The BusyEvent Blog

It’s time for the 2nd installment of our “9 Things…” series of blogs, this month, it’s all about Pinterest with a nice twist at the end.

So, here are our ideas on how event planners can use Pinterest to promote their business and increase attendance.  Do you have one you want to share?  Go on, don’t be shy…leave it in the comments and share the wealth.

And then, by all means, be sure to enter our Pinterest #epiceventfail board contest to win the use of gomobile.pro for FREE for an entire year (read below to learn more)!

1. Link all of your photos back to your website:
   When you add your own photos, click the edit option and add a link back to your own website or blog. Pinterest makes this very easy to do, so take advantage of the opportunity to drive your Pinterest traffic back to your page.  Capture those potential clients and attendees, who might never visit your website and draw them in!
2. Make Pinterest your Virtual/Visual Resume:
   Infographic resumes have become much more popular this year . . . go a step further and create a resume board on Pinterest. Add photos of past events you have put together and link all of them back to your website – good for your business and good for potential attendees to see all the valuable things they’ll get out of attending your event!
3. Tweet and post your pins to Facebook:
   Pinterest makes this simple with the “post” and “tweet” options right next to your photo. This is a great way to reach followers, friends and others in the events industry who are on Pinterest.
4. Add the Pin-it button:
   You can edit your browsers settings to have a pin-it button on your toolbar (go to the about drop down bar on Pinterest). Now, if you come across something you like, it’s that much easier to add it to one of your boards. You can use this to pin ideas from other event sites that you like or events you would like to be a part of.
5. Create a pinboard that others can contribute to:
   Pinterest allows you to specify whether you want others to be able to contribute or not– great way to get attendees to participate before, during and after an event!
   ** AND, be sure to check out #9, below, for a way to win a FREE year’s use of gomobile.pro!
6. Hold a contest!
   If you’re using Pinterest for marketing, keep your audience involved. Have attendees post photos of who they think the guest speaker might be, or you can have an event naming contest, the possibilities are endless.
7. Don’t just pin photos- pin videos!
   Make a whole board for past speaker videos to display past events. This helps promote your speakers too, let them know how you are helping increase their exposure other than speaking at your event.
8. Use Google Adwords to determine the titles of your boards:
   Your board will show up higher in a search if you use Google Adwords. Create new boards that will come up high in a search before a big event to promote it.
9. Contribute to the BusyEvent ‘Epic Event Fail’ contest!
   And, the coolest use of Pinterest… Contribute a photo with a caption to our Epic Event Fail board on Pinterest”

   The contest will run through May 30, 2012 and a popular vote will determine the winner.

   The winner will receive use of gomobile.pro for an entire year!!!**

** And now…the fine print!
1) Because we want to hear from you and retweet what you’re doing, you must tweet out your Pinterest post after posted and follow @BusyEvent.
2) Because we want to see more of the things you contribute, you must follow the Epic Event Fail board to be able to contribute.

And..that’s it.  A couple of tweets a couple of ‘joins’ and you will be in the running to win an entire year’s use of gomobile.pro (Seriously, can it get any sweeter than that?!!?)

You will receive an e-mail confirming you have been asked to contribute to the board; if you are not added immediately after following our boards, please contact us at nanderson@busyevent.com or @busyevent on Twitter… Happy Pinning!

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

Lines, Lines everywhere there’s line…(but what about leads?)

Recently, a quote from a blog I frequent caught my eye: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution.”  Of course, this can apply to any institution and any field of work; yes, even the tradeshow industry (GASP!).

While the current tradeshow model is widely believed to be obsolete, the desire to meet people, exchange information and learn certainly is not. . . . so where do we go from here; to adapt, to stay relevant to stay productive?

Well, don’t look at large event vendors to fix the problem. . . they’re vested (and highly invested) in keeping things the same way they’ve always been. Why? Because they are making money with the current model of course!  However, BusyEvent and other event professionals like us are trying to solve these problems and help our clients (the thousands of event producers and millions of exhibitors and attendees) come out on top. It makes sense to us that exhibitors and event producers would jump at a chance for tradeshows to stop being inefficient and start serving a bigger purpose. Why put in all of that money and time for minimum return?

We think that tradeshows need to start seeing what we call a “Return on Action ™” rather than the much more difficult to quantify, Return on Investment.  This means that at tradeshows the leads come back with more information about what they’re truly interested in. Why hasn’t it always been like this?

