 We're back. We're live. We're here. Think take away. Community Matters on a given Wednesday. Big day for us. Middle of the week. Lots of shows, like seven or eight shows today. This is a big day. And we have something special on Community Matters today. We're going to talk about careers in event management. We have two people who are engaged up to their eyeballs in that subject. Let me introduce them. One is Antonio Trancan. And he is with YouCanEvent. And the website for that is YouCanEvent.com. Welcome to the show, Antonio. Exactly. Thank you so much for having me. And his affiliate, I guess. And that's Rachel Sypes. Rachel Sypes is an account executive, an account specialist, an event management specialist, an event production specialist, yeah? Yeah, yeah. For another company, which is related. And that's called, let's see, what is it called? Gourmet Events Hawaii. Gourmet Events Hawaii. So welcome to the show, Rachel. Thank you. So let's find out about you guys. Antonio, what's the deal with YouCanEvent.com? So basically, when do you want to do an event, you need to find all the vendors for your event. And basically, on our platform, you can get in touch with vendors and event agencies, like Gourmet Events Hawaii. And you can send your request saying, I want to do an event in Honolulu next July 30. And I will need catering, entertainers, and the venue. And people like Rachel from Gourmet Events Hawaii will answer back to the request of our customers. And the event is set up online. So you're the broker. Yeah, exactly. You'll find the people who need the event and you find people like Rachel who actually produce the event for you. I'm the person that gathers everything. Where are you headquartered? Currently, we are between Honolulu and the Bay Area, San Francisco. Okay, okay. How long have you been in business? So we started this entrepreneurial journey in February 2015. With this concept of YouCanEvent as a brand, we started in August 2016. So we are in the market about two years. Okay. So what's your special sauce? Why should I come to you instead of coming to someone else? First, you get budgets in less than 24 hours. So that's the thing that... That means Rachel responds to you right away. You ask her and she's on it. And then we offer to all of our customers two things. One, a dedicated event coordinator, like a person like Rachel that will help our customers. And second, we provide insurance for all of our customers that if something is not accordingly to the deal negotiated with the vendor, or for example, if we have any problem with the weather, we can reimburse our customers for 100% money back guarantee. Oh, interesting, interesting. So that's not insurance for slip and fall or anything or liability insurance. That's insurance that the event goes off as planned. Exactly. Hard to write that kind of insurance. Do you have an insurance company and do it yourself? No, we are working with the best event insurance in the world. They work with Rocking Rio, a lot of big festivals in the world. So we are covered and we have 100% liability. Okay, well, what's an event? Sorry. What is an event? I'll ask you this question to Rachel. For me, is the gathering of the best emotions in the world. So... Promotion of what? Emotions, emotions. Emotions. Yeah, emotions. Okay, so is it music? Is it something with a stage and a crowd? I think... Is it a luncheon program? What is it? Like I said, event is a gathering. So... Any gathering would be everything. Yeah, I believe also that in the future, despite of the technology and the revolution that we are facing, I believe that in the future, all of us as human beings, we will gather through events and we will build the future of the mankind through events. Aren't you worried that the internet will take take the place of events and that people won't want to see each other face to face anymore? No, because I know like we human beings, we have like two sides of our brain, you know, like we have one side that we are disruptive and we want evolution and create and innovate. But at the same point, we want to keep things rational and analytical in the point that we can ensure the nature and the natural behavior of the humans. So I believe that the events, the personal touch, the physical engagement will be always. Okay, does Event Can Hawaii actually participate in the design of the event or you leave that to Rachel? So we are an online scalable business, so we leave that to Rachel. Okay. That's where I come in. Rachel, okay, you're in. Yeah. Here you are. Okay, and Antonio calls you. He says, Rachel, I need this big event or small event, whatever. I mean, what kind of events do you do? We do everything. It varies from a small dinner party at a private home all the way up to big festivals, Spam Jam. We do weddings, client appreciation parties, everything. Okay, it could be big. Exactly. Okay, and you do them for local as well as mainland companies that want to do an event here that have a unit here, a branch here, or are just coming for a gathering of some kind? Yeah. Do all of that? We do all of it. So we've got a great base of local clients that we work with on a regular basis on all major Hawaiian islands. So we can do events on the Big Island, Kauai, Maui, and Oahu. And we also have clients that come from all over the country and the world even and rely on us to plan their dinner or their incentive trip for reaching sales targets or, you know, whatever it might be. It's