If you have a vegan business, you have found your tribe

Hello and welcome to episode sixty-five of The Vegan Business Tribe Podcast with myself David Pannell, co-founder of Vegan Business Tribe. And if you have a vegan business, or are thinking of starting one, then Vegan Business Tribe is here to support and inspire you not just to build a vegan business, but to build a SUCCESSFUL vegan business.

Now, this episode is a little bit different because instead of me going on about a topic for half an hour like we usually do, I’m devoting this episode to probably the biggest announcement we’re going to make this year.

Because we’ve got so many amazing things going on at Vegan Business Tribe right now – and that’s partly because we’ve had so many new members joining us over these last few months and that’s allowing us to really start thinking a lot bigger than we could before. So if up until now you’ve been a lurker, which is how one of our new members described herself when she finally joined us last month, so if you listen to this podcast every week but you haven’t yet properly engaged and got involved with the community, then head over to veganbusinesstribe.com and click on the join button on the homepage. You will get so much value from being part of a larger community of vegan businesses, you will get access to all our online member events, our archive of content on the website to help you grow a successful vegan business and also get to link up with all our members and myself and Lisa in the Community Hub if you have any questions or need any support at. We WANT your business to be successful because you are on the same mission that we are. If we’re going to move the vegan scene forwards, then we need to skill-up vegan businesses to start making a real impact and we’ll have that bigger impact together. I want YOUR vegan business to make a far bigger impact, it’s why we started Vegan Business Tribe.

Now, we already had some big plans for 2022 but a few weeks ago on the podcast I gave a little teaser that you were going to have the opportunity to join us at a live event this year. And WELL – I am now pleased to announce it here first that this year you will be able to join us at Tribe Live at the London Olympia on the 12th and 13th of November for a full weekend of LIVE, IN-PERSON, Vegan Business Tribe. Now, this is huge for us, but we’re also going to make it huge for all our members as well. And although November might seem like a long way off just now in February when I’m recording this, there is SOOO much that we want to pack into those two days and make it one of the biggest and best events supporting and celebrating vegan business.

There’s going to be a lot more announcements over the coming months about who we’ll have as guest speakers and what sessions we’ll be running at Tribe Live, but I want to tell you what you can expect to make sure that you get the date in your diary and also so you know how YOU can get involved.

So, first just to repeat that date again – Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th of November 2022 (get it blocked out in your calendar now!) at the London Olympia here in the UK. And for those of you who are not in the UK then, well, you’ve got plenty of time to get your plane tickets booked, but we’re going to be looking into how much of the event we can put online also so that you can still join in remotely.

You might have heard of the London Olympia before because the Olympia is also home of VegfestUK, the biggest vegan consumer expo in the UK. And in many ways, this is a double-announcement, because I can also announce that Tribe Live will actually be PART of VegfestUK’s splendid return to the Olympia after a two-year hiatus. If you’re a long-term listener then you will know what big supporters Lisa and I are of Vegfest and they were hit really hard by the pandemic. Before covid, Vegfest was the largest vegan consumer show in the UK with tens of thousands of visitors and up to 400 exhibitors – and when the pandemic absolutely shut-down the events industry for two years, Tim Barford was absolutely resolute that he was going to keep both the brand and the platform alive so they could keep promoting the vegan industry. And he’s done that, with a lot of belt-tightening, and a lot of hard decisions along the way, they took Vegfest online, they launched two excellent digital magazines, and they just found a way to keep going.

And we’re now looking at the result of all their hard work as we’re coming out of the other side of the pandemic and we couldn’t turn down the chance to be part of their glorious return – and so Tribe Live will be part of VegfestUK with our own stage, a Vegan Business Village and a full weekend of seminars, talks, panel discussions and more – all nestled within the main Vegfest Expo. And a special shout out to both Tim and Pete Metcalf working behind the scenes for making this happen.

