Sarah Shewey, our Founder and CEO, is the inaugural fireside guest on Hopin’s new Back of House LIVE series.

They chat about Sarah’s innovative cyber wedding, the best bits of working across timezones, and Happily’s commitment to carbon zero events. Oh and why virtual events will still be vital even when in-person events are possible again!

Happily heads back of house with Hopin

Hopin is a virtual venue that has multiple interactive areas focused on connection and engagement. Their free show and podcast ‘Back of House LIVE’, co-hosted by Anthony Kennada and Lauren Sommers, is an events industry talk show that includes interviews with thought leaders from the events world. Happily was honored to have our Founder and CEO as the first guest!

Listen to Sarah Shewey in this snippet from Hopin’s ‘Back of House LIVE’ and read on for some quick takeaways.

The cyber wedding that broke the internet

When Sarah and Colin’s wedding was abruptly cancelled due to COVID 19 in early 2020, the pivot to a virtual wedding was quick and mighty. Sarah describes how she fully embraced the challenge to create a truly unique experience and wondrous cyber wedding celebration unlike anything you would have thought possible. Plus, she explains how their story came to headline the Daily Mail in the UK, and why the experience helped her discover the power and potential of virtual events.

The creative process and the wonderful experience that I had with the cyber wedding helped me to commit to virtual and continue to rethink experiences in an online format.

Sarah Shewey, Founder and CEO, Happily

The benefits of Happily’s international network of independent event specialists

• Having a team across the world and in multiple time zones means there is always someone working and a project can progress quickly
• Happily prides itself on our ‘short runway’ to producing events and we are able to take advantage of varying time zones when a client comes to us at the 11th hour
• The diversity of people and cultures is what Happily is all about
• Our pool of talent is not restricted to any one country or culture
• There are more opportunities for event specialists that speak multiple languages, if our clients need

It’s great to be able to schedule people on different time zones, so we get assets and project direction on the west coast, it moves over to the east coast, moves over to Asia, moves over to Europe, and then you have a final pre-record edit that is ready the next morning.

Sarah Shewey, Founder and CEO, Happily

Happily is committed to sustainable and carbon zero events

• 90% of an event's carbon emissions come from flights and removing that need for travel (and going virtual) is the number one climate change solution when it comes to producing an event
• Happily offsets any virtual event carbon emissions (from computers, etc) by planting the corresponding amount of trees in our Happily Forest
• We produced a robust and informative TEDxHappily Countdown event that you should check out for much more on this topic and our mission

The benefits of virtual events even when in-person events are possible again

• Virtual events are here to stay!
• They are an important tool for event producers to sustain interaction and connection with an audience or community
• The minimal cost compared to in-person allows a higher frequency of interaction with an audience
• Communities can stay connected between large, tentpole in-person events with virtual events throughout the year
• The minimal cost compared to in-person allows opportunities for smaller, more niche events within a community

For anyone who did events before [the pandemic] you remember it was always ‘how do we keep our community together throughout the year’ and it was like ‘maybe a Facebook group?’ We all laugh now because of course we are just going to be doing lots of virtual events…

Sarah Shewey, Founder and CEO, Happily

More information coming right up

Here are links to resources and random stuff mentioned in this interview:

• Read more about Happily’s commitment to climate action
• Discover our DNC Case Study
• Read our 3 Ways to Create an Events Strategy that Saves the Planet
• Sarah and Colin’s cyber wedding that broke the internet ‘'We're showing people a path forward.' LA couple whose wedding was scrapped due to COVID-19 host futuristic cyber ceremony at their apartment with 1,500 guests tuning into their live stream’ via the Daily Mail
• Attend the latest Back of House LIVE from Hopin