PWC organized visions to reality (V2R) conference for free, at a downtown Toronto location. Corporate conferences are always the best – they spend thousands of dollars to promote their brand name and usually they are always free. It was held in a swanky conference hall in a downtown high rise.
Reception offered free coat check as well, which is a great perk.
Featured speakers like Robin Sharma and a host of successful entrepreneurs gave addresses throughout the afternoon.
Some messages throughout the sessions were:
– Customer loyalty is important for branding → look at United Airways baggage incident and the McDonald ingredients scandal.
– Technology drives customer impact, unsatisfied customers can spread the news quickly online through social media and other means.
– On the topic of social media, don’t take posts for granted: most of the people online are lurkers, only 29% of people actually post content.
The conference concluded around 5pm, followed with a networking session until 9pm in a lounge area. Food and drinks were served nonstop until then!
Spread throughout the lounge was several food stations, including a poutine stand, beef tenderloin station, oysters and cerviche, dessert cart and many others. To top things off, there was additional butler service: the staff walked around serving more food like sushi, ribs, chicken sliders and other goodies.
This was in particular was the poutine stand. Gourmet and made to order, topped with various seasonings.
The second station was roast beef and fried onions, an interesting but delicious paring!
Ahh, the goldmine here is the this station, the seafood stand. There were endless oysters, cerviche, shrimp and various other delectables. Obviously this was the most crowded area, everyone looking to get the best bang for their buck – even though this was a free event.
For desserts, an organic cotton candy station was brought it.
This was another bakery, making some doughnuts topped with chocolate, caramel or vanilla.
And if that all wasn’t enough, there’s even an open bar! 3 of these “bars” were spread throughout the lounge area. Various wines, beers, liquor and mixed drinks were served by the bartenders. The picture below shows a house-made fruity mixed drink – which was very good!
Here are some snapshots of the samples I ate throughout the night, this was from the roast beef and fried onion station.
Seafood Bar…
More seafood, and with a chicken slider kicker.
Single beef rib.
Sushi, which was served from the butler service throughout the night.
This was just one of the tables littered with devoured food – as soon as the waitstaff cleared them, the hungry attendees filled them right back up.
In terms of food quality, this is the by far, the best I’ve attended that was free. I recommend everyone to seek out open corporate conferences for the networking, speakers and not the mention, free food.
This was a pretty cool idea – people were encouraged to write down memorable quotes or ideas they took away throughout the conference, onto this idea wall. There were also hired artists that drew cartoons and artwork around the quotes.
Just a view from the conference building, overlooking Queen and Bay St. in Toronto.