business mostly. It's business organizations. I mean, do you ever do it for government? Do you do it for academia? Do you do it for scientists? A lot of events at the convention center, for example, where thousands of scientists get together. Is that in your ambit? Yeah, actually, thank you for bringing that up. It is. Part of one of the things that makes Gourmet Events Hawaii so unique and important in Hawaii is in addition to that we are also a staffing agency staffing by GEH. So we employ over 700 people on the various islands to work for us to be our hospitality professionals and serve people at the events. So we waiters, waitresses, waiters, waitresses, bartenders, event managers, food runners, chef assistants, all of it. So we train them and then they serve, they provide great service. So when you go to an event at the Hawaii convention center, you're being served by staffing by GEH. That's good because they can't keep the staff themselves. They don't have that kind of regular business where they can keep the staff online. You provide them the staff for your event. For their event. Yeah, so every event at the Hawaii Convention Center is staffed by staffing by GEH. Okay, so you can give them a package with just the staff or more. I mean, what kind of packages do you give them? Do you say, look, I'm coming in. I'm going to do the event. I'm going to go on the line. I'm going to have these guys, these scientists, whatever it is, come in and I will handle it. You can lease the space to me and I'll run it. Or do you just provide the staff for them or somebody else to run it? Well, that's the great thing about Gourmet Events Hawaii and also UCAN events is you can pick and choose like your shopping on what parts you want us to have responsibility for or for booking. So if you want us to handle everything from helping select a venue all the way down to the flowers on the table, you know, all those little details, we can do that. But if you want to handle any of that yourself, you can do that as well. We're here to help out where we can, advise where we can, and take it from there. Yeah, okay. So Antonio said that you gave him an estimate, I guess, a proposal, whatever, when he asks. He gives you certain parameters, you give him the estimate. Who determines the money here? In other words, A, how much does it cost me to have my event and B, do I pay you, do I pay Antonio and who decides the price? Yeah, so basically we work as a hub for all the community, event planners, vendors and brands that want to do events. So the payment is done to you can event platform and we just charge a small fee for every service sold, for example. Just getting a percentage. Yeah, just a percentage. The price itself, Rachel establishes that. Yeah, yeah, it's Rachel that defines everything. Rachel can define like payment milestones. This is a big innovation in the industry because a lot of times event agencies, they have a lot of problems receiving the payment from the companies. And with this model, event agencies can define the milestone payments and companies can pay those milestones easily on our website. So why Rachel will use us? Because they have an insurance that with us they will get paid. And at the same time, brands, they will use the tool to get in touch with Rachel and everything. It's easy. While we're on it, how do you get your customers? I mean, you're trying to go nationally. Yeah. A branch here, I guess here is a good place because there's a tourist industry, which is large and San Francisco, which from San Francisco into the West Coast and maybe East Coast too. But how do you get your clientele? Yeah, so right now we are working with brands like Microsoft, Mary Kay, Primark, Pipe Drive, a lot of big worldwide brands. And basically, we do partnerships with those brands where we serve as the tool to organize events. So the companies, they are doing regularly events for their teams, for their customers, community, whatever. And they use you can even to get in real time budgets and vendors for their events. And second, of course, we go personally to events and networking events, marketing events. And we do networking with potential customers. And we close the average of one customer for three events. Sales, man. Being about companies like ours and partnerships like ours is people want to, to create great memories for their friends and families through events. And sometimes you might not know everything that goes into building this great event, or you might not know who to contact and most people don't know. Yeah, we need a specialist, really. Yeah, exactly. And we partner with dozens of great chefs on the island to create menus. We have weeded out all the good, the great people to work with, you know, the best of the best. And that's who we go to to help create this, this event. And then on the day, you don't want to have to be checking in vendors that when you're celebrating, you know, your birthday, you don't have to be making sure things are going on time. And the million details. Yeah, and it's all about attention to detail. If I go to an event and I see there isn't attention to detail, I'm really turned off. I want to see detail. I want to see people caring about that. So you say gourmet. Okay, gourmet suggests I could be reaching here food. Yeah. So are you focused on food? Well, we who isn't focused on food? We love it. Yeah, so we we partner with a lot of great chefs around the island, and ranging in all