So what does all this mean for you – well, the biggest thing for our members is that VBT Village that I just mentioned and the chance to be part of it. As part of Tribe Live, we’re going to have twelve stands that will encircle the Vegan Business Tribe stage – and partly through Vegfest giving us a discount for bulk-buying but also because we’ve had a little bit of a budget to be able to put back into supporting our members, we’ve been able to heavily subsidse the cost of having one of these stands. So normally, a 2 by 2 meter stand at Vegfest would cost you £800 plus VAT for the weekend. But Vegan Business Tribe members will be able to take a stand in our VBT village for just… £500 plus VAT, so that’s a saving of £300 on having a stand at the UK’s biggest and best vegan expo for two days. Now, we’ve only got twelve stands available at this price, so it’s going to be first come first served. They are also reserved for Vegan Business Tribe full members – it’s only because we’ve had such a good year for members joining us that we’ve been able to put money back into subsidising the event, so like always we want to make sure that it’s our members who get the benefit first.

What this means though is that you won’t just be having a stand to promote your company as part of Tribe Live, but you’ll also be promoting your business to the tens of thousands of visitors that Vegfest are expecting over the weekend because both our stage and village are going to be in the main exhibition hall – so it really is going to be a great opportunity. We’ll also be running events every hour on the hour over the entire weekend, so although Vegfest is a consumer show, we’re going to be the business or B2B part of that show and anyone who has a vegan business at the event is definitely going to be heading into our village as part of their visit!

Now if you want one of these stands, just head to the website and go to the Tribe Live 2022 page and you’ll find a button to apply for one of our 12 member stands at that hugely discounted rate. You will be asked to pay a non-returnable deposit direct to VegfestUK to confirm your booking of £200 – but Vegfest are also offering a full covid event cancellation guarantee and you can find out full information about that too on the web page.

So we’re going to have the village showcasing the best of vegan businesses, and we’re going to have the stage and we want to pack this with the most valuable and useful events and speakers that we can find. I want you to be camped-out at the Vegan Business Tribe stage all weekend, refusing to give up your seat because there’s just so much good stuff on the programme. So, I’ll be reaching out to some of the big names in the industry that we’ve become friends with to try and get them on the stage – but basically, if you’re a big name in vegan business and you are planning to be at Vegfest anyway then I want to get you on our stage – but we’re also going to be running some more hands-on sessions. For example, how to better understand the vegan marketplace and consumer, you know the sort of things you’d usually pay a lot of money to go see – and this is where you can really help me out. If there’s something that you would really like us to cover as part of Tribe Live, some workshop or event that you would pretty much come to the event just for that session, then I want you to let me know. Just email us on hello@veganbusinesstribe.com with your idea and I’ll see what we can do!

The other way that you might be able to help us out with the event is that we want to be able to record, share and put as much of the weekend online as we can. Now, I’ve got some of the skills and experience to do that myself, but I’m going to be up on the stage the whole weekend, so if you’ve got expertise in recording live events and you want to get involved on the technical side of making all that happen, then reach out to me also because we’re very much aware that we have a lot of members who won’t be able to get to London and I want to try and capture as much of the event as we can – although like I said, I’m giving you plenty of fair notice to get something organised so if you’ve been planning a trip to the UK then coming to both Tribe Live and Vegfest while you’re here is a really good excuse!

And then finally, as an added bonus to the weekend we’re also looking to organise a live, in-person networking session – not just with our Vegan Business Tribe members but with all the other companies who are also exhibiting at the event which will be a really good opportunity. This is going to be held on the Sunday morning before the show opens at 10.00am – now, I know that anyone with an exhibitor pass will be able to get early access to the hall but I’m also going to see if we can get a special Vegan Business Tribe pass sorted out for our members who are not also exhibiting to come and join us at the networking session before the show opens. Let’s see how good my negotiating skills are shall we?! Watch this space!