Anyone who has planned or attended a tradeshow knows that while being a great source to attain a list of names, tradeshows exhibitors don’t attain GOOD leads. 75% of leads at these events aren’t even followed up on.

While getting pointless leads is clearly a huge problem with the current model, that points to the larger issue… money! Most event producers are currently spending money where they could be making a profit and generating revenue.  Now they have the opportunity to make a profit by reducing their workload through a mobile app—like gomobile . pro .

To keep tradeshows current and not be contributing to the vicious circle of: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution” we will continue to need new business approaches, new processes and adoption of technology that meets the business goals.

Read more on how BusyEvent is “Fixing the Tradeshow Industry“.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

The new “it” social media outlet has more reach than LinkedIn, Google Plus and YouTube COMBINED.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is an online pin board. It’s part vision board–users can  pin images of dream outfits, vacations and homes while also being a board of bragging rights—a showcase of things you’ve done, places you’ve been or books you’ve read.

While Pinterest has 1.36 million viewers in one day (via mashable.com), the majority of Pinterest users are in the 25-34 age range and a whopping 68% are women.

While something funny can almost guarantee a follow or a re-pin from another user, Pinterest’s most popular images are of trends—some in technology, but most in fashion, home décor and crafts. Pinterest has an entire category for Weddings & Events, which maintains a lot of interest and seems to be a window of opportunity for event producers/planners to self promote their services.

What is on Pinterest?

The 2 highest trending photos today (4/17/12) according to Pinreach.com are these:

(http://www.lowescreativeideas.com)

(http://www.amateurgourmet.com)

What do these photos have to do with event planning? Nothing. However, these two random photos are the highest trending on all of Pinterest and drive traffic straight to the sources website. Imagine if these were 2 photos of an event you had planned.

Why should I Use Pinterest to Promote?

1. Pinterest makes it easy it to direct traffic back to your own site. Digitaltrends.com reports that Pinterest sends 1.05-percent of its visitors elsewhere, while Google is at 0.91-percent and Twitter 0.82-percent– although Facebook and StumbleUpon beat Pinterest’s referral figures. The above trending photos drive straight back to the sources website.
2. Pinterest can serve as an online portfolio and resume for an event planner. Visually creative professions can create a board of previous work and put their personal website in the link to the photo. For event planners, photos of their events are almost guaranteed to be re-pinned by another follower (as long as they are good- and visually appealing!)
3. Getting some inspiration. While a great way to showcase what you have done, Pinterest is also a great way to get ideas. Follow other event planners and those in the event industry to get some inspiration.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

BusyEvent introduces gomobile.pro to the world – and the world of qualified investors!.

• 2 Days
• 3 Press Articles
• 117 Qualified Investors
• A Bushel full of fun and opportunity!

That’s how you could describe our last 48 hours as we introduced gomobile.pro to the world at two investor events:

1. Capital Innovators Demo Day (#ciDD12) and
2. The Missouri Venture Forum’s Invest Midwest (#investmidwest)

BusyEvent CEO David Schenberg introduces gomobile.pro at Capital Innovators Demo Day

Investor events are always fun especially since we get to see what our baby looks like, in the eyes of others.  And as much as you prepare and get ready, there’s always the questions that you just weren’t prepared for.  How you react and respond in that moment helps an investor see your ability to think on your feet, remain succinct and get into the real heart of the matter; do you know your product, your market and your company?

Based on the follow up traffic and emails we’ve received – there’s more to do, more to learn and more to experience. . . and I’d say we’re on the right path.

Next steps, here we come.

Learn more about these events on the BusyEvent News page where you’ll read about other great St. Louis companies like Lockerdome.com, bonfyre, gremln.com, clickwithmenow.com, Systematic Revenue, Jbara and Material Mix.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Dittmer from Boom Reactive

