In this episode of Event Experience by Bizzabo, host Rachel Moore talks to Anh Nguyen, principal and co-founder of Spark Event Collective, about her team’s success with the grand opening of the BMO Centre in Calgary, Alberta. Anh shares her insights on managing large-scale events and emphasizing the importance of guiding guests through the experience, which included using over 300 entertainers to create flash mob transitions.
She discusses the goals of the event, targeting current and prospective clients of the convention center, and highlights the collaborative effort required, involving a team of specialized senior event professionals. The episode also delves into the practical challenges and personal experiences faced by event planners, from footwear choices to overcoming setbacks.
Anh Nguyen possesses over 15 years of event design, production, and management experience. She has managed everything from intimate corporate functions to large, international events and is known for her keen eye for detail while being able to lead, inspire and manage large, global teams. She founded Spark Event Management, an award-winning, full-service event management firm, from which the Collective is spun off from. Having experienced first-hand the challenges, excitement, disappointments, and thrill of entrepreneurship, she is passionate about supporting independent planners in the pursuit of their professional goals.
Here’s what you’ll hear about in this conversation:
[00:00:09] Rachel Moore: Welcome to Event Experience by Bizzabo. The podcast where we bring the best and brightest event experience leaders together to share stories, tips, and lessons learned from creating some of the world's biggest events.
[00:00:21] Rachel Moore: I'm Rachel Moore, your podcast host. In some events we designed today, the space is the thing. Join us on a journey with Anh Nguyen, principal and co-founder of Spark Event Collective, as we shift our gaze to the grand opening of the BMO Centre in Calgary. This episode has everything from flash mobs to badging 2,000 people in under two hours, and it'll help you level up your event experience.
[00:00:47] Sometimes events manage people, but this podcast is about the people who manage events. [00:01:00] Our guest has managed events since 2005 with leadership roles in MPI and Twine across healthcare, oil and gas, agriculture, and B2B SaaS industries. So quite a spectrum.
[00:01:11] Rachel Moore: Today she is the Principal and Co-Founder of Spark Event Collective. Anh Nguyen, welcome to Event Experience.
[00:01:18] Anh Nguyen: Thank you. Thanks for having me here.
[00:01:21] Rachel Moore: It's great to have you here and, uh, I appreciate you making the time. Like I said, I feel like we can often be managed by the events and schedules around us, but, uh, today we're going to manage those instead.
[00:01:31] Rachel Moore: But, all right, well, I'm going to segue into some get to know you questions now. Is there anything that you're listening to reading or watching these days that you cannot put down?
[00:01:39] Anh Nguyen: Yes. So I just like bingewatch Nobody Wants This on Netflix. That's like, like, I don't know when this will come out and maybe that'll be old news, but it's just a really cool story of like a love story that I'm obsessed with Adam Brody from my teenage years, right.
[00:01:55] Anh Nguyen: I just love a guilty pleasure like that about finding love later in life and that you don't have to [00:02:00] have it all figured out in your 30s and you can struggle through your 40s and it feels normal.
[00:02:05] Anh Nguyen: And then a friend of mine has just written a book. It's doing quite well. It's called Likable Badass. So, it's a book about women in leadership who, we struggle to find that balance between sort of likeability and competence and how to balance that and how to show up as a Likable Badass, which is just someone who is competent and capable, but you don't have to be sort of cold and harsh to get there.
[00:02:31] Anh Nguyen: And it's a really good read for any woman who's looking to expand her influence or grow her leadership skill set and I'm only like, a quarter of the way through it. It just came out, but it's been a good one so far.
[00:02:43] Rachel Moore: Thank you. Great. Excellent. Good recommendation. Is there a particular social post, piece of media, or hot take about events that you found interesting lately?
[00:02:52] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, I, during my time at Twine, I did a lot of community building for them. So, within their buyer, [00:03:00] their consumer base. And so I follow a lot of more community builders and then event professionals, I would say, and Greg Eisenberg is one of them. And he posted something about, like, top Google searches of the last year.
[00:03:12] Anh Nguyen: We're all about, like, how do I make friends, or how do I combat loneliness? Or how do I make connections with people? And his note was just that in this age of data overload and information overload and artificial intelligence and, you know, us interacting with computers and screens for the majority of our day, that the power of human connection is still so important.
