On March 23rd, five members of our wedding Planning & Design team headed down to Palm Springs for ALT Summit’s 10 year anniversary conference, ALT Oasis. As this was such an important trip for The Good Party team, we have put together a wrap-up complete with some of our favourite photos from the week!
What is ALT Summit?
ALT is a multi-day conference for creative women in business and this year’s conference brought together 2000+ attendees from across North America and around the world for six jam packed days of workshops, demonstrations, lectures, gatherings, meet-ups, inspiration, and general fun and connection with other creative entrepreneurs!
Why did our team attend ALT Summit?
Attending ALT Summit has been a bucket-list item for several members of our team for many years and last July, when conference tickets went on sale, we jumped at the chance to grab a spot for ALT Oasis 2019.
While we wished all of our team members could have attended, we were lucky enough to be able to have four members of our planning team attend (Camille, Dakota, Dana, and myself, Emma) plus Kody, our stationery + graphic designer. We also dragged along two of our fellow Vancouver Island wedding community members to join the fun: Lindsay from Four Frames Photo Booth and Laura of Schur to Please Boutique Cakery. Laura had attended ALT previously in Salt Lake City but this was the first time attending the conference for the rest of us!
The significance of ALT Summit for our team!
ALT is not a wedding or event planning conference so it’s challenging to explain the significance of this conference in our creative community and what attending it meant to each member of our team, but I think the way I explained it to my husband, Ryan, sums it up the best. When he asked what exactly the conference meant to us (mostly because I was over the top excited for several months leading up to the trip!), I explained that ALT is basically like seeing ALL of your favourite concerts, back-to-back, and then getting a backstage pass to actually meet and chat with all of those favourite singers, bands, etc. – but not just for one night – for an entire week!
At ALT, most everyone who speaks and leads workshops at the conference also attends, so you have this incredible opportunity not only to attend workshops and lectures led by women in business who you truly admire, but also to meet them and all the other attendees and to share ideas, inspiration, challenges, and build relationships with other awesome creative entrepreneurs from around the world.
Just a few creative women whose workshops and talks our team attended who are truly rocking it!
Alison Faulkner of The Alison Show
Amanda Perna of The House of Perna
Brittany Jepsen of The House that Lars Built
Darcy Miller of Darcy Miller Designs
Emma Chapman & Elise Larson of A Beautiful Mess
Joanna Gaines of Magnolia
Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day! and The Color Factory
Joy Cho of Oh Joy!
Wedding planners, designers, florists, etc. at ALT!
I mentioned above that ALT Summit isn’t a conference for wedding planners and designers, however, because the conference draws creative entrepreneurs from so many walks of life, it also draws many planners, designers, florists, stationery artists, DIY bloggers, etc. from the wedding world! One of our favourite parts of the week was having the opportunity to connect with other wedding professionals from around the world, many of whom we are connected with already via Instagram and other collaborative opportunities like blogs and magazines.
Sunday evening we joined many of the wedding industry women attending the conference for a meet-up that allowed us to connect with those other professionals before things really even had kicked off! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to spend some serious time over the week with our friends, Erika and Laura from Rocky Mountain Bride, as well as connect with women we admire like Aleisha McCormack of the Bridechillia podcast and Leah Weinberg of Color Pop Events based in New York.
A week in Palm Springs wasn’t too bad either!
ALT Oasis was ALT Summit’s biggest conference yet, and the 6 days of programming was split up between four of Palm Springs most well known hotels; the Parker, the Ace Hotel, the Saguaro, and the Riviera.
While many of the ALT attendees choose to stay at the conference’s partner hotels, we realized pretty quickly that for a group of our size, renting a house was likely the best way to go and I stumbled upon a beautiful mid-century modern home right in the heart of Palm Springs early in the planning process. The location was perfect as we were a five minute bike ride from the Saguaro and Ace hotels and a quick 10 minute ride from downtown.
Being planners, we had everything set up before we even walked in the door and within 2 hours of arriving at the property, Bike Palm Springs showed up with a delivery of very colourful bikes (with baskets, of course!) and then our pool floaties (and pump!) started rolling in via Amazon!
While the conference was incredible, from my own perspective, the week of time spent with our team was invaluable. We had time to brainstorm, time to plan, time to reconnect, time to re-energize, and, most importantly, time to celebrate as a team where the last couple of years have taken us and look ahead to all the exciting things to come!
If you are thinking about attending ALT Summit, don’t hesitate to reach out to any of us! We’d love to share more about our experience with you.
Until next time!
Emma
