Who is ALPFA?
Officially, ALPFA is The Association of Latino Professionals for America. They're a large network ranging from new graduates to C-suite-level executives with the mission of Connecting Latino Leaders for Impact.
But to me, they're a community of friends and colleagues who are helping spur each other on to their most meaningful work. And I'm all about it!
ALPFA 2024 at a Glance
4,516
Atendees
105
Partners served
56
Main Stage Speakers
35
Awards Presented
52
Years of Conventions
Working with Cre8ion Group
To produce this event, I worked closely with Corey Verdusco, owner and creative director for the Cre8ion Group.
Cre8ion handled design elements like rigging, lighting, and the equipment/RFP process, while I worked as senior producer, overseeing the pre-production and production of building the team, creating the production schedule, and collaborating directly with presenters. On-site, I managed the run of show for all 12 main-stage events.
Producing the Show
Pre-Production Challenges
Planning for a show like this often starts at least 6 months in advance. Due to multiple circumstances, we didn't get fully into pre-production until about 2 months ahead of time. This left us with a few challenges we knew we'd need to overcome:
- Numerous on site changes. We knew things would get down to the wire - everything from personnel to timing and content. The name of the game was to keep our heads up and eyes open to anticipate changes and be ready for them.
- Collaborating with ALPFA partners. The unique part about ALPFA is their partners. Most corporate events are a single company but at ALPFA, it's a Usually one company would just hot their own program, but the challenge of running an ALPFA show is that they
- Fighting a tight schedule. About half of the main sessions were back to back, a lunch session going right into an afternoon session. This meant not only quick turn around times, but limited time for rehearsals and run-through. Staying on top of all my documentation would be critical to staying on top of all the details moving back and forth.
On-site producing
Knowing the challenges we would face on site, there are a few strategic moves we made so we could roll with the changes when they came without getting overwhelmed.
- Building a strong team. In addition to the on-site production crew, Cre8ion brought in our own team of producers, script supervisor, show caller and stage manager. We also brought on a graphic and motion graphics designer to create content for breakouts and main stage.
- Planning for last minute changes. We knew we'd face last minute changes with so many speakers and weather affecting travel. Here are some systems we put in place to help us stay flexible when the last minute changes rolled in:
- Made a plan to have someone do live VO (VoiceOver) in addition to pre-recordings.
- We simplified graphics for awards to only display the award title, in case we had a presenter or recipient change so we wouldn't have to re-render files.
- We made a ton of still & motion design files our content producer could easily edit and render on site.
- Setting up robust systems. A huge part of managing an event of this size is having flexible systems to keep track of information. For this show, the entire production schedule lived in ClickUp and each main stage session had a dedicated run of show document in Rundown Studio. We also heavily relied on google sheets to run multiple asset tracking documents for graphics, motion, and voiceovers.
The most important aspect of any live event is knowing something will always change at the last minute. If you go in expecting it, you can put a plan in place so when the inevitable happens, you can roll with the changes effortlessly.
One Amazing Team
- Executive Producer: Corey Verdusco
- Senior Producer: Alex Sawyer
- Script Supervisor: Heather Froslid
- Show Caller: Max Brown
- Stage Manager: Drew Matney
- Breakout Producer: Bryant Powell
- Breakout Producer: Tim Mauriello
- Content Producer: Dylan Hofmann
- Speaker Producer: Dara Samuels
- Mini-GS Producer: Colin Aliapoulios
- Motion Graphics: Ryan Gause
- Graphic Design: Lauren Little
Highlights
Looking back on this event, there are a few highlights that stand out. Here's what made this show so meaningful for me.
- Leading the team. My sweet spot is when I'm working with a solid team. It was amazing to work with the Cre8ion team and I'm grateful for each one – it quite literally wouldn't have been possible without them.
- Collaborating with partners. Despite some of the complexity that comes with coordinating so many partners, it's one of the best parts. I get to work with high level executives and well known names from organizations across the country – I always have a great time meeting new people and empowering them to share their story.
- Team trust. When we got into show mode, we were really running non-stop, full steam ahead, making sure this event came together. This was my second year with ALPFA and I was encouraged by how much the ALPFA team trusted me to carry out their visions and make high-level calls with some of their biggest partners.
- White Party Birthday. Each ALPFA convention ends with the White Party - everyone coming together to have fun and celebrate together, dressed in full white. During this year's white party it was one of our producer's birthday and the ALPFA team was nice enough to let me get 2500 slightly inebriated latinos to sing happy birthday to him. One of the best moments of the show!