[00:03:35] Anh Nguyen: And that's like, at the end of the day, what people are still looking for, which I think really resonates with this industry. I think we're seeing that a lot in the numbers of people that are going out to attend events.
[00:03:44] Anh Nguyen: And it's such a privilege for us to work in an industry where we get to build those opportunities for people where they will make a friend or meet a business acquaintance or learn something or have a conversation.
[00:03:55] Anh Nguyen: It's just a good reminder that I feel very secure about our role in the [00:04:00] future of the world here as event professionals and experienced designers when it comes to connecting people. So, yeah, it really resonated.
[00:04:08] Rachel Moore: Wow. That's really, and that's so affirming for everyone listening to me. Like there's a re, you know, there's many reasons to do what we do, but there's a big, really big one that's going to last and be evergreen. But thank you for that.
[00:04:18] Rachel Moore: I just gave you a super brief intro. I gave our audience a super brief, brief intro about you, but could you please tell us about you and your role and kind of what your world is as the Principal and Co Founder of Spark Event Collective?
[00:04:30] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, doesn't that sound fancy?
[00:04:32] Rachel Moore: It does.
[00:04:33] Anh Nguyen: All it really means is day to day, I get the opportunity to work with a community of senior event professionals. So there's about 25 of us now that form this collective, it's not a traditional agency in the sense that lots of these folks have other endeavors that they're participating in.
[00:04:51] Anh Nguyen: They have other businesses that are they're running other jobs and they choose to be part of the collective because it gives them an opportunity to work with [00:05:00] other senior event professionals, maybe work on projects they might not otherwise get exposure to. And as the Principal and Co-Founder, I started it with my Co-Founder, Stephanie Barkley.
[00:05:11] Anh Nguyen: And my main role there is to do sort of marketing, business development, building the brand for the association or for the organization. And I just, I honestly just get to spend day to day in awe of the talent that makes up our industry. In an industry that I've been working in for a long time, so, yeah.
[00:05:29] Anh Nguyen: I've been an event planner. I don't do a ton of day to day event planning anymore, but I get to be surrounded by these brilliant folks that do. So that's what those fancy words boils down to. It's just hanging out with cool people, doing cool things, I guess.
[00:05:43] Rachel Moore: I feel very related to you right now because it's like, I kind of feel the same. I don't do event planning, but I get to interact with event planners literally all day, every day. And it's a joy. So I love that world. I'm sure. And I can tell, uh, by your face, for those [00:06:00] of you who are listening to this podcast, it's you, you really enjoy that life. And just the experience of it, being able to be immersed in that community.
[00:06:06] Anh Nguyen: Yes, we're a passionate community, sometimes a little bit, a little bit crazy and some of the things we try to do, but passionate, dedicated. I don't think you last in this industry. If you don't love what you're doing, it takes a little, you know, perseverance and resilience to make it this long, if you've been in it as long as you and I have.
[00:06:24] Rachel Moore: Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about this too, because, in the end, we are Event Experience. We're here to talk about event experience. And I always like to, we take several different tacks to that through this podcast. Sometimes we talk about thought leadership.
[00:06:38] Rachel Moore: Sometimes we talk about trends and things like that. And sometimes, we talk about specific events or experiences that people have designed and we're going to do that with you today, which I'm really excited about. Can you tell us about the event as if we're meeting for the first time? What event are we going to focus on and just introduce us to this event?
[00:06:56] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, so just as soon as I uttered that I don't plan any [00:07:00] events anymore this year, I actually planned one of the largest events of my life. So I'm based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. So, Western Canada here.
[00:07:08] Anh Nguyen: And this year, we recently opened what is now the largest convention center in Western Canada. So, the Calgary Stampede, which, maybe people are familiar with, maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. But it's basically an institution here in Calgary. They run a meeting space up here, a convention center. And in June, we opened the expansion of this convention center, which makes us the 2nd largest convention center in Canada and the largest in Western Canada.
[00:07:38] Anh Nguyen: And it was about a 500 million dollar expansion that happened all throughout COVID. So, imagine designing, building, getting the building ready for events and I think doubled the capacity of meeting space that we have here. So, this project was like a decade in the making, and it opened this year, opened its doors on June 5th.
