ToIRL May 2024

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of Toronto IRL - where we find the best IRL business + tech events in Toronto, and curate them, so you don’t have to go searching.

Events (Sorted by Date)

I’ve curated my top 8 event picks below.

May 23 I’m hosting a private dinner for SaaS GTM Leaders as I’d love to gather a group of Marketing Leaders from SaaS Companies (already two registered)!

May 7th Stripe’s CTO is also visiting Toronto for this event. Exciting for devs!

On May 13th, TechTO: Sales is hosting an event with Nichole Porter, David Priemer (also announcing an awesome book launch), and Kyle Norton. This is gonna be super stacked panel of speakers, so if you are in sales I highly recommend going. I’ll be there for sure with a few friends!

May 10th - 11th the Austin Nasso from the Tech Roast Comedians, famous on instagram are coming to Toronto and tickets are only $30. That’s a steal for a great show.

You know what’s funny? I actually pitched these guys to produce their show in Toronto last year, because they were constantly selling out 500 seaters in NYC and were on tour. I nearly offered to do it for free. They said it was too small of a market for them to consider. I told them I would promote the heck out of it, since my tech mixers we’re already selling 150+ tickets at their peak. But there wasn’t alignment with their current tour.

Small world though huh. Best of luck at your debut at the Comedy Bar! I’ll be at Cirque…

May 7th - This BetaKit Townhall with the CEO of Shopify looks mega hype - but sold out

May 14th Google Cloud is hosting an AI Meetup for Startups. Shoutouts to Alison Drader who used to be a mentor to me at IBM!

May 15th TribalScale is also hosting a Summer Social - this one seems to be pretty open to the public and in the neighborhood so I will drop by. According to Sheetal, over 240 registrants already!

May 22 I’m hosting an intimate social for true boardgame fans like me!

And there are over 20 other awesome tech events happening during Toronto Tech Fest 2024 in May. DM Mell Truong if you want help hosting an event (she helped promote mine)!

Ryan’s Corner - What Is He Up To?
Last month I hosted the LinkedIn Creators Meetup gathering 8 people with over 10,000 followers, and & brought back Saad Khan’s Sales Mixer for a 3rd event with over 150 registrations.

But most proudly - I wrapped up planning a Private Dinner with 18 Web3 CEOs.

Despite it having to be cancelled to a storm in Dubai, this is one of my proudest events I’ve worked on. I had handwritten namecards and everything to create the most VIP expereince. I feel like I unlocked a cheat code to get executives in a room.

I have no idea why companies spend $20,000 sponsoring conferences to stand at booths and hand out swag, when you can plan something like this for $3000.

The Cost Per Lead is astronomically better here.

But I know not every organization has event planning expertise and know how to attract VIPs to actually show up. That’s why I’m moonlighting as a fractional events manager for B2B SaaS companies. Book a call with me and I’ll teach your company how to do it!

Toronto Event Organizers I Track For This Newsletter
RI.Events, TechTO, FuckupNights Toronto, Aceocial, Founders Poker, TodoToronto, TorontoEventHub, Ryan Wong, Daivik Goel, Godwin Chan, Bitcoin Bay / Solana Toronto.

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