1. Tired of reaching only those people who approach your booth? How about the attendees that may be a great lead but never come to the trade show floor? gomobile.pro helps you ‘break the chord’ . . . don’t have your lead management system anchor you to your booth, go on . . . be free and find great leads wherever they occur from anywhere at the show!
2. Not generating enough (or any) profit from your event? gomobile.pro reverses the flow of money back into the event producers pocket!
3. gomobile.pro can work on any internet enabled device without the need for a persistent internet connection!
4. Return on Investment?  Blech…Return on ACTION™ is what you really want and gomobile.pro’s Virtual Booth tracks and identifies the action of anyone who looks at your materials; identifying the highest quality lead and providing actionable business intelligence.
5. gomobile.pro is an integrated, single source system, that replaces 5 tools and their sales people, and their tech people and their complexity and their costs.  gomobile.pro, yeah, we do it all!
6. Not only does gomobile.pro look good . . . it feels good knowing that everything you’re doing, all your information and all the people, products and information you’re interested in are safely and securely stored, in the cloud, in your own personalized Virtual Totebag.
7. gomobile.pro makes your event more social–Attendees get connected and stay connected. With a few clicks exchange contact information and then immediately browse profiles and send messages. Click through to LinkedIn, Twitter or personal web pages. It’s instant and easy, with nothing to lose or load later.
8. Big events or small. . . gomobile.pro can be used at all of them and there’s no watered down feature set . . . you get it all!  Want all your conference attendees to connect on LinkedIn, complete a survey, review materials and make meeting requests prior to the event – can do! Want your work meetings to speed up when you need to take a vote? Yeah, gomobile.pro can do that…
9. Got 9 minutes?  Go on, build your very own gomobile.pro event!  It’s free and if you know how to send emails and use Facebook, you’re already an expert!

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

LinkedIn is always a great venue for lively discussions about the tradeshow industry and even some conversations that aren’t brand new, continue to stir the pot.

Two years ago, Dana Freker Doody asked the very simple question “Is the current tradeshow model sustainable?” Even back then, we thought the traditional tradeshow model was broken and said so. And, while things continue apace at 3.5% CAGR, we’re committed to doing better.
Simply put, we continue to believe (and all of the energy of our company stands behind the idea) that the current tradeshow model is not sustainable because event producers and exhibitors are not utilizing tradeshows and conferences to receive the maximum results possible.

With the advent of new technology comes the responsibility to leverage new business and social models to create unique opportunities that weren’t present with the old way.  Going ‘green’ needs to make as much economic sense as it does ecological. Trading one technology (paper) for another (smart phones) will eventually give way to the next shiny object, unless we leverage the unique capabilities inherent in the advancement.  Simply leaving 3/4 of the possible opportunities in the hotel trash can, or worse, on your desk for weeks or months after the event, means our tools are fancier but are they better and ultimately we need to ask . . . is that all there is?

As a respected events industry veteran said to us recently: “Mobile apps for events are becoming more common, but they’re still a new toy. Nobody’s taken ownership of the market yet.”

Event producers now have an opportunity to generate a unique profitability stream from their events by retaining more of the revenues that typically flow into – and then right through – their event.  They have tools that will reduce their workloads, enable better content to be delivered and enhance the overall experience.

Exhibitors now have an opportunity to identify and engage truly qualified leads wherever those leads happen to be; not just when they come to their expo floor booth and agree to be captured by the booth-anchored systems.

The same opportunities exist for speakers, sponsors, attendees and even non-participants (like the restaurant around the corner from the venue) who would have otherwise been shut out of the conference and whose revenues the event producer’s can’t receive. . . Developing business models to take advantage of the technology makes this  possible.

It would seem then, that we’re all looking for our hockey-stick moment and that the legacy tradeshow model while not on it’s death knell, is being driven to look differently at its business, over the next 3 years.

That new model will be more environmentally friendly, more social, create more opportunities and generate more revenues. . . that sure sounds much better than the previous model to me!

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

I’ve always been a fan of the Socratic method (after all, I was a college professor) and especially Descartes dictum “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum for you Latin fans).

So, even as smart as they were and with as much influence as they have had on our lives today, was it possible that they could have envisioned the social lives we live today (forget about technology and think in terms of social connections)?

More powerfully, had they envisioned what is ‘now’, what would they have envisioned as ‘next’?

Here are some thoughts:

1. Stand alone native apps, without a connection to the internet, are going away.  People are migrating away from silo’d experiences and they are looking for a more immersive, more connected and more collaborative experiences.
2. We are quickly seeing the saturation of the social world as we run out of hours for social usage and running out of people to connect with. Incidental use of social, things that don’t have a specific social, psychological or business reason for existing, are going to die.
3. The noise will be more easy to filter so that only the things you want to know about, are known.  This one seems obvious and we’re already seeing how it’s use is being practiced.  Hashtags, micro-communities, hyper-local, etc…

Bottom line, we are all looking for more efficient, faster and easier ways to connect and have a higher value-to-time relationship.

So, what does all this mean for the event professional?

1. If you are providing your attendees, exhibitors or sponsors with tools that require more time and more effort to be successful, they won’t be and neither will your event.  Leads have to be self-qualifying and self-identified. Feedback has to be immediate. Revenue has to be created and connections have to make sense.
2. Data flow has to be seamless, easily moving from one system to another.  An example: your exhibitors will want their qualified leads to flow into their CRM system, back to a fulfillment center and into their reporting mechanism, all in real time.  If you’re engaging 3, 4, 5 different providers for social, audience response, lead management, registration, document management, continuing education credits, communications, etc…then your data isn’t seamlessly flowing.  It’s trapped inside of each silo and only transferable via the sneaker net, and that’s not real time.
3. People have to get what they came for. . . whether that’s revenue (for event producers) or connections (for attendees) or leads (for exhibitors) or information (for everyone), the cost and effort of an event is too high, if the time-value-of-’get’ isn’t there.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

Aaaaaah, the shiny object returns!

We’ve discussed the Shiny Objects Syndrome, before . . . and here we go again!

LinkedIn really is a great source for intriguing discussions and we’re big fans of people who are pushing their knowledge forward while willingly sharing what they learn with everyone else.

That’s why we admire Jenni and replied to her privately when she asked: Hi Guys, I am putting together a series of blogs on ‘future tech’ used by exhibitors and organizers in the events / tradeshow industry and wondered which technologies you think will come into their own this year and beyond?

As always, there were many great replies and here’s a random sampling:

• I think tablets (anything mobile, really.), hybrid and broader integration will be keys to the events moving forward
• I see private social networks growing and coming into their own in 2012.
• Innovative ways to fund raise for Nonprofits, specifically through mobile.
• We have been getting requests for QR codes on name badges.
• I think gamification of events through implementing a gaming app will be a technology that would be a great hit with tradeshow exhibitors in 2012.

Based on what our event producer and exhibitor clients are telling us (through their actions as well as their words), we see two trends:

1. The slow demise of the Apps-fascination being replaced by HTML5 cloud apps and
2. The move to integrated tools that generate revenue for the event producers.

After 20+ years in the industry, we’re still seeing that a return on investment shows up in the form of an unqualified list of adult trick or treaters at the booth. We favor tools that help qualify who came to the show and if they did anything after the show that demands meaningful follow-up. We call that a return on action. I would agree that tablets are growing quickly as a great platform to qualify attendees, but right now those tools come at a pretty high cost to develop. Not to mention most of the examples you bring up are ties to an individual event as opposed to a single system that a company can carry to dozens or hundreds of shows/year. Hybrid vs. Live? really shouldn’t matter as long as something connects people together before, during and after the event turning a couple of day event into a year-round connection to help you grow your business.

And, I’m talking about a demise of the apps economy specific to live events and tradeshows/conferences.  There are thousands of groups that have something to make and distribute and are limited by the fact that to be successful, they have to essentially build not one but 3 or 4 different platforms to satisfy an ever changing mobile market. Add to this, that some attendee’s phones are owned by their company so they can’t load an app and you can begin to see that the economies and the practicality of an ‘app’ begin not to make sense.

We are already seeing the compression of the marketplace where paying $10,000 for a pretty mobile event guide is going to eventually give way to a Google-style marketplace where those who have business to conduct face-to-face or screen-to-screen will pay for the right to reach the most qualified attendees at the moment they search for the thing that company offers.

Will NFC, QR, or some other technology assist this along? I’m sure it will as long as there’s a common platform for all of the tech to talk to one another. That will likely be based upon the HTML5 platform. By 2013 there will be more than 1 Billion HTML5 capable devices and by 2016, 2 Billion. That means no download required to participate in an event.

Now all this tech talk is completely useless if we don’t remember why people meet in the first place: to expand their network, learn new things and make new customer relationships. No matter what tools we’ll be using in the future, if we don’t make it easier for folks to get all that done on their own devices and then tie that data back to some measurable form of success, then we’ll be no better off than the barcode scanners and business card fish bowls of 20 years ago!

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

If it’s still true that “73% of all leads generated at a tradeshow are never followed up on” (CEIR), then, the problem isn’t that sales people are lazy.  Like most everyone else, they simply follow the path of least resistance to the largest pot of gold.

Similarly, simply attracting people to a booth isn’t really a problem either.  All kinds of edible and visceral enticements are attracting all kinds of people to the tradeshow booth.  But is that really what you want (duh, of course not).  By first attracting a mix of people (both qualified and not) and then not being able to effectively identify, engage and nurture the highest quality leads . . . “Tradeshows are (and continue to be) where good leads go to die (Part 1) and (Part 2)”.