different various budgets, depending on on what it is you're looking for. And I think just us individually as the team, we all love food. We, if we're hanging out as a group, we pick the best restaurant that we want to go to food is critical in any event, you know, you're gathering equals food always is always familiar. And in fact, the food defines the event because of the food is good, the event is good, usually. And if it's bad, well, that's a problem. But the query I mean, you say gourmet events, you suggest that this isn't just ordinary, you know, assembly line food, you know, a nondescript buffet kind of food as you get in so many places. This is gourmet. How do you achieve that? Yeah, through a few ways, our partnerships with our chefs. So we, we only work with chefs that we enjoy the food of we would never produce an event or supply something that we didn't fullheartedly stand behind ourselves. So that's one way that we can guarantee it. And then the other was exactly what you said the attention to detail, the little things that you can do to the way you display a food, the service of the food is another thing, you can have an amazing event that looks beautiful in the middle of a field. And if the service is bad and the food is bad, you have nothing. So yeah, you we, we've tried and tested it all. And we we just put that flair behind everything to make sure it's executed perfectly. So what about the other side, the content side? I mean, I just want to clarify how much is this side and how much is that side. And for example, there was a big event, what was this past week called Verge Verge was an energy event, energy sustainability, the whole energy community goes down there and it was at the, say the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the ball room and well, many rooms. And there were probably, I'm guessing 1000 people there, I'm guessing. And so there's a lot of panels and speeches and breakouts and sessions and working groups I could go on. Would you be involved in that in the substantive side of organizing speakers, content, you know, the intellectual side of their presentations? Or would you leave that to some other organization? It depended on what the client wanted. If they wanted help with arranging all of that, we have experience in that we produce a lot of seminars on the island. So we have a lot of experience on how to keep the audience engaged, good, like good times for breaks. So we can, we can handle all of that. We can advise on that if, if you don't want us to take that on fully, or have it your way, have it your way, not like Burger King, but have it your way. Yeah, we step in and help out when, when we think we can offer advice or when the client is seeking advice, or we leave it to the client if it's something that they really want to handle. But the important thing is on the day of the event, each of our event managers go fully prepared for any eventuality. We spend there's a lot of time, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of Excel spreadsheets that just plan out what what are we going to do if it rains? What are we going to do if the sound isn't working? What are we going to do if you know, just all these different things so that we have our solutions ready when we show up to the event? Yeah, it's like that ad with farmers insurance, we've seen it all. Yeah, well, let's take a short break, come back. I want to ask you how much it costs to do this, right? Because that's really important. This is community matters. We have Antonio Trancon and Rachel Sypes are talking about event production, event planning, the event planning industry in Hawaii and elsewhere. We'll be right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which dreams live on thinktechhoaee.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcast on cable OC 16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week, helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Sounds like scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on earth. Search diveheart.org and imagine the possibility. Okay, we're back. I told you we come back and we came back. This is Community Matters on Think Tech. We have Antonio Trancon. He's with you. Youcanevent.com says a sort of broker in San Francisco and Hawaii. And Rachel Sypes, as she's an account production specialist in making events for gourmet events Hawaii. Very interesting business, very interesting operations way to spend your life. Actually, you get to eat right at these events, look down and say, I'm Rachel, I'm setting this up. How about some food? I wish, but I do get to do some tastings with chefs on occasion. But on the actual day, it's not about me. I'm behind the scenes. It's about everyone else enjoying their food. Probably have trouble eating you because you're attending to all those details. Yeah, exactly. Can't do both really. You got to focus on one or the other. But you know, we get to be a part of every, you know, it's usually a celebration that's where you care. So we get to be a part of making these amazing memories for people. Yeah. And you got to really invest yourself in that. You're gonna be with them. You're gonna be the heart of it. You're gonna be the, you know, the designer, the creative producer. Is that what you do? I mean, you are actually producing these events. That's the work of an account produce, produce production specialist. Yeah, so event producer. Yeah. So it starts from an idea from the client, or sometimes clients come to us with exactly every detail of what they want their event to be like. And sometimes they come to us just saying, I don't know. I need to have a dinner. Okay. And so sometimes I love those ones more, because that's when you you start from absolutely nothing and you just build sure. And that's your creative experience. Yeah, what about the hyper neurotic person who comes to you and is worried about everything and wants to be when we call it hands on compulsive. You need a little psychology to deal with that. I'm sure that happens, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. People take a lot of pride and ownership in what they do. So they want involvement and they want to make sure that everything is going to plan. