and show people enjoying past events. It also gives them a better understanding of what the event looks and feels like. Change your profile and cover photo with the main banner of your event.

• Videos: You can also create promotional videos or video photo slide shows about your event to post.  This can be done using a slide show of photos related to your event, any related footage you have access to, link to music and add text with your main event details.

• Tags: A tag is a hyperlink making it easier for your followers or guests to click and visit the  page or person that you’ve tagged. Your post is usually displayed onto the Wall or Timeline of the Page or friend that you’ve tagged. By tagging speakers or guests, you will make your event more visible and have a chance to reach future attendees.

Watch our video below for more complete information and tips on how to market your event and create the buzz on social media.

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like this video, share it and subscribe to CityEvents to gain valuable knowledge about planning your future events.

If you liked this video you may also like our video on How to market your event on Hootsuite and YouTube.

This marketing video outlines how to prepare effective techniques to market your events on Twitter.  Because posts on twitter are only 140 characters, your tweets have to be creative and engaging. It’s better to tweet something short and eye catching and include a link that people can click for more information.

Top Tips On Twitter:  

• Text/Quick Stories/ Bytes: Different people are interested in different things, write tweets about all aspects of the event and don’t forget to mention sponsors, ambassadors. One text byte explains charity or the cause or explains official message, while another is all about the talent, celebrities or DJ, and another could perhaps showcase the venue or the food, or signature drinks etc.

• Photos and Videos: Photos show up well on twitter, so similar to facebook, tweet and post photos so followers can get a visual of the event. You can also create promotional videos about your event to post on various sites online.  This can be done using a slideshow of photos related to your event, any related footage you have access to, link to music and add text with your main event details or can try Vine that is integrated into twitter recently.

• Twitter contest: Setting up a twitter contest is a perfect way to increase your reach and have your followers engage or retweet.  The most common is a Retweet to win, another way is to ask ppl to mention a hashtag and account name (@Mention)  These can also be held onsite at the events to increase engagement by attendees.

• Hashtags: Create an easy to remember, short relevant Hashtag. Ensure the hashtag  you create is on tickets, website, signs, email reminders, facebook event/posts and in your tweets. Hashtags will make it easier to find any tweet related to the event and can also be very useful if you have a social media wall during your event.

Watch our video below for more complete information and tips on how to market your event and create the buzz on social media.

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like this video, share it and subscribe to CityEvents to gain valuable knowledge about planning your future events.

If you liked this video you may also like our video on How to market your event on Instagram and Hootsuite.

Susur Lee’s IS the chef and owner and Drake is a keen partner.Frings has become one of the most talked about and respected restaurants in Toronto.The menu may be regarded as a mixture of Europe, United States and a major influence from Asia, so it suit all tastes.

Some people say that the Frings name comes from a sauce made of ketchup and mayo. Now according to the restaurant staff, Frings is a state of mind, whatever the meaning is get a reservation there as it is not easy but worth it.
At the sound of classic R&B, enjoy it drinking drinks like the mojito coconut made ??by Sailor Jerry’s spiced rum , Malibu coconut rum, coconut milk , lime juice and mint. Let’s talk about food, the dishes are incredibly elaborate as Sweet and Sour Meatballs, topped with parmesan and bread crumbs, delicious!!

For more information:

455 King Street West

Toronto ON

416-979-9696

www.fringsrestaurant.com/
Capacity: Up to 140 guests seated/195 guests standing

Location Features:

Wi-fi

Floral design

Custom menu design & printing

A/V – Screen, projector & microphones

DJ & Live Music

Mixologist & Custom Cocktails

Sommelier & full wine pairings

Satellite bar with private bartende

This time we are telling you how to promote your event through Linkedin: a professional social network, where you can connect with companies and other professionals. Linkedin is one of the most popular social media counting more users than Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Despite its popularity, Linkedin is often forgotten by marketers which makes it the best platform to promote your event without too much competition. We don’t recommend LinkedIn for your next music festival but it could be a perfect place to get the word out for your next networking event or conference.

Here are some highlights of the video:

• Keep your profile and company page updated: A properly optimized profile or page will increase your search visibility, so you have to make sure to use relevant keywords in your description, use descriptive wording in your job title and company name, Complete all fields in your profile and company page and to include links to your website and blog in your profile, description and posts.

• Join groups: Groups are the best way promote your event. This is a good way to select a specific audience and to promote your event to the right target. You can find groups very easily by using the search tool. You can also create your own group which will help you to connect with attendees before and after the event, to provide a central place for them to ask questions and facilitate discussion around the event topics.

• Send invitation and messages: You can’t be shy when promoting an event, so you should be familiar with contacting people directly. Using the Advanced People Search, you can filter the results by how you’re connected as well as by keyword, industry, and location.You can send invitations to your event using the Advanced People Search function to find people that would benefit by attending your event, media contacts that may be interested in covering the event for their outlet or potential event sponsors. You can also send direct messages to your contacts or members of groups you are part of.

Watch our video below for more complete information and tips

Thank you for watching, and don’t forget to like this video, share it and subscribe to CityEvents to gain valuable knowledge about planning your future events.

Boasting over 20,000 sq. ft. of flexible space across four distinctive venues, The Great Hall is able to accommodate any size of event. These four venues can be combined or rented separately. Able to provide seating as intimate at 10 people up to 1,200 people. The four separate halls include: The Main Hall, Longboat Hall, Conversation Room and Drawing Room.

The Main Hall

This hall is a two-storey space that extends as large as 10,000 sq. ft. and includes a reception area, coat and green room. It also includes decor of large arched windows, a stage, 30 ft. ceilings and more. Capacity can fit up to 480 people standing and is flexible for seating and table arrangements. The Main Hall with the new renovations, has been installed with a state-of-the-art audio/ visual system.

Conversation Room

Located on the second floor of the The Great Hall, the Conversation Room is a classic Victorian room. With its white walls and chandeliered ceiling it is the perfect “gathering place” for your next venue. At 1,200 sq. ft. it can accommodate up to 117 people standing and seating is flexible.

Longboat Hall

In 1889 this hall became the first West End YMCA gymnasium. It is a two-storey venue with a street-level main entrance on Dovercourt Rd. This space stretches up to 5,000 sq. ft. and can fit up to 400 people standing. This venue is also complete with a state-of-the-art audio/ visual system and a modulator stage.

Drawing Room

This small but elegant room can accommodate up to 97 people standing and is perfect for small receptions, business meetings, luncheons and more. The Drawing Room also is equipped with a gourmet presentation kitchen and grand bar.

Courtesy of: The Great Hall

For more information visit the website: www.thegreathall.ca

The Junction City Music Hall is a mysteriously enchanting bar/lounge located in Dundas St. West in Toronto’s downtown core. This music oriented performance space is highly dedicated to serving and building the local community and featuring a variety of artists.

Currently open between Tuesday-Saturday, The Junction Music Hall is a great place for large reservations and company parties as guests can engage with one another while enjoying the collection of vintage pinball and retro arcade games.

Do you like live performances? Junction Music Hall entertains the audience with talented live performances from bands, DJ’s, and promoters with artists from all over the city! Engage in live karaoke as friends and family get together to enjoy a night of fun.

The cocktails have been crafted by the bar, with flavors that vary according to the day. The beers are sold at considerable prices, and are cheap enough to spend the whole night at the bar.

CAPACITY: 150 attendees / 75 sitting

Features of Junction City Music Hall

• Mixing Board
• 2 Mains
• Monitors

For more information:

2907, Dundas st west – Downstairs

Toronto, ON

M6P 1Z1

(416) 662-7072

www.junctioncitymusichall.com