[00:07:57] Anh Nguyen: And so our team was fortunate enough [00:08:00] to be tagged to produce the grand opening of this event. So that's the event we're going to talk about. It's the BMO Centre, the BMO Centre Expansion. You've likely seen visuals or images of it where it's really cool where they've, they're starting to show, like, this was the rendering and this is the actual building in operation.
[00:08:17] Anh Nguyen: And it's almost identical to what they rendered. And it's an award winning kind of architectural project and really cool space for us in Calgary to have now, kind of as a convention and meeting landmark. So we, yeah, did the grand opening of that event on June 5th of this year.
[00:08:35] Anh Nguyen: So just just over a little more than 4 months ago. That's what we're going to talk about today.
[00:08:40] Rachel Moore: I love this too. Wow. And I, my brain immediately is turning with the whole being working on it for a decade, even through COVID knowing this was an expansion of, I'm sure we're going to get into all the rollercoaster around that. But this sounds like an epic undertaking, which makes this an epic episode and a discussion we're about to have.
[00:08:57] Rachel Moore: All right, let's start the way [00:09:00] all event planners do, even if, you know, admittedly, sometimes it's harder to like, you know, sometimes it feels like we're building the airplane while it's in midair.
[00:09:07] Rachel Moore: But, let's start with goals. Can you describe for us the goals of this expansion and the event, anything, what special things were you striving for? Were there specific sales or revenue goals? Or, you know, events and activations you knew had to be part of it? Just help take us through these goals.
[00:09:24] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, yeah. And we were actually fortunate to work with the BMO Center because they know events, right? So our client was in the event space. That's what they do day to day is they host and welcome people to Calgary.
[00:09:35] Anh Nguyen: So the goals of this event were relatively simple when you state the specific objectives, it's always when you introduce people into it that things get more nuanced and intricate, but the idea that we wanted to showcase Western hospitality.
[00:09:51] Anh Nguyen: So in Calgary, that means there's a warmth. There's a sort of homecoming type feel. There is, you know, when I [00:10:00] say Western hospitality, I do mean that there are people in cowboy hats, cowboy boots, the Calgary Stampede really values that brand that they've cultivated. We have a strong history, a strong legacy, traditions and rituals in that space.
[00:10:15] Anh Nguyen: So you can't showcase the building expansion of the BMO center at the Calgary stampede without leaning really heavily into that motif. We really wanted to pull those themes out, but then also it's 2024, right? So the idea of cowboys and horses and all that might not appeal to the broader international market, which we also do have to appeal to, because that's the audience we want booking events and conventions in the space.
[00:10:42] Anh Nguyen: So how do you tie that kind of traditional legacy, historical piece, and that hospitality and that kind of old fashioned pull up to the bar kind of feel with modern technology, sustainability, our DI initiatives. [00:11:00] And then also highlight the building.
[00:11:01] Anh Nguyen: So the building, you know, the one line that we centered ourselves around a lot was the building is the star, right? So, we didn't do a lot of, you know, really showy activations that would cloud that. Because there were lots of intentional decisions made when they designed this building.
[00:11:17] Anh Nguyen: They've been running a convention space for long enough that they knew where planners cared about design decisions, they tied in lots of really cool history. You know, we had to tear down a bunch of old buildings to build this. And they pulled elements of those institutions into our new building. So the three things we wanted to highlight were basically state of the art, modern convention space that you would find in major convention cities in the US or in Europe, while still making it feel small, intimate, welcoming, guided, intentional.
[00:11:54] Anh Nguyen: And then showcasing the building of all of the design decisions that were made that were very, [00:12:00] very intentionally made, that would appeal to meeting planners to book their space, right? At the end of the day, it was a marketing lead generation sales event.
[00:12:08] Anh Nguyen: So we want meeting planners and those with conventions to book our space and come to our city. But those are the three objectives and they were all represented by different stakeholders that we had to map out and manage and work with. But, yeah, the goals and objectives are pretty clear from the get go.
[00:12:24] Anh Nguyen: They were different, but they were clear.
[00:12:28] Rachel Moore: Well, and I like, you're mentioning, about its focusing on the space itself, letting it shine. It's not so much about making you a really different compelling activation over here, but you want the talk of the event to be the space itself, like, and all the things we're discovering about what's possible.
[00:12:47] Rachel Moore: And even to make that kind of the draw of saying, okay, we know you've got events, you're going to be planning. Here's why you should have it in this space in particular.
