GoLocal Virtual Events is a provider of Virtual Meetings and Events Services, and the business has been in operation since September 2020.
Our main clients are remote work businesses and other remote organizations, and the main service is planning and executing virtual event functions. Examples of events include: Town Hall Meetings, Brand Presentations, New Product Launches, Conferences, Conventions, Team Building Activities, Games & Ice-Breakers, and so much more.
To top it all off, all client events are hosted on a state-of-the-art conferencing platform that allows people to move around and interact with different room elements. It’s immersive, life-like, and fun!
Tell us about yourself?
My background has always been in hospitality, and I find tremendous satisfaction in creating wonderful memories and moments for others.
I achieved my MBA in International Service Industries and International Hospitality from Glion Institute of Higher Education in Montreux, Switzerland. Regarded as one of the top hospitality schools in the world, I was quickly propelled into the world of hotel management. I had the opportunity to work for many reputable brands in many countries.
Just prior to the 2020 pandemic, I was at the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto. I was also a part-time professor at a local Hospitality School, teaching classes such as F&B Accounting, Organizational Behaviour, and Restaurant Marketing.
Once we understood that the lockdowns would be long-lasting, my soon-to-be business partner and I realized something profound. The changes happening with regard to remote work and virtual conferencing were not going anywhere anytime soon, and an opportunity presented itself.
Keeping to our values of hospitality and creating experiences, we took everything we knew about meetings and events from our lives in hospitality and looked for ways to apply it to the current virtual landscape.
Themes like Zoom fatigue, isolation, and lack of engagement, were all things we knew we could help solve. We knew virtual events were here to stay, but our mission was, and still is, to completely revolutionize what that looks and feels like.
Today, we help our clients get their teams together for all sorts of incredible and deeply engaging virtual events, and our biggest success factors are:
- Our devotion to traditional hospitality values with each client
- The commitment to our teams and live event hosts
- Capitalizing on the rapidly advancing technologies available for conferencing and virtual venues
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Changing the world happens with one happy client at a time. Spend more time focusing on what you can do for people and not on what you need.
What problem does your business solve?
The office may be remote, but teams are still teams.
Our business helps companies establish stronger cultures and engages their employees with opportunities to socialize more meaningfully from anywhere in the world. By progressing the attitude and capacity towards remote work, we hope to show businesses that remote is not only possible but it’s the future of work. Business is not about making employees work but about inspiring them to want to.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
At first, we wanted to spread cheer and positivity, help people to feel less isolated at home, and encourage people to try something new and social.
In 2020, when nothing was certain, GoLocal Virtual nurtured five different games and encouraged newly remote teams to get onto a Zoom call with us to play and socialize. Nothing more than that.
Today, with over 100 plus different virtual events, better conferencing technology, and dozens of virtual event planners, we take pride in the number of smiles and memories we’re able to create for the employees of our clients.
What is your magic sauce?
- Our devotion to true hospitality and customer service to each client
- The commitment to our teams and locally-sourced live event hosts
- Capitalizing on the rapidly advancing technologies available for conferencing and virtual venues
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We’d like to push the boundaries of what people can accomplish and how deeply people can connect virtually.
Corporate Meeting and Events is a start, but the possibilities are virtually limitless… pun very much intended. From online shopping and virtual learning to social networking and beyond – as humanity, we’ve only just scratched the surface. There are better, more immersive ways of experiencing the virtual world than browsing stale catalogues, sitting through webinars, and doom-scrolling.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
The technology. As mentioned above, we’re hospitality people. We’ve got passion and experience with hosting spectacular client events, anticipating needs, and making everything effortless – and almost magical – for organizers and guests alike.
It became increasingly more difficult to impress and engage people using traditional conferencing apps. To capitalize on the Wow Factor, we decided to look for more creative technology solutions for our virtual events. We subscribed to several different platforms, and each had its pros and cons. We even looked at investing in and building our own proprietary conferencing solution that would have catered to our needs perfectly.
But we didn’t do that… The cost and timeline of that proposal weren’t even ultimately what turned us away from that route. Rather, it was establishing our focus. We are hospitality people, not conferencing technology people.
The solution became to find a preferred platform partner and establish a strong business relationship. That is what we have done with Kumospace. Their technology now powers all our client events, and it’s the best “place” on the internet!
How can people get involved?
Whether you need a special meeting, convention, or celebration – Don’t waste another minute planning virtual or hybrid events on your own!
Schedule a 1:1 Demo, or submit an Event Inquiry directly from our homepage!
You’ll be connected with your Designated Event Planner, whose so excited to meet you and your teams!