As we kick off the New Year, we’re taking the time to celebrate the people behind our award-winning apps in 2017: the Eventbasers. Every day our teams in Vancouver and London work hard to bring our customers’ apps to life, from developers and designers working to build out new features to our sales, delivery and customer success teams, hopelessly devoted to making sure our customers are supported every step of the way.
Vancouver team events
But while our team is working hard to transform our customers’ event app vision into reality, we make sure we take the time to have a good time. We kicked off our internal events calendar in 2017 with our second annual Battle of the Bands, showcasing the extracurricular talents (and “talents”) of our diverse team of tech rockstars. The year continued with a birthday party (we’re 8!), a Sun Run team, a summer water-sports extravaganza and dinner party, Codefest (some participants hard at work above), Eventberg Oktoberfest, a pumpkin carving contest and a Secret Santa gift exchange. To send out the year with a bang, we travelled back in time for our Roaring 20’s holiday party in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown (check out some of the amazing costumes below), complete with prohibition-era cocktails, a Charleston contest and, naturally, an event app with the full itinerary, wayfinding and gamification.
London team events
Our London team kicked off the year with an office move to a dedicated space of our own – complete with a killer rooftop terrace. To celebrate this and our 6th year of EMEA operations, the team enjoyed a night out, Cele6rate, with bowling and dinner. After the heated competition, our EMEA team once again showed their sporting expertise at a minigolf night in London. To wind up the year, the London team celebrated the holidays Canadian-style by taking their competitive spirit to a curling rink, picture below. But not just any curling rink - the team took the sport to to new heights at a rooftop bar in Stratford where the London 2012 Olympic Games took place (yes, we had an app for that).
eventbase-emea-holiday-curling.jpg
Here are a few ways we connected throughout 2017:
Ticket to ride
With access to some of the world’s best and biggest events, it only makes sense for us to share those opportunities with the team that works behind the scenes. The Eventbase Ticket to Ride program gives Eventbasers the opportunity to experience using our app as an attendee, plus travel to some amazing international conferences and events.
“Abby, the in-app chatbot, made SXSW much easier to navigate and I spent less time on my phone and more time experiencing SXSW.” – Justin, Account Manager
This year we saw 34 Eventbasers take a Ticket to Ride, attending events that included SXSW, the Sundance Film Festival, Comic-Con International, IAA, the Consumer Electronics Show, Disney D23 Expo and the New York Film Festival.
My Eventbasiversary
As a way of showing our appreciation to our dedicated team, this year we added additional paid time off rewards for when Eventbasers celebrate key milestones in their career. Known as My Eventbasiversary, our team enjoys a paid day off when they hit their 1st, 5th, 7th or 10th anniversary with us.
Some Eventbasers take the day to kick back and relax at home. Others prefer to hit the road for a long weekend out of town, or take advantage of Vancouver’s spectacular natural beauty with a hike, a day at the beach or a visit to the local slopes. Get to know how our diverse team enjoys their downtime on social with the MyEventbasiversary hashtag.
Eventbase cafe
They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and we’d say that rings true of our Vancouver office too. The man at the helm? Javier, our in-office barista who manages the Eventbase Cafe and keeps the team fueled all morning. Using our internal Eventbase Connect app to place orders, our team can time their morning pick-me-up to be ready on the bar as they’re breezing through the cafe to their desk, but most of us prefer to pause here and connect. It’s not uncommon to find members of different teams mingling here over morning coffee. Wednesday afternoon sees a burst of activity in the kitchen during the extremely-top-secret Eventbase Soup Club. Uhh… soup club? What soup club? We’ve already broken the first rule: don't talk about Soup Club!
Donut time
As our Vancouver office has grown from a small team to 3 floors full of Eventbasers, it can be hard to get to know our colleagues who work in different departments. Enter Donut, a simple Slack integration that has changed the way we connect with our coworkers. The app pairs team members who don’t regularly work together and encourages them to connect over a donut, cup of coffee or lunch.
“Donut Time has been a really easy and effective way to get to know people I don’t work with on a regular basis. It’s a nice way to get out of the office and take a break while still doing something productive.” – Matt, Producer Lead
The result? New connections and friendships, a collection of fantastic donut-selfies, and improved collaboration between departments. By talking to colleagues with a different perspective on our product, we’ve found ways to improve our app and workflow.
Eventbase gives back
Living and working in two of the most beautiful cities in the world, we recognize that we are pretty lucky: that’s why we believe in giving back to the community that we live and work in. Partnering with local organizations like Startups Care, Covenant House BC, Extra Life and the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, we encourage our team to partake in activities like our spin class charity drive, 24-hour game marathon, hot chocolate donation day and a can drive.
It’s been a great 8th year of Eventbaselife, and we’re excited to see what 2018 brings.
