It’s one big happy Huddle with the team from CCT
The Huddle is a business event designed to help female entrepreneurs build an online presence, navigate the complexities of social media, and get – and stay – inspired.
Behind The Huddle is Jumbled, a well-known online and brick-and-mortar fashion and homeware retailer in Orange (NSW). Jumbled has an impressive 165k followers on Instagram, an extremely active social media profile, and a passion for connecting people.
Thinking big!
Jess Conliffe, Manager and VIP at Jumbled, says The Huddle was born in 2019, when their region was heavily affected by drought. “We found that all these small, one-person businesses were starting to crop up as a response. With farmers’ incomes under pressure, their amazing partners were creating these tiny online businesses that they could run from home to create a second source of income.
“But starting a business like that can be incredibly lonely. You’re working alone, and it can feel like the web is so big, and you’re just a single drop in the middle of the ocean. You don’t know what you’re doing and if you’re doing it right.
“So, we wanted to create an experience that would bring people together physically to talk shop. To give them the encouragement and inspiration they needed and share practical knowledge they could take away and apply to their businesses. So, we came up with the concept of a full-day event called The Huddle, where speakers covered a range of topics – from packaging design to pricing to leveraging the power of social media.
“We also decided that we wanted to add breakout fringe events to extend the event into a weekend of learning and networking and share the tourism impact with our town.”
To turn their concept into reality, the Jumbled team approached CCT Productions and asked if they could help bring The Huddle to life.
The Huddle helpmates
When we talked to the CCT team, we didn’t even know what the event would look like,” says Jess, “just that we were thinking of hosting ‘X’ amount of people for it. But CCT’s experience and enthusiasm really shone – they made great suggestions, advised how the stage and screens should be set up, and even came up with ways to engage our guests during the breaks – so it was all go!”
CCT helped Jumbled run two physical events, setting up everything from sound and lighting, to projecting the speakers onto a large screen above the central stage, and contact details on a second screen, through to providing prompts to speakers on an onstage screen, and a DJ booth with an LED wall.
“They also ran videos before each segment so that our audience had instant background knowledge about each speaker, and what their factory, farm or shop looks like,” says Jess. “The Huddle is a very intense and fully packed day, so the timeline is very tight. CCT made sure that everything ran precisely to schedule. And truly, we couldn’t have done the events without them.”
A pink, bright and colourful virtual success
While planning their next physical Huddle, COVID hit. But undaunted by a pesky pandemic, Jess and the Jumbled team once again looked to CCT for help delivering a virtual, live-streamed version of The Huddle.
“When we couldn’t run our second event in 2020 due to COVID, CCT came to the rescue,” says Jess. “They knew we wanted a really professional, beautiful online event that reflected the energy and atmosphere of our wonderful physical Huddles.
“CCT came up with most of the ideas as to how to run it, how to get people to RSVP, and even how many people to buy the Zoom link for. And they were very responsive when we asked questions or made suggestions. They always made sure we felt like it was our production. They didn’t take over, just supported what we wanted to do, and went above and beyond every expectation we had.”
The virtual Huddle was produced in CCT Productions’ brand-new presentation and live-streaming suite, The Studio, Orange. While the Jumbled team had considered using their own vibrant premises for the virtual event, it presented production challenges that the CCT studio could instantly overcome. “Best of all,” says Jess, “they set it up, so it felt like us! Our brand personality isn’t black and sleek; we’re very pink, bright, and colourful!”
Only expecting 500 registrations for the virtual event, the Jumbled team was delighted with a flood of 1500 signups in just three days.
“The virtual event had pre-recorded segments,” says Jess, but the rest was live. The editing between the music videos and on-the-spot studio and zoom interviews was seamless, just perfect. Everyone loved it,” says Jess. “We ran it as a free event but kept it to 90 minutes, so we didn’t lose attendee attention.”
Let’s get physical (again!)
With the impact of COVID fading, the Jumbled team were ready to celebrate with their second face-to-face Huddle in 2022. And their fans were delighted!
“We had women signing up from all over Australia,” says Jess. “We even had a group from South Australia, who made coming to The Huddle into a shared road trip – and they’d never even met one another before.”
While the first physical Huddle attracted an audience of 350, and the second in-person event was an even bigger hit with over 750 registrations.
The Huddle 2023
While she enjoyed the virtual experience, Jess is looking forward to the high-energy in-person Huddle scheduled for 2023, saying that part of the joy of the live event is dressing up – to the max. Even the CCT team joined in the fun when helping out at the Q&A session for the second Huddle. “We ended up with one of the guys wearing one of my dresses complete with sequins and sparkles and flowers and shapes in about 12 different colours. And the other had my big fluffy purple jacket on with a massive hat,” says a delighted Jess.
The online community and engagement levels for The Huddle are staggering, and the Jumbled team are enthusiastic CCT advocates. “We’ve worked with them for years now,” says Jess. “They’re amazing, and we wouldn’t be able to do The Huddle without them.”
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