Events & Entertainment

Brett Annable, Owner of Millionaires Row Cider Company, Is Helping Keep the Essence of Canada’s Rich Entrepreneurial History Alive!

Armed with the dream of a family farm, finance experience and theological training, Brett Annable and his wife Janet purchased a 10-acre apple orchard in Summerland, British Columbia, discovered a rich history on their land, then launched ‘Millionnaires’ Row Cider Company. Brett & Janet combined their skills and together tapped into their entrepreneurial spirit to become a couple and ‘product’ of note in the Okanagan Valley. Brett and Janet, through their ‘cider’ making, tasting, distribution and storytelling – are helping to keep the essence of the ‘Millionnaire’s Row’ story alive as part of Canada’s rich entrepreneurial history. Three of the ‘Millionnaires’ were national bank presidents – ultimately knighted for their contributions to Canada – responsible for providing much of the initial capital to finance western Canada’s timber, mining, transportation and utility industries; and whose benevolence later extended to helping establish the ‘Okanagan’s notoriety as a ‘fruit’ growing/manufacturing mecca, and a destination of choice to experience local farms, markets, stores, restaurants, wineries, breweries and more.

Visit www.ebay.ca/upandrunning to open your online shop.

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Vince Guzzo, Dragon from Dragons’ Den, Discusses Being an Entrepreneur, Advice for Success, and Dealing with the COVID-19 Pandemic

Vince Guzzo is a well-known entrepreneur based in Quebec who is owner and President of Cinémas Guzzo. He also owns a pizzeria and construction company. Guzzo, who is also a dragon on the popular Dragons Den CBC TV series, talks about being an entrepreneur – advice for success – and about dealing with the current COVID-19 crisis.

Devon Dooling Discusses Ice Distribution for the Event, Hospitality and Retail Industries

Devon Dooling lives and works in Vancouver, BC. She is the owner of: On The Rocks Ice Distribution and co-owner of Simply Pure Water in Victoria, BC. On The Rocks Ice makes the coolest and cleanest ice this side of the ice age and specializes in chilling events, hospitality and retail, throughout Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. When Devon is not talking all things ice and water-related, you can likely find her and her puppy Molly sipping on tea at a local coffee shop or on the soccer pitch with her step-kids and husband.

Rebecca Rochon Discusses the Trends in Industries That Pivot & Pilot Creative Serve During COVID-19

Food, wellness & personal beauty care is essential Five years ago, Rebecca Rochon founded Pivot & Pilot Creative, a boutique design agency in Vancouver that specializes in branding, packaging design, advertising, and website creation. Pivot & Pilot helps clients in the food, beauty and wellness space capitalize on their first impression. Aside from running her agency, Rebecca is actively involved in the business community in Canada and leads talks and workshops frequently. Pivot & Pilot runs a quarterly “Conversations” panel where Rebecca hosts a conversational interview with business leaders in Vancouver. Some past topics include “Launching Your Brand with Kickstarter”, “Working Creatives: Making Creative Your Full-Time” and “Ecommerce vs Brick and Mortar”. She also hosts Pivot & Pilot’s YouTube channel where she interviews experts and speaks about the way design influences consumer behaviour. In her spare time she’s on stage doing stand up comedy, at an art gallery or dancing with her dog, Bernie.

Melanie Teichroeb Discusses How Women Feel When They Take a Traumatic Experience and Turn it Into a Fight for Their People & Community

Imagine a 10th century Viking TED Talk.

Warrior, leader, motivational speaker, Ingrid Larsdöttir, reveals the untold truth of Viking shield maidens and what it takes to go to battle. Her presentation is a clarion call that that spans the centuries. She empowers women to claim their inner warrior and invites men to be allies in the battle for equality.

Melanie Teichroeb wrote this solo show during the birth of the #MeToo movement. Shield Maiden addresses sexism, gender bias, sexual freedom, and trauma. It does so with irreverence, empathy and humour. The dance between strength and vulnerability is explored as the warrior character Ingrid works to recruit new warriors while inadvertently revealing her own dark and violent personal history.