So we’re really excited by this and we’ll be making more announcements as we get closer to the show and we want to see as many of our Vegan Business Tribe members there in the flesh as we can because the whole Tribe Live weekend is included in the price of your normal Vegfest ticket. So not only will you get access to our stage and village, you’ll get access to the whole event – so if you want to go try some samples of the latest vegan products, or sit in on some cooking demonstrations, learn more about nutrition or activism or go take a look around the hundreds of stands around the arena then you will be able to really make a weekend of it.

Tickets will be going on sale later this year, and going by previous Vegfests they are likely to be really good value for everything that’s included, but if you are signed up to our mailing list we’ll be keeping you up to date where and when you can get one.

And then just one final thing before I wrap up on this announcement of what is probably the biggest thing we’ve done so far with Vegan Business Tribe, we are also offering some sponsorship opportunities for the event. So, if you’re wanting to get some more visibility and get your company in front of people who have a vegan business then we’ve got two sponsorship levels. The first is to be a principal sponsor where you will get your logo on the stage, you’ll get to put out your leaflets or brochures on the seats all weekend for people coming to watch the events, and you’ll even get to take part in one of the events on the stage yourself! But your logo will also be on all the promotion we do for the event, including the emails we send out and any adverts we run. We’ve even got a potential opportunity to get you a feature in Vegfest’s magazine, Plant-Powered World, as well as a couple of other things as part of the deal. All for £2,000 if you want to really make a difference as a principal sponsor.

But we also want to give you chance to get involved and get some visibility if your company is on a smaller budget too, so we’ve put together a couple of £500 sponsorship packages for the weekend where we’ll include your company on our sponsor’s list at the event, we’ll put your logo on the event page and we’ll even feature you on the Vegan Business Tribe website too. And if you’re interested in being a sponsor at either level, which will really help us push the boat out in terms of what kind of AV equipment we’ll be able to have at the event and how good we’ll be able to make the area look, then take a look at the sponsorship section on the Tribe Live page to get a full run-down on the package and know you’ll be really helping us out.

So that’s it, and as I said a bit of a different podcast episode than we normally put out and I hope I wasn’t getting too self-indulgent with this episode – but I thought this warranted a bit more than just sending an email out and I really want you to get that date in your diary now, Saturday the 12th and Sunday 13th of November 2022 at the London Olympia, so that we can get as many of you there as we can. Because I know that if we got everyone who listens to this podcast at the event, we would pretty much be taking over the venue – and to be honest I would actually love if it felt like that! A big part of what we do at Vegan Business Tribe is championing the Vegan Business Scene and bringing together people who are on the same mission. And I want to show all these thousands of people attending Vegfest that we have a really vibrant and growing VEGAN business scene. It’s not just the non-vegan companies jumping on band wagons, if you have a vegan business then you can use a vegan web design company. You can have a vegan accountant. You can buy amazing, ethical products from companies that were set up on vegan ethics to move the vegan cause forwards. You can reinvest your money in the vegan economy, supporting companies who have the same ethics as you do and are trying to bring about the same cruelty-free world that we all want to see. And we want to collect as many of these companies and people together at Tribe Live as we can to celebrate that.

So, if you want to know more – head over to the website, find the Tribe Live page and register to either take a stand in the village or just to be notified when tickets go on sale, or even to sponsor the event if you’re looking for some more visibility and to be included on all our marketing – and gosh are we going to be marketing this!! And if you’re NOT YET a member of Vegan Business Tribe then now is a brilliant time to join us, we’d really love to have you as part of our journey so that we can help you on yours. Just head over to veganbusinesstribe.com to find out everything you get as a member while knowing that your membership is also helping us to put on things like Tribe Live which we really hope is going to become a yearly event. And maybe next year we’ll have to hire out the hall NEXT to Vegfest to fit everyone in!!

So thank you for listening, and we’ll be back to our normal format next week but as I said we were just too excited about this to simply send out an email announcing it. And I will see you – well hopefully at Tribe Live – but also, I’ll see you on the next one!