Behind The Scenes on Cohosting CLG2 conference

David Nebinski (0:03)

Hey, friend, it's David Nebinski here in Brooklyn, here at the Portfolio Career Podcast, where we take ownership of your career and design a life that you want to live. This podcast chat is with Zach Hotoff and Ruthie Berber. We are the co-hosting the Community-Led Growth Conference this Friday, October 2nd in New York. And this conversation is mostly around venue and the importance of venue, and how to think about venue in terms of experience design for events and conferences. And we talked about how we're thrilled to host CLG at Fabrik, where we've both been members at and hosted a bunch of different events. So if you're interested in learning more about behind the scenes of CLG venue for events and more, this episode is for you. I've recorded a couple of episodes recently about CLG and compounding, so wanted to share this episode as well.

Yeah, if you're going to CLG, see you tomorrow or if you went and you're listening to this now, thanks again for coming. Thanks again to Fabrik for hosting us. Here we go.

Okay. CLG Journal podcast is back.

Zach Hotoff (1:23)

The first official one of CLG2. Is that right, David?

David Nebinski (1:27)

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. To the listeners that have been eagerly waiting another podcast episode, here you go.

You may be eagerly awaiting CLG2 as well, and we would love to have you if you're a full-time community builder, you can join us on Friday, October 2nd. luma.com/clg2. We got a new friend, Ruthie Berber in the house.

Ruthie Berber (1:58)

Yeah.

Zach Hotoff (1:59)

The inventor of the CLG jingle. So Ruthie, maybe show us a little bit of what inspired a lot of this. Can you give us the jingle?

Ruthie Berber (2:08)

If I must. Okay. CLG.

Does that work?

Zach Hotoff (2:14)

I mean, it was hard. I think Dave and I will agree after hearing that the first time we're like, Ruthie has to be a cohost.

Ruthie Berber (2:20)

Right. Exactly. Cemented my statuses goes with the jingle invention.

Zach Hotoff (2:27)

Exactly.

Well, welcome, Ruthie. Glad to have you on the pod.

Ruthie Berber (2:33)

Yeah. Back on the pod.

Zach Hotoff (2:35)

I know. Well, great. On the other side of the pod.

David Nebinski (2:42)

So, I think we could all agree that for events, gatherings, et cetera, who is there really matters.

Ruthie Berber (2:53)

Right.

David Nebinski (2:57)

I think we could also agree that we probably have differing opinions on the food, on how much the food matters. One person on this call has a no pizza allowed rule.

Zach Hotoff (3:17)

Wait, we both do.

Ruthie Berber (3:18)

We have a no pizza.

Zach Hotoff (3:21)

That's also me. Yeah.

David Nebinski (3:25)

I'm okay with pizza if it's square slices versus big slices. That's a pro tip for anyone there that's listening. Get a square if possible, easier to hold. And another main topic and category as it relates to gatherings is the space, the venue.

CLG1, I think had a great space, the mall in the brand new space. And we were excited to host CLG1 at the mall in brand new. Literally the day it opened.

Ruthie Berber (4:06)

That was kind of crazy, guys.

Zach Hotoff (4:07)

Maybe a little too brand new for David's, David's liking, but yes, brand new. David does worry, by the way, for anyone listening to this, you can find a real David Nebinski that does worry things. And it was on the mall, it was the day prior to CLG1.

David Nebinski (4:30)

That was so, I care about these things. So, okay, so the venue there, so the mall and venue was great. I think it was high-end, really allowed for this high-end experience that we brought for CLG1, went really, really well. And as we were thinking about CLG2, I think one of the main kind of factors on like when CLG2 happens and where it is was like, what's the venue situation?

That was like a key piece. And I think anybody who's planning a conference thinks about the venue pretty early on.

Ruthie Berber (5:13)

Yeah, I would say number one. That's the number one thing for me.

Zach Hotoff (5:18)

Well, it's definitely, it's hard to advertise without it.

Because you don't know how many people you're going to. Yeah.

Ruthie Berber (5:25)

For work, so. Yeah.

Zach Hotoff (5:28)

It's hard to position the event.

David Nebinski (5:30)

What do you think the venue, how does a venue influence an event? Zach?

Zach Hotoff (5:37)

I mean, it sets the tone.

I think Ruthie and I have been to some events where I think the tone is set very early on about the, like, what is it going to be? You know what it does? It sets how high the bar can go very early on.