Creating a custom annual offsite for Kiva Confections
Creating a custom annual offsite for Kiva Confections
Riley Leight · 3/30/2023
Kiva Confections is one of the largest edibles brands in the U.S., creating delicious, carefully crafted cannabis gummies, chocolates, chews, and mints. Their fully remote team, distributed across the country, recently gathered in California for a fun and refreshing annual offsite with the help of BoomPop’s planning experts.
We spoke to Melissa Henry, Senior Marketing Manager, to learn more about how Kiva Confections keeps their team engaged through unique, connection-oriented events.
“Finding BoomPop was so helpful because all of the work was taken off our plates. Everyone was so surprised at how much was getting done—they kept asking, ‘how can I help?’ Usually, there's a whole event committee, and everyone's in charge of different tasks, but we didn't need that because we had BoomPop helping us.”
The challenges of DIY planning
Once a year, the Growth Team at Kiva Confections gathers for a week of in-person activities. They’re fully remote and distributed across North America, and this critical event is a chance to create connections face-to-face. “The objective for this event was to look back at 2022 and kick off 2023 in a big way, but really just to spend time getting to know each other better and building our team,” Melissa explained.
She started at Kiva Confections in 2022, and her first week was spent attending that year’s event. “My first day on the job was hopping on a plane and flying off to a week-long meeting,” she explained. “At the end of that week, they assigned someone to coordinate next year’s event, and I got picked.”
As the 2023 event approached, Melissa and a teammate devised a plan to divide and conquer on planning. “The big challenge was how to balance planning this week-long meeting for 50+ people and not dropping the ball on the multitude of projects I'm working on. There’s already a lot to juggle in our day-to-day without adding event planning on top of it,” she said. “Having to cold call a bunch of hotels and restaurants, plