Mums & Co is Australia’s most caring business movement for ALL #mumbitious women, and the expert line-up of speakers for their recent annual Be MPowered conference – all incredible business working mums – was a testament to that.
Held in June this year, Mums & Co partnered with Pyrus Event Services and Evise to deliver the Be MPowered conference for the first time as both a virtual and in-person event. Over 140 ticketed participants attended the interactive event across seven hub venues spanning Australia.
Hosting an event during COVID-19 that complied with all government restrictions, while also being engaging for the Mums & Co members, was very challenging given the different levels of restrictions across Australia.
With no experience in hybrid conferencing, and speakers and participants from all over Australia, Mums & Co needed to partner with a company that not only had the technical experience but a depth of knowledge to make the conference achievable and on budget.
Due to the demographics of the members attending, the conference needed to be held during school hours and all presentations needed to be filmed for the purpose of housing them on the Mums & Co website after the event.
Having worked together on the benchmark cultural event, Know My Name delivered by the National Gallery of Australia, the natural fit for Pyrus Event Services was to partner once again with Evise, event and logistics specialists, to deliver the Be MPowered Conference.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Pyrus Event Services and Evise managed the conference off-site with Pyrus Event Services Director, Adam Bannister in Wagga; and Evise Directors Kylie Clarke in Sydney and Jade Pearce in Melbourne. The event was MC’d by Mums & Co Community Manager Lucy Kippist who was based in Sydney in a separate room from the delegates. Lucy relied on Pyrus Event Services and Evise to be her eyes and ears for the conference – proving that you don’t need to be in the one location to hold a successful conference.
Event and production services of the conference included:
As the Be MPowered conference is a chance for many of the attendees to network and meet face-to-face for the first time, live captioning was provided throughout the conference to ensure that not only the hard of hearing attendees could participate, but all attendees could enjoy the conference even if it was loud in the room.
Key to the seamless execution of the conference was Pyrus Event Services and Evise’s understanding of potential audience challenges including internet connectivity and technical know-how and their attention to detail across every facet of the conference.
Outsourcing the conference to Pyrus Event Services and Evise allowed the founders of Mums & Co the time to network on the day knowing that the conference was in capable hands.
“As 30% of our members are based regionally, it was very important to us to engage a regional company and Pyrus Event Services was a perfect fit. We also loved working with Kylie and Jade from Evise, as we are all about empowering women in business. Their event and technical knowledge lead to a seamless conference – you would never have known we were all in different locations.
Together we made an amazing team: their [Pyrus Event Services’ and Evise’s] expertise in different areas, instantaneous replies and true professionalism, along with the insights and knowledge gained from this year’s conference, has shown us the way of conferencing in the future and one that we will continue for years to come. We look forward to working with Pyrus Event Services and Evise in the future.”
— Lucy Kippist, Community Manager of Mums & Co
Working with Pyrus Event Services and Evise resulted in Mums & Co being able to deliver a high quality, COVID -19 compliant conference that was both accessible online and in-person on very a short turnaround.