Canadian Special Events Showcases Some of the Best Toronto Has to Offer for Event Planners

Whether you are a seasoned pro with a long list of clients, or you are a graduate straight out of school. The event planning world will keep you on your toes, as it constantly evolves. Technology is becoming an ever-present aspect at events with social media being a popular tool to market your event and to engage your guests. Engaging your guests at events can be a challenge. With the right tools and activations, your event will be one to remember and keep guests coming back or talking about it for days and weeks after.

The CityEvents team took to the CSE Tradeshow floor, fresh after our CEO, Deborah Lewis, won the Independent Event Planner Award at the CSE Reader’s Choice Awards Gala, the night before.

Some of our favourite highlights included:

ABSOLUTE EVENTS & MANAGEMENT: specializing in interactive entertainment, they focus on brand engagement through customized activations. Touchscreens that include games and photo booth applications means your guests will likely be more involved at your event and will recognize branding and logos quicker. Other event materials that Absolute provides include; signage, custom tents, promo gear, photo backdrops and swag for giveaways

ABBEY ROAD ENTERTAINMENT: From their humble beginning of renting poker tables and karaoke machines for small parties Abbey Road is now a full-fledged entertainment management company working with fortune 500 companies. Each year their inventory and services expand as they position themselves to become the go-to for event rentals. Along with their classic casino and karaoke rentals, Abbey Road also offers photo and video booths, arcade games, giant games, carnival games, promotional material, virtual reality experiences, performance and talent, and custom branding on almost all of their wares.  

 

WILSONS: Toronto’s favourite mobile ice cream bar! Showing off some of the most delicious ice cream flavours with equally satisfying names (Hello Handsome, Bombshell, Can’t Get Enough), Monsieur Wilson specializes in building your own desired ice cream cup with a choice of over 50 premium toppings. With their rentable Airstream, clients can customize the mobile vehicle and use it for a variety of purposes like creating a mobile meeting room, dressing room, showroom, photo booth or Ice Cream Bar.

 

After we visited all the vendors we stepped into the Canadian Society of Professional Event Planners (CanSPEP) “Ask a Planner” booth. We sat down for an informal interview with members of the Society Dustin Rivers, Executive Director of Verney Conference Management, and Meagan Rockett, Association Ambassador of CanSPEP. They gave us some advice to pass along to novices and beginners in the business.

• Time management is the most important thing, always stay on top of your schedule.

• Venues make or break you. They are your biggest expense, they need to be your biggest partner, so build close relationships with the front desk, they have all the emergency contacts (especially if you are working in an unfamiliar city).

• There are always going to be risks associated with your events, it’s best to have a contingency plan written up in case any problems do occur. Always be six steps ahead of the problem.

 

Although some of their advice sounds dire, they wanted to let us know that mostly all event planners began in the business because of the continuous creativity, challenges, and amazing people they get to meet and work with.

Visit our Facebook page for all of our photos from the events: https://goo.gl/XYQcHT

We want to give special thanks to Canadian Special Events for inviting CityEvents to the tradeshow. To find out about all the vendors and suppliers that were at the tradeshow visit Canadian Special Events.

 

Contributing writers:

Ashleigh Alexander

Aprile Gonzalez

Paula McDines

 

MANAGING FOR GROWTH SERIES – The Productivity Paradox: Understanding the importance of Process.

Do you think that you can double your productivity without any capital investment. Phil Kirby can help you to think about the process in your business, to be flexible, and to reduce your costs. Because the solution to this paradox is hiding in plain sight – if you know where to look.

Being fast can increase cost and decrease quality. Being flexible – providing variety and customization – can slow things down and escalate price. And being low cost requires standardization without variation. Being all three—fast, flexible and low cost—seems contradictory, if not impossible— except to a process mind.

With Phil Kirby learn some ways you can transform your business, and achieve new goals.

He says, “Your problems are hiding in plain sight; in the processes of your business, whether you are making widgets, distributing gizmos or servicing needs. You can outperform your competition by changing the way you think about process, by developing a process mind.”

In a captivating, candid, conversational style, Phil takes the audience from the boardroom to the frontlines, moving easily from thought-leading management theory to roll-up-your-sleeves, in-the-trenches practices.

 

Guest Speaker: Phil Kirby, President, Organization Thoughtware International Inc.

Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Time: 7:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Venue: Delta Toronto East,  2035 Kennedy Rd, Scarborough, ON M1T 3G2

Google Maps Link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Delta+Toronto+East/@43.777344,-79.283427,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x6c9a3942bb7699cd

 

Fees: $25 which includes continental breakfast (net proceeds go to the Ted Rogers School of Management

Seating is limited, please RSVP online at http://www.hss-ca.com/events.php

 

Who Should Attend:

• Small to medium business owners, entrepreneurs
• CEO’s, CFO’s

 

Key Learnings

• Current economic forecast
• Industry trends
• Business cycle forecasts
• Easy-to-understand, strategic action items

 

Series Sponsors:

Hogg, Shain & Scheck, PROFIT Magazine, Ted Rogers School of Management