[00:12:55] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:56] Rachel Moore: I mean, we, I think we've seen that too. I mean, this sounds like, you [00:13:00] know, the space is going to be right up there with a bunch of other, you know, innovative, different kind of locations that we've seen, trend, you know, I keep, I think of Las Vegas' Sphere and things like that. But this is going to be Canada and even North America is big or bigger, you know, to where it's like, compelling people to bring their event there, plan their event there, because it is meeting all those different needs in a very unique way.
[00:13:22] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, exactly that. So, yeah, we had a lot of fun working with that and.
[00:13:26] Rachel Moore: I will get to the cowboy boots. I'll circle back up with you about that in a little bit with questions about that. But you did lightly touch on knowing that this had to be kind of a global appeal. You know, you're trying to exude that Western warmth and as someone who lives in Denver in the mountain time zone, I love that. That again spoke to me a lot.
[00:13:46] Rachel Moore: Let me ask you about this. As with any event, you know, you've got the goals and who you want to appeal to, you know, what you want to accomplish with it. But target audience for this specific event and activation, knowing that you want the space itself to appeal broadly, but for, [00:14:00] and you lightly touched on it, but I'd love to ask you, ask you to expound on this.
[00:14:03] Rachel Moore: Who was the target audience for this specific event, as far as announcing this expansion?
[00:14:07] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, great question. So we sat down with, in November of last year, in a boardroom of 30 different people, like, they came from different walks of the Stampede, they came from the developer, they came from the design firm. And we guided them through that conversation because if it was up to them, this event would be for everybody, right? Like that, that phrase actually came up a lot.
[00:14:30] Anh Nguyen: And I think if you've been doing this for long enough, you know, that if you design an event for everyone, you're designing an event for nobody. So it was a tricky exercise to get them to focus on. Just because we, you know, pull out the target market, doesn't mean that other people aren't going to be invited and included and incorporated.
[00:14:49] Anh Nguyen: It just means we keep that as our North Star for decision making design. So, where we landed after a lot of conversation was that this [00:15:00] event was a marketing exercise for current and prospective clients of the convention center. So it could have been for the Calgary community right? Because this is a hallmark like, central location in the city.
[00:15:13] Anh Nguyen: It could have been for the Stampede board and executive who had put tons of resources, energy, love into the project. It could have been for the developer. It could have been for sponsors of the Stampede.
[00:15:26] Anh Nguyen: And we pulled in things for all of those people when, you know, it came to event date, but the grounding thing for us, when it came to budget decisions, when it came to who is going to speak, when it came to what did we order, that type of stuff, was current and prospective clients of the BMO convention center.
[00:15:44] Anh Nguyen: So people who would come and host events or already hosting events in the space in the city of Calgary. So basically people like me. So that was also a benefit of the project was we were designing for people like ourselves. So we had a really good lens into [00:16:00] how and what we wanted to do.
[00:16:02] Rachel Moore: That sounds like a dream. We've had discussions recently where we're actually, I was producing one of our other episodes, which we're going to talk on this topic to where, so much of the time an event planner marketer, you know, you have to step outside yourself. You are not, in fact, you know, creating an event for people like you, you're creating them for someone who's an entirely different subset from you and you have to really use your imagination.
[00:16:23] Rachel Moore: It sounds like kind of a treat to say, yes, but I'm the target audience for this. And so, uh, our team's going to develop this for someone like us. That's got to make it a little bit easier. I would imagine.
[00:16:31] Anh Nguyen: The flip side of that is you also know how critical you are as an event planner, right? So then you're double, you're double thinking everything you're questioning every decision. You're like, oh, what is that person? And I joke. I have a friend here in Calgary who I would consider him like a highly respected event design professional and pretty much every decision we made.
[00:16:50] Anh Nguyen: We're like, well, what would he think about this? And what's he going to say about it? So, yeah, it's a double edged sword, but it was quite a benefit to know that we were designing for people like [00:17:00] ourselves and, and keeping that in mind helps guide lots of decisions for sure.
[00:17:04] Rachel Moore: Nice. Well, let's talk about, you know, you mentioned the building and the, and the space itself. Were there any special or unique aspects to this event you'd like to call out? Like, was there a particular innovation or an element of tech or an engagement effort? Tell us what was special about it?