But, we can do something about that.  Which is why a recent article by Josh Constine – a writer at the intersection of social psychology and technology – really caught my.

And, while he was primarily focused on how company’s market their products at SXSW and create memorable moments, his article drove down the center lane of every issue we have in more traditional 3 days / 4 walls events.

Namely, how to attract the highest quality leads and then spend the most effort nurturing them.

To his point, “The fundamental mistake companies make when marketing is giving away things” (that can be easily purchased). If a brand wants to attract and nurture true influencers and identify those people that are most likely to purchase their offerings, the brand must provide unique experiences.

According to Constine, “From my last three SXSWs, I couldn’t tell you who provided the ice cream sandwiches or Lone Star beers. But Zynga’s warehouse concert, Tagged’s limo rides, and Diggnation’s fire-eating magician — those I remember.”

How much of a lesson can those of us at more traditional events take away from that?  A bunch!  After the cost of transportation, hotels, food and entertainment and the disruption in your work, the ‘cheap and easy’ things like food and candy and even booth-babes are simple commodities . . . they’re everywhere and typically cheaper around the corner.

So, what’s the secret?  Ingenuity, inventiveness, a touch of whimsy and above all else, do something memorable tied to your brand.

1. Do something that’s unique, something that is truly novel and it can attract the right type of lead and it doesn’t even require a huge budget. . . “Take something common and change the medium”, make it novel, make it memorable and you’ll get the right kind of people interested in what you’re doing and interested in engaging you to find out more. “Last year when Angry Birds was strictly a mobile game, Rovio sponsored an event where you could play on a big screen. The set up and staff couldn’t have cost much but it got (Constine) and a line of other people excited.
2. “Another method is filling an urgent need. This year it’s going to rain like crazy at SXSW, so the saviors will be those distributing umbrellas and ponchos like GroupMe is doing. Normally it’s scorching hot, and fans and visors rule the day.”  How is what you’re doing fulling an urgent need and how will you capitalize on that?
3. A third way is to help people leverage the most valuable thing that we all have . . . time. It’s impossible to be at all places at all times and even worse, it’s impossible to see all the cool things that go on simultaneously.  Are you giving your hottest leads a way to capture what’s interesting, time shift it and then track whether they’re coming back later to engage with it? Do you have decision makers readily available so that immediate meetings, follow ups and next steps can occur now, rather than weeks later?

So, the goal is to give people something so engaging and so intriguing that they begin talking (and tweeting) and driving even more interested traffic to you. . . because after all, if all you’re offering is an open bar, tasty candy and tacos (or, $5 brochures), all you’ll attract is freeloaders who then end up on someone’s ‘cold call’ list and don’t turn your efforts into anything more than a costly party held at your booth.

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.

BusyEvent, a St. Louis, Mo.-based technology company founded in 2006 by partners David Schenberg and Brian Slawin, has recently hit the restart button with the continued support of local mentoring and financial organizations.

After surviving the economic downturn and completing their first products, BusyEvent closed its offices, helped their staff find other jobs, and scaled everything back to when it was a new startup in 2006. Throughout the process the company has leaned on mentors from Innovate Venture Mentoring Service (IVMS) and The St. Louis IT Entrepreneur Network (ITEN) for expert advice.

In Dec. of 2011 due to BusyEvent’s ITEN involvement, the company was invited to participate in a pitch competition in California’s Silicon Valley Forum. More than 40 venture capital and angel investors reviewed 15 startups selected from hundreds of potential businesses. This pitch presentation plus eight additional meetings in the area helped BusyEvent come to decide that a round of Angel Funding from the region was its best course of action vs. slugging it out in “The Valley.”

And upon their return, BusyEvent was fortunate to secure a spot presenting in front of St. Louis’ Capital Innovators program with similar odds. Only this time, the outcome was different. On Feb. 2 of 2012, BusyEvent secured one of five spots that received a $50,000 investment, key mentorship, and access to pro bono services for financial and business modeling, marketing and more. It also includes contact with other angels’ groups and investors.
For more information about BusyEvent and its recent resurgence, call (314) 517-3600 or visit their website at www.busyevent.com

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The old way is broken . . . we’ll pay you to fix it!

gomobile.pro makes any live event easier to manage and more profitable to produce!

By putting your event into the hands of your attendees, gomobile.pro turns their actions into revenues for your event!  Learn how at http://www.gomobile.pro and Contact us to learn more about the gomobile.pro mobile platform for live events.