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they don't know how to do it. Sometimes, yeah. But that's, that's why we're here as well. Because we we can advise the client. But ultimately, we're there to create the client's vision. And if we think that something might not go as well, we will be ready with a backup plan in case it doesn't. Yeah, right. In case the client's plan doesn't pan out the way the client thought. Exactly. We will be ready to step in before anybody even notices. That's very important. That's that's the kind of detail I'm talking about. Yeah, sort of a completely thought out program. So okay, for this service, how much money and I'll give you examples. Let me make case study kind of thing here. Okay, my law firm wants to have a party and they want to invite 50 of their best clients and go to a good restaurant have a nice meal. They want to do some speeches afterward and they want to show a video. And actually, they don't have a video, they want to show a video, but they don't have it yet. And they want this to be on, say, Saturday evening. And it's not black tie, but it's, you know, it's business attire. Yeah. And they want a good, good venue, good location. Okay. What's they're going to cost me if I give it to you to handle? Well, you're gonna just like my answer. So is there a budget that I should be mindful of? No, I give you full, full reign here. Yeah, and I trust you to give me a fair price. It is so difficult to say because it depends on so many things. Are you going to eat? Is it going to be a buffet? Is it going to be plated service? Is there going to be I'll answer those questions. Okay, it's going to be service. How many courses? Oh, I'd say a full dinner. What does that mean? Three courses, three courses, let's say three courses. Yeah, and they'll be and they'll be wine and beer and hard liquor for that matter. Okay. And do you want the best of the best chef on the island? Or do you want to have a great meal, but maybe at a more affordable price? Probably I would say the latter. Okay. Well, I would say that our events range, depending on all of those details, but they usually start around $65 a person. And they can go anywhere up, you know, 100, 200, 300 dollars a person depending on your budget. But that's another set, including the food or is just your services? No, that would be including everything. So that would be your total for the event, including our services, the food, everything. That's not too much more than what a hotel might charge me direct, is it? No, it's not. And the great thing is if you make that little bit of an investment to go outside of the hotel, you can have your event in some amazing places. I've done events aboard the USS Missouri. I've done events on the beach in the North Shore in the middle of a field in the middle of the island. I like that one. That one appeals to me. Yeah. Do you include the video or people taking pictures and video and all that kind of, you know, memorialization of the event? Yeah, so we can, if that is something that our client wants, we are more than happy to find a great photographer that fits into their budget. What's so great about companies like Gourmet Event in Hawaii and UCanEvent.com is you, we work to your budget. And if we can't meet your budget, we'll be really honest with that and say, you know, that's not going to quite be enough for our services, but we can also help direct you or come up with a different solution. But you tell us the budget and it's our job to make something work into that. How long have you been in business here? I've been in business, well Gourmet Event's Hawaii has been in business in Hawaii for over 12 years. It was started by our founder. She refers to herself as our chief festivities officer. Her name? Cat, Lynn Hartabees. And she started on her own in the closet of her condo about six years ago. Just like the garage in the old house. I know, exactly. She, yeah, so about six years ago she hired her first employee and the business has doubled every year since then. And we just hired our first employee in the Bay Area. Oh, I see. Our staffing agency. Antonio, I'll help you with that. Yeah, we hope so. I had a meeting with Caitlin yesterday, so we will collaborate on the Bay Area. Well, you know, my own experience is very hard to find an event planner. And it's very hard to find an event planner that you can trust out of the box. And I mean, I'm not including you because I haven't had any dealings with you. But what I mean is you can find an event planner that somebody presents as an event planner and it could be a complete dud. And then you're really sorry because your 50 clients showed up and you're embarrassed. This is not