[00:17:20] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, I think what was special about it was that it was a 2000 person event, which we easily could have just opened the doors and let people explore the space because it's a magnificent space. It's beautifully designed and I've seen a lot of meeting spaces. I'm not biased.
[00:17:37] Anh Nguyen: It's so well designed that we could have just opened the doors and let people filter through the three floors and at every floor, they would have found something that was remarkable that would have sold them on the building. But that would have pulled us away from that, like, Western hospitality theme, right?
[00:17:53] Anh Nguyen: We wanted you to feel like you were coming into our home. It was warm, it was guided, it was [00:18:00] intentional. And that's really hard to do with 2000 people in a brand new building. So, we went for it.
[00:18:05] Anh Nguyen: And at moments, I had many nightmares about this, but we decided to guide these people through together. So you would move to the next floor with the other 1999 people, when we said it was time. So we did that with entertainment. There were over 300 entertainers involved in this event to basically create flash mobs to move people. Um, and the most stressful was the 1st floor, right?
[00:18:33] Anh Nguyen: Like, so they moved from outside inside and that's natural. Everyone expected there to be a door opening. So, they get into the 1st floor and the escalator to the 2nd floor is blocked off. And it's blocked off with these, like, it's like a living motif of statues, like those people that are painted in copper.
[00:18:51] Anh Nguyen: We're blocking the stairways. And so this, like, anxiety started to build and it was partly intentional, right? Like, we wanted to design a little bit of tension in. [00:19:00] So people would mail about and the 1st floor is not where the big building installations are. It's kind of just like a lobby area. It's like a pre-function area.
[00:19:10] Anh Nguyen: And the big halls are down there. So we just let people kind of like mill about on the first floor, have some food and drink, but the tension was building. I could feel it mounting as I was watching people from the second floor, where it was like, when do we get to go upstairs?
[00:19:22] Anh Nguyen: What's happening? The stairs are blocked. Like, well, how do I get up there? And so after about 40 minutes, a sort of flash mob situation happened and I had nightmares about whether or not people would move. Like, my worst nightmare was like, we do this flash mob and then it would end and people would be like, okay, now what?
[00:19:40] Anh Nguyen: And then we'd have to use, like, the voice of God and be like, can you please go up to the 2nd floor, but that didn't happen. And to the point where I tested it, like, I brought in the rehearsals, I brought people who hadn't been involved in the project. I was like, just stand here and pretend you're at this event. And tell me what you would do. And I like tested out to see if the flash mob would [00:20:00] work.
[00:20:00] Anh Nguyen: And it did. And it was really cool to see all of a sudden people start moving with the musicians and the dancers, and then they go up this escalator and it's, I think it's like the longest escalator in a convention center. We timed it. It takes a whole minute to get up from the bottom floor to the second floor to watch 2000 people sort of transition to the second floor.
[00:20:21] Anh Nguyen: Then they spent some time on the 2nd floor. We did it again up to the 3rd floor. So. I think that the entertainment was specifically choreographed for the space. It took a lot of work to practice it, try to anticipate how people would move through a new building.
[00:20:36] Anh Nguyen: But the guided and intentional piece that we heard about a lot was that, it made me tense, it made me anticipate what was happening. It made me anxious and then it was cool to see it and then you did it again. And then it ended up kind of, like, on the lawn with a, with a band and fireworks. I mean, the fireworks are always a hit.
[00:20:56] Anh Nguyen: So it wasn't one specific intention, like, activation [00:21:00] more than the journey we designed for people. And it was so cool to design it in a space that you didn't know how people would move. And then it works the way you did. Like, there's a, there's lots of places where it could have gone awry, um.
[00:21:13] Anh Nguyen: But it worked the way we anticipated and it was such a sort of affirmation that if you can tap into a little bit of empathy and a little bit of human experience design, and then test it out, right? You can kind of predict how people will act in a certain space. And then once the 1st, 100 people started moving, the 1900 other people just kind of went, right?
[00:21:34] Anh Nguyen: And it's really neat to be able to feel like you're manipulating human experience a little bit, but that's the cool part about our profession is, if you really invest the time in doing that, you can do it.
[00:21:46] Anh Nguyen: So, yeah, that's the feedback we heard about the most. You know, how cool it was that you moved everyone at the same time, rather than just open up the building. And it's such a gigantic building that has 2000 people in the space. If it [00:22:00] was just open it would have felt very sparse.
[00:22:01] Anh Nguyen: But, yeah, so that's how we did it. And I've never worked with that many entertainers where, you know, like the crew meals for the entertainers in and of itself was like its own event. Like, uh, it had its own line item and budget of when they were going to eat and where and all this stuff. So just like a massive undertaking when it came from an entertainment perspective.
[00:22:22] Rachel Moore: It sounds huge, but wow, what a dream project. And the whole time you're talking about the feelings and the emotions you're making this collective group of people go through, it's always like that quote by Maya Angelou, we're doing it, people remember how you make them feel, but way to create all that whole spectrum of feelings and.
[00:22:41] Rachel Moore: And then they got to go through that together. Like, I bet there was a lot of bonding that happened even amongst the attendees because they're like, Oh my gosh, right? We're here. We're together with this. This is
[00:22:49] Rachel Moore: wild.
[00:23:32] Anh Nguyen: Totally. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. There's a little bit like puppet mastery when I was standing on the second floor and I could feel it because I could feel the tension, right? I'm like, should we do that? Should we do the flash mob sooner? Like, I feel so anxious, but it was that experience journey that they went on that I think was quite memorable for them.
[00:23:51] Rachel Moore: Well, and I, I said, dream project. This does, this sounds amazing. And I, I imagine a lot of our listeners are like, Oh my gosh, I would, I would die to be able to work on something like [00:24:00] that. Obviously, I want to circle in on this because your team was chosen to do this, obviously the right people for the job because you're just describing it.
[00:24:09] Rachel Moore: And I'm like, I have FOMO. I would have loved to have been in that, in that whole group. So our listeners, you know, we have a lot of people who work independently, you know, maybe they're solo, they're solopreneur, they're part of an agency, and execute events, but, can you talk to us about why your team, how did you win this contract?
[00:24:25] Rachel Moore: How did you get it? Why were you selected? And how was, it sounds like a major win. I would love to hear more about that.
[00:24:30] Anh Nguyen: Yeah. That's a great question. And I've thought about this a lot because it, I'm going to say something that sounds really cliche, but it was true. Like it was a team effort. So my company in the city of Calgary is likely known more for association conferences, trade shows, more that spectrum of the events world, not so much the special event production piece, which this would definitely fall under.
[00:24:56] Anh Nguyen: But the power of our collective [00:25:00] allowed us to assemble, for lack of a better word, like, the Avengers of events. Okay. So this project was complex in the sense that there was a huge production special events, you know, side. But there was also a complex registration piece to it because of all the stakeholders that were involved, different types of people needed to get different registration invitations and out of town versus in town.
[00:25:25] Anh Nguyen: It was a really complicated registration endeavor. And then there was also this whole, like, white glove experience that had to be built for out of town guests or high level prospects, or, you know, key clients. And then there was a whole project management element to it, right? So, I don't believe that there's one single event professional that could do all of that.
[00:25:49] Anh Nguyen: And even with support, right? Like, that's a lot of different skill sets that I'm talking about. The Spark Event Collective attracts and only on boards, senior event [00:26:00] professionals. So you have to have at least 15 to 20 years of event experience to be part of the collective, which means that any one of us could, sort of go and pitch for this project and have enough experience.
[00:26:10] Anh Nguyen: But it was the collective specialties in our areas that allowed us to do that. So we went into the interview and, you know, got asked some questions about your experience working with tourism and airport greetings. And we were able to pull a planner that's like, well, she just worked on the Special Olympics and she knows how to deal with the airport authority and Tourism Calgary and deal with out of town guests. Or what's your experience working with, like, complex registration systems and invitations?
[00:26:38] Anh Nguyen: And it's like, well, Jade is our registration guru and we told her you have 75 minutes to badge 2000 people, and it's because of the way our tour was, like, everything had to happen on time, right? Like the flash mob was going on at the specific time. So you knew she had 75 minutes to badge 2000 people. And that's [00:27:00] just, it's not something one person can do.
[00:27:02] Anh Nguyen: And I think, we get into this, like, weird hero or solo mentality in the events world, where it's like, only I can do this and the show must go on. And if it's not in my brain, it's not going to get done.
