326: Creating Impactful Vegan Events: Talita Trygsland Shares Insights from the Vegan Women Summit

Talita Trygsland  00:00

Design and incorporated all the pieces that I've accumulated on my career into my vegan frame that merge that with my vegan lifestyle, and create a business that really can help showcase the future of food, fashion entertainment. So, yeah,

Maya Acosta  00:18

this is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast, and I'm your host, Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life, and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. So this is Maya with the healthy lifestyle solutions. We're here at the vegan Women's Summit. Tell me what brings you here Talita?

Talita Trygsland  00:45

Well, I've been working on this event for the last year. I'm here with Spire, my event company. So we've been planning on producing this event for the second year now

Maya Acosta  00:55

you're doing a wonderful job. I'm really impressed. This is my first time attending. And so far, I'm all over the place, I can't get enough of it. So great job. Tell me what other events have you worked.

Talita Trygsland  01:05

So I've been in the event industry for over a decade. And I founded spire in 2019. To really bring vegan events to the larger scale. And we do plan everything from vegan weddings, to rock shows to fundraising gala, us benefit shows, private retreats and the vegan woman Summit, which is the biggest one of the year for us.

Maya Acosta  01:31

Well, this is wonderful. Do you also do online events like online summits or anything like that.

Talita Trygsland  01:37

So you know, I really prefer the in person events, I think the connection you get with people and the energy that we create in the space with attendees, and all activation speakers is just so impactful. Of course, during COVID, we did pivot and did a lot more virtual some virtual events was part of the putting together a huge virtual gala but or focus as in person events, because we really enjoy that connection between people.

Maya Acosta  02:08

So for people who may not be aware of what it entails to create an event, and I've been paying attention, I've seen a lot of volunteers, I've seen a lot of cameras, please tell my listeners a little bit of what what all of that entails wissota team do, you have to make this happen.

Talita Trygsland  02:25

So for this event, in particular, we partner very closely with you know, Jenny and V Ws, to put on this event. So we really start with talking about the vision of the event. So when Jenny came to me, talking about bringing the vegan woman's summit to Los Angeles from San Francisco, we started talking about the big vision of the event and what we wanted to create, and her vision for where she wanted to go with the audience of Vito BWS. The vision was what you're seeing here today, just amazing people coming together to celebrate the vegan lifestyle talking about different aspects of a vegan lifestyle. And then we start with venue scouting, we look for a venue that has a personality that really fits with the personality of the event itself. We look at the venue and then we think about how can we create synergetic partnerships with all this all our sponsors, brands that want to incorporate their business and mission into the event. So we really map out the space, being part of how we select the space is the personality is what we can create in the space, the size of it, we're going to have to enter people now we're going to have 1000s. So we need to find a space where we can activate attendees to stages to different sponsor marketplaces. So when we walked into this space, you know, we just really loved it. It was a feeling and it was just had a perfect fit when the first steps were doing.

Maya Acosta  04:00

So it's interesting. I watched Jenny speak earlier when she opened the whole event. And she talked about why it was Brooklyn that was chosen why New York? Why and how involved you know, Eric Adams is and the American College of lifestyle medicine and training some of the physicians I hear. So tell us, you had a little insight into that. Why New York for the vegan Women's Summit this year?

Talita Trygsland  04:23

Yeah, I think New York is a very international HUBZone. From the event perspective, when we're talking about, you know, do we keep it in LA Do we go international, we really thought that New York was the next best place to keep it internationally, but also capture from our audience in Europe and international brands that were able to come to New York, also exposed the East Coast to this event. We had a lot of people flying out to LA and we knew we were gonna get a lot of interest from the crowds in Europe, and New York was just such to a perfect location to continue with this event, and then we're going to announce the next year's summit.

Maya Acosta  05:08

Are you announcing it here today, like this weekend?

Talita Trygsland  05:12

So I'll leave that up as a price. But Jen is gonna announce something very exciting.

Maya Acosta  05:18

Oh, I can't wait. So uh, you're right is it's a hub. It's very international. I was on the platform discord that was set up for the vegan Women's Summit. And I was part of a lot of conversations and people are coming from everywhere, from Germany, from Brazil, you name it. And so I see how it would be easy to fly into New York for that reason. So tell my listeners again, a little bit about your story, your full name and how people can reach you in case they're interested in hiring your company.

Talita Trygsland  05:48

Yeah, so my name is Talita Trygsland. I'm the founder and CEO of SPIRE connection, you can find me on all social as Talita Trygsland can hire me from spire dot I lay my businesses on all social platforms as spire connection. I am born and raised in Norwegian, but I've lived in LA for the past 14 years. So my business is based in Los Angeles. But we plan and produce events nationally across the states and some international events. When I moved to LA, I really wanted to make an impact. And I think creating a business where I can use my expertise and talent in the event industry with all creative fields that goes into creating an event like interior design, fashion, stage design, and incorporated all the pieces that I've accumulated on my career into my vegan frame that merged with my vegan lifestyle, and create a business that really can help showcase the future of food, fashion entertainment. So yeah, we're, you know, available for hire and love to put on these events

Maya Acosta  07:00

tell us all the stuff that happens behind the scenes.

Talita Trygsland  07:04

That's a lot. It's a big production, we have an amazing team that we collaborate with, from vendors, to sponsors to speakers, to volunteers, the venue itself. So you know, when we plan a event of this scope, we really start with finding the vendor. So the AV company that sets the stage, the venue team that helps us with the space itself. We work with French press, who's doing this media lounge, and then we partner, you know, we have our sponsor bow or that's branding this space. And then we have 35 plus sponsors activated in a different spaces that we work very, very closely with, we build very meaningful and long term relationships with them. We want to have long term partnership. One of the partners that we brought in if we gone that's done this customized VW as chocolate. They're one of my connections from Norway that, you know, bring in vegan chocolates to the US, we partner with a lot of brands in different elements throughout the space. We have, you know, furniture rentals coming in. We have a vegan furniture company sponsoring that piece. So we have a lot of activations.

Maya Acosta  08:22

By the way. Now that you mentioned the chocolate, I did get a chance to stop by and sample this delicious chocolate. So this is from your home country. So I was impressed when I tasted the chocolate and they said they wanted to do something different. They wanted to step outside from the dark chocolate and be more creative. So it's a great job. Well, thank you again for sharing all of that. Thank you. Thank you so much. You've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.