so good, yeah. Yeah. So how many event planners are there now in the state of Hawaii? What's your competition like? You know, we do, we do have competition, especially in the weddings market is one because so many weddings. Everybody comes to Hawaii. Oh, that's capital, yeah. Exactly. So there is a lot of wedding production companies and we do have some tough competition on the island. But because we focus on the detail and we've got a really solid team that think about all of those eventualities. And our staffing agency that we train all of our staff so that we know that we'll be providing great service. Those are the things that set us apart and what builds our business. What's your level of satisfaction? I mean, what's your track record? Can you talk about it? Yeah, so we send out. Did you ever do debriefing with your clients after? Do you ask them to review and rate you? Yeah, we do all the time. We have, we send out a survey so we do the net promoter score, MPS, and our score is currently 86, which if you compare to some other big companies in the world, a great, what's considered a great NPS score is about 75. So you're better than? Yeah, we're currently at 86, which is really high. How can I find you? I assume it's gourmeteventsawaii.com? Gourmeteventsawaii.com. I guess that. Yeah, that's it. Okay, well let's turn to Antonio for a minute. Antonio, what do you think of Rachel? It's perfect because gourmet events Hawaii and Rachel can ensure the quality of the service. How do you know that? Because I already had a meeting. How did you select them? Because we can analyze with our background in events. So they already existed. Yeah. And you found them. You were looking for somebody in Hawaii who you could trust to be part of your network. Exactly. How did you find them? Did you look in the paper or what? So no, like we have a team on our offices always looking fine for new vendors and partners and gourmet events Hawaii came on Google and we found them. Rachel, how much of your business comes from Antonio? Is it a lot or did you get, you know, direct referrals here locally on the ground? Well, the great thing is Antonio's business is just getting off the ground in Hawaii. So it's a new partnership and we're really looking forward to seeing how we can work together. Exactly. And yeah, and he can promote you in the Bay Area. Yeah. Watch out San Francisco. So Antonio, tell me about your website and your technology because that's going to be part of this year dealing in a networking basis and you have this mix and match menu affair the way you set it up. How do you do that? Yeah, earlier you were saying that, okay, like if the budget doesn't match the need of the customer, we will suggest someone. So that's the thing of our platform. So if you don't find or if you are talking with an event planner like Rachel from Gourmet Events Hawaii, you can find another 10 or 30 event agencies or vendors that might fit you on your request. So the thing of our software is that you send a request for our network saying I want to do an event in Hawaii and that network will get back with proposals to you saying. So I go on your website, I ask for a proposal and I answer questions right? Yeah, it's just a simple form. Yeah, a simple form. Yeah, asking like the vendors that you might need like entertainers or a venue or a catering and then that request is sent from our network and they can get back to the customers on our website. Everything. Okay, so the answer comes back to me by somebody calling me or is it an email? No, chat on our platform. Okay. And then when you have enough to talk to Rachel, suppose the event is in Hawaii, then you would call Rachel and get an estimate from her. If she get involved. No, at what point does the client have direct dealings with Rachel? No, the client have a direct deal since from the beginning with Rachel. So you just send the request and then the proposals is Rachel doing to the customer. Okay, so you're never actually engaged in that part of it. You're just catching them. Exactly, you're just presenting to Rachel. Put the things this way, like it's the same as Airbnb. So you as a customer, you find a room to stay and then the host get in touch with the customer easily. So and Rachel, you can also take client tell on your website directly, right? Yeah. You don't need to have every client come in through event can Hawaii or what is it? You can't have it. Yeah, no. Yeah, so people can contact us. I directly by phone through our website. We do get a lot of inquiries that way and through referrals. But what is so great about you can events is the whole future of everything is digitalized more has a hub, you know, of entertainment and event. Because most of the times event agencies like they suffer a lot on these industry, they don't have time to generate leads, or they don't have time like to deal by mail with customers, everything gets lost. As you said, it's hard for you as well to find event planners. So we make that easy. Okay, got it. Well, thank you, Antonio and Antonio Trancon and Rachel Syves. Thank you so much for coming down and explaining the whole industry to us. And it sounds very interesting. And you know, maybe in my elder years, I will get into the business. But at least I'd like to come to one of your events and eat the food. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Or let us throw you a party. There you go. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.