[00:27:15] Anh Nguyen: And I would say that we leverage the opposite of that mindset to win this project where it was like, you need someone who specializes in that, that's not me, but here's a person from our team that can do that. And so it was a team effort. There was 6 of us that worked on this project. And then there was a project management piece, right? Of like, managing 6 A type senior planners who all want to do things their own way and have different ways of managing, you know, projects.
[00:27:43] Anh Nguyen: And it was really cool for us to be able to pull that off and really galvanize the team for sure. And on the day, we were all there, so there were like, 14 of us on site to actually execute the event under the leadership of those people. But I think it was that collective [00:28:00] approach that allowed us to win the project.
[00:28:02] Rachel Moore: You know, you talk about the team. I'd love to give you an opportunity. You have dropped a couple names so far, but, who do you want to, who do you want to give a shout out to, uh, as far as like, who, who all made this possible?
[00:28:12] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, uh, Shawn Chang, who many of the folks who listened to this podcast will know he's, he's really visible in the event profs industry. He was our outsider objective perspective. So he doesn't live in Calgary. He's from Vancouver. He doesn't really fit the, you know, Western kind of vibe.
[00:28:34] Anh Nguyen: He was sort of like our fact checker. Like, are we getting too biased in our perspectives as Calgarians? Are we too in love with this building to see what an outsider or what an international planner might see? He really helped us with the strategy of mapping out our stakeholders.
[00:28:51] Anh Nguyen: He's done the event design canvas. So he's certified to run that whole program for us. So he was involved. And then [00:29:00] Stavraula Kangles is who I mentioned was sort of our tourism white glove expert. She has worked at Tourism Calgary, she just finished supporting the Special Olympics that were here. She's strong in VIP white glove service, dignitary relations.
[00:29:15] Anh Nguyen: So anything related to making our out of town guests feel hosted. So, when we say, like, Western Hospitality, it was like, you landed at the airport and there were snacks there and we badged you at the airport and we put you in a car and took you to your hotel, came and picked you up, took you to the event, took you back. Um, she looked after all of those sort of details and logistics for our White Glove guests.
[00:29:38] Anh Nguyen: Jade, who I talked about, is kind of just a Registration Design Expert. This event was magnificent, but honestly, the leads that we got out of it, most people just wanted to know how we did registration.
[00:29:51] Rachel Moore: They're like, tell.
[00:29:52] Anh Nguyen: They didn't care about anything else. They were just like, how did you get that many people badged and through the system so quickly? She had, like, [00:30:00] drawn out maps of where people would stand, like, how we would map out registration badging, how you would get your lanyards on. Yeah, 2000 people in, in 75 minutes, all on demand printing, she managed all of that.
[00:30:12] Anh Nguyen: Yeah, that part was stressful. It was stressful. And then Jen Thacker, who is an event producer in the city, looked after all the creative activations that worked with our dancers or choreographer, did kind of the event production piece of it. And she went expertise to the project that I didn't have.
[00:30:34] Anh Nguyen: So, in terms of creative build and design and choreography and the artistic elements, the production of that, that was a really cool project for her to lead. And then my role was honestly, just to, like, keep things on track, deal with any obstacles or, or issues that would arise the interpersonal dynamics, managing all the stakeholders.
[00:30:55] Anh Nguyen: So, yeah, I say I planned the event, but I, I really didn't. Like, I kept [00:31:00] things on track, managed the task list kind of thing, made sure things didn't light on fire.
[00:31:05] Anh Nguyen: But, yeah, there were lots of really talented people. And then the day of 8 additional, like, superstar event professionals from the collective came and did anything we asked of them, right?
[00:31:15] Anh Nguyen: Like, set up this tent or, you know, go and count people and make sure people are moving. Or help people find food or whatever it was like it was really cool. It was a very cool experience.
[00:31:25] Rachel Moore: It sounds incredible. And not just from what the attendees experienced, but what you were able to accomplish together. And definitely going to look at having those folks on the podcast too, cause it sounds like they each have their own area of expertise where we could really learn from them.
[00:31:39] Anh Nguyen: Yeah. You can do your whole, you can do a whole series on smart planners. Yeah.
[00:31:43] Rachel Moore: Right. I want to, you've shared so much in that vein of like, there's so much we could learn from each of these people and from this overall experience that you, that your team designed. I told you I was going to circle back around, cowboy boots, cause I have a feeling, I don't know. I mean, everybody's got their preference, but [00:32:00] what are your go to on the ground event day shoes with a followup of, did you wear cowboy boots on that day?