Melanie lives and works on Gabriola Island, British Columbia. Her day job is Chalk It Up Signs. The business, co-owned with husband and artist in his own right, Dave Teichroeb, creates hand drawn chalkboard art that ships worldwide.

Shield Maiden is Melanie’s first solo show. In addition to performing to sold out crowds in Canada, she has been honoured to perform in Austin, Texas and off Broadway in New York City. Canadian tour coming soon (once the pandemic ends and theatre lives again).

Martin Mayer “Canada’s Prince of Piano”

“Canada’s Prince of Piano” – that’s how the Beijing Times, China’s leading English-language newspaper, described Canadian pianist and composer Martin Mayer.

His music has been defined as instrumental fusion – a combination of smooth jazz, classical, pop, and rock. Mayer’s European roots add a good share of thoughtful and longing soul, his North American education contributes a healthy dose of high-octane energy. An explosive mix.

After Mayer realized musicianship was who he was, he would study at Royal Conservatory of Music, major in piano performance at Grant MacEwan University and win the Rachel McKeown Memorial Award for composition. A Chinese Arts Agency took Martin Mayer on a 16-city six-week long concert tour in mainland China in 2001. It would become the biggest tour of any artist in China’s modern history, and all of his tour dates since then would be sold out. He entertained thousands in concert, and millions on Chinese TV.

The “Outstanding Alumnus” winner at the Alberta Provincial Awards Celebrating Excellence was also featured by the Czech National Radio Orchestra in a live concert of his music, recorded and broadcast live from one of Prague’s most historic music venues.

Mayer’s latest album, Unbreakable, was listed as one of the Top 25 New Music Critiques of 2018 (Music Connection Magazine, December 2018), attracting radio airplay from across the globe. It is one of the few independent Canadian records available on Chinese music-streaming platforms QQ, NetEase, QianQian and Kuwo.

Canada’s National Post predicts that Martin Mayer is “poised to take over the world stage,” while VOGUE of Taiwan opines that the pianist’s “passion for music … can only be described as breath-taking,” and an A&R Factory Music Blog concludes: “Thankfully there are artists such as Martin Mayer to inject a bit of excitement and panache into the format of the pop-piano.

Mike Schwarz

Born and raised in Squamish BC, Mike Schwarz went on to graduate from UBC Sauder School of Business with his Bachelor of Commerce degree (Marketing) in 1999. Since then, Mike has been self-employed, working on internet start-ups for over 18 years. Mike now has a rich history of successful dot-com exits including Clubvibes.com, Techvibes.com, The Massive Tech conference, DiscoverVancouver and clubZone.com. Mike’s current focus is building out myZone Media, who’s mission is to help event promoters operate more efficiently. Subsidiary businesses of myZone including myZone Printing, myZone Marketing, myZone Web Development, myZone Ticketing (aka ticketZone.com) and myZone Merch. Mike loves to travel and spends several months per year on the road working remotely. His latest start-up is his growing family including a wife & son. Recognized in 2005 as a BIV top 30 under 30, Schwarz has also spoken at numerous conferences and is passionate about building creative work environments that enable both work-life balance.

In this episode, Mike discusses “why it’s essential to find out what part of your business is virus proof”, and stresses the importance of pivoting your business offerings online during this tumultuous time. Mark also talks about how his businesses thrives within a remote work-from-home culture, and offers insights and tools he uses to connect with his domestic and international team members.

Mark sheds light on the impact COVID-19 is having on the event industry specifically. With the current outlook, which is changing daily, Mark anticipates events should be postponed until at least the Fall, if not the Spring.

Janice Liu

Janice Liu is the founder of Retreat, a technology start-up, which connects users with last-minute, discounted premier spa and salon appointments in the city of Toronto, where Janice calls home. By day, Janice leads a consulting and engineering team at the consultancy firm, Magnet, that has a mission to engineer the future of marketing.

Douglas Pipher

Douglas Pipher is President of Gristmill Marketing in Ontario, a well-established marketing operation that has an enviable client list. Douglas is also an active entrepreneur that has worked and invested in many other growing entrepreneurial ventures – with great success… most of the time. And most importantly Douglas is a jazz musician and has a great story to tell about mixing his business and music passion. Take a listen – it is really inspirational.