When I came up with the idea of The Best You Expo, I remember I didn’t sleep for four months. I didn’t sleep for four months, and the reason I didn’t sleep was that I’d never done an event like that before. I’d done a lot of events. I’d had 500, 1,000 people attend them. It was a two-day event and maybe three or four speakers, but I’d never done something like that, and it was 55 speakers, 55 exhibitors. I hired a big space in the ExCel conference hall. I hired I think around 60,000 square feet. We used around 30,000 square feet, but the event grew and it grew and it grew, and eventually, we had around 40 and a half thousand people.
For us to change to virtual has been interesting, but I’ve got to say from the beginning, from day one, I always knew I wanted to stream the events. I’ve always wanted to stream. It’s just very expensive, not affordable. We didn’t have the sponsors to help us and to reach more. I felt it was great to have 3,000 people showing, but I want to 33,000, and I wanted hundreds of thousands of people. For us to adapt to virtual is something that I’ve embraced and I’ve embraced because I was ready. I was ready quite a few years ago, but I didn’t think the world was ready for it.
Now, it’s a different world there. Virtual for me, what it means, it means the way that we’re going to be presenting it. We’re going to go from two days to seven days. And within those seven days, the reason we’ve done it is because I feel that when it comes down to a virtual event, it’s very difficult to stay focused for a very long time, either sitting at home or having your laptop, you’re going to get up and have a coffee or someone’s going to ring you, and you’re going to simply disconnect. But if I provide you an event because expos normally have been… Any big global international expo has always been running for seven or 30 days.
For me, it was about providing people with not 50, 60, 100, but 300, 400 speakers and throw at them all sorts of inspiring ideas throughout the seven days where I literally know what is appealing, interesting to me for me, and I can go and connect at any time. And for us, it was about having and connecting with people. And I wanted that same experience, the same experience that you have when you go and attend a live event where I can go and rock up into a booth and I can speak to someone and I can engage with someone, and I can collect a PDF or I can collect a document, a brochure, something or I can buy something off them. And then I could rock up into a seminar room and a breakout room and watch a speaker, which I wasn’t even planning.
That’s how we are presenting the virtual events. We’re presenting the virtual event in that way. You’ll be able to interact, chat, talk, email, call, Zoom them at their booth. You as an exhibitor will be able to connect with them that way. You’ll be able to do free 15 minute consultations every hour, if you want. People can ask you questions, you can collect their data, you can collect their names and email addresses. You can speak to that inspiring speaker. You can walk into any room, into any breakout room and you can speak to them. Maybe we’ll have some private areas where you can ask international global speakers like Les Brown. Maybe you can ask him a question, which you wouldn’t be able to ask him, even if you were at the live event.
That’s what virtual means to me. It means throwing and providing you with all sorts of inspirational ideas, and we’re doing the same. 10 breakout rooms, we’ve got an auditorium there where we’re going to have all sorts of panels. We’re going to have talent. We’re going to have musicians. We’re going to have influencers. We’re going to have all sorts of great people, sharing beautiful and amazing ideas, yoga, meditation, you name it. We want everything there. And that’s what I see a virtual event being, and what I see it being is I see hundreds of thousands of people, and then eventually millions of people connecting.
I’m very excited about how we’re going to go with this and all this content as well and how we’re going to take it to the TV. And that’s what it is, if you thought big enough, and if you think big enough, you’ll start answering your own questions and you start asking yourself those empowering questions.
How can I make this happen? How can I go global?
How can I reach more people?
And then you’ll know the ways or you will find the ways or you will ask the questions yourself to other experts that will then will provide you the answer, so then you can go and implement. And if we’ve learned anything from this new reality is that it’s a new reality and you have to be prepared to think big and think of the most impossible things happening like the world shut down. Anyway, thank you so much. Hope you join us. See you soon.