[00:32:05] Rachel Moore: But, uh, tell us.
[00:32:07] Anh Nguyen: So I wouldn't recommend cowboy boots on site. We did have to wear cowboy boots and I stupidly made the mistake of buying new cowboy boots and wearing them for this event. And honestly, at like, one in the morning, when I was driving home, my feet hurt so much, I couldn't even, like, push the gas pedal on my car.
[00:32:25] Anh Nguyen: Like, I had to take my shoes off and drive home in my socks. That's a true story. So yes, cowboy boots, no, I don't recommend them on site if you don't have to. My footwear advice probably is counter factual to this actual science and health, but I just bring shoes that hurt my feet in different places and then I rotate through them.
[00:32:45] Anh Nguyen: So my feet always hurt just in different places. So it's like one day it's going to really hurt this bunion. The other day it's going to hurt my heel. But I just rotate through shoes that hurt my feet in different places. I have not, I haven't quite accepted the fact that I [00:33:00] probably need to get like orthopedics that actually support my feet.
[00:33:04] Rachel Moore: Well, I would encourage you, and I'm hoping we can actually put this out on an actual list on Bizzabo's website, but we've gotten so many recommendations from everyone who's got their go to shoes. Maybe we can find the pair or the kind that works.
[00:33:18] Anh Nguyen: Cowboy boots are definitely not them.
[00:33:19] Rachel Moore: Yeah, like they don't hurt my feet at all. This is great.
[00:33:22] Anh Nguyen: I dunno what that feels like.
[00:33:24] Rachel Moore: Oh no, we will try to accomplish that for you. That's our goal. That's our squad goals for next year.
[00:33:29] And then the easiest question of all, where can our listeners find and follow you online?
[00:33:33] Anh Nguyen: The best part is probably LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time scrolling TikTok, but that's more for fun. No one will find me there. I'm like a lurker. But yeah, on LinkedIn, I'm often sharing about the work that we're doing, the things I'm learning, the things I'm seeing. So, yeah, you can find me there.
[00:33:56] Rachel Moore: Let's settle into this skill up advice from Anh about letting [00:34:00] go of the hero mentality in the events industry.
[00:34:02] Anh Nguyen: To be able to hone your feedback reception skills. So I'll tell you a short story. Like one of the other reasons we won this project is 'cause we lost a massive project last year, similar kind of scope and lost it to a similar competitor that we were up against in this one.
[00:34:21] Anh Nguyen: And when we were bidding on this, I went back to the clients and I said, give me some feedback of, like, what would have changed the outcome of that bid and he did. And I think it helped us win this. I think that our ability to learn from each other and not feel like you have to be the hero that has all the answers and that valuability is so crucial to my career of learning areas that I can get better at and learning where I'm just not good at certain things and where to compliment myself in, in a team.
[00:34:54] Anh Nguyen: Our industry and our profession can be really isolating, right? Like, you kind of have to [00:35:00] be the Jack or Jill of all trades and do all the things alone. And it trains us to not ask for help or to reach out when we're over committed, or how often it is like, oh, I have a fever, but I'm going to go on site because I just have to, or.
[00:35:17] Anh Nguyen: You know, I always see these posts where it's like, I did 20,000 steps on a trade show floor with a broken ankle. And you're like, that's actually not really that cool. But we programmed ourselves to be this, no king in our armors, right?
[00:35:30] Anh Nguyen: And it's like, the ability to take that down and be vulnerable and ask for help, and then really take that feedback into heart to make yourself better and to compliment yourself where you just don't have the skills, that's really helped me drastically in the last, you know, since COVID years of my career where you don't have to do it all.
[00:35:50] Anh Nguyen: And work life balance is possible and that could be its own whole separate podcast, but I just encourage you not to get so tied up in this hero mentality and [00:36:00] ask for help. And know that you are not perfect and look for opportunities of growth, whether that's your own skills or bringing in skills that will help you. That's really helped me.
[00:36:10] Rachel Moore: Thanks again to Anh Nguyen for joining us on Event Experience and thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love to hear it. Connect with us on social and subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you're listening. Also don't forget to share the show with your colleagues and friends. You can find transcripts of each episode and key takeaways on bizzabo.com/podcast. On behalf of the team, thank you. We'll gather again soon for a new episode of Event Experience.
