1258 – Running your Event with Grace and Ease’s Shay Wheat

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the CEO of Grace and Ease Productions, Shay Wheat.

Grace and Ease Productions is a client supporter in creating powerful and profitable events by producing in person and live virtual events from one-day to three-day events. Josh highlights the photography on Grace and Ease Productions’ website and how there is so much minutia when it comes to events, including collaboration with celebrities.

Grace and Ease Productions spends about 100 hours on pre-event planning to produce an event. By focusing on sale strategies, offers, what is the promise of the event, swag, virtual, in person, hybrid, and on the backend, Grace and Ease can make the event very profitable. Josh discusses with Shay the intricacies of planning events from the simplicities of parking to the details that you really only learn from planning these sorts of events. They also discuss the risk of events when they aren’t executed smoothly and the effects that can have on an organization. Shay expresses that how an event shows up to their community is a representation of how their program will perform in their subconscious thoughts.

Shay also highlights the importance of having an industry professional negotiate venues with hotels to save a ton of money for their clients. The Grace and Ease team handles many different components varying from planning, speakers, and sponsor support to help really create an amazing experience that is also revenue generating. They focus on key fundamentals when it comes to event planning including the audience, ticket sales, run of show (agenda), and offer strategies to really create an experience.

Josh expresses when events are done well and also when done poorly, it can impact their brand. Shay shares how the stage showcases the experts and how it allows them to speak from one to many. Josh and Shay talk about how having events helps grow your brand. While they may not always be cheap, the impact it can have on a brand can help an organization grow quickly.

Josh asks Shay where events are today with in person, virtual, and hybrid events and the frustrations that have come with these different forms of events, especially hybrid in the post pandemic world. Shay shares that she does all three forms of events, and has seen that attendees generally will attend virtual events after attending an in person event first. She also expresses that attendees really appreciate the virtual option. It allows for more flexibility for an event to showcase, both big and small.

Want to learn more? Check out Grace and Ease Production’s website at https://graceandeaseproductions.com/

Check out Grace and Ease Production on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/graceandeaseproductions/

Check out Shay Wheat on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaywheat/

Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!

1258 – Running your Event with Grace and Ease’s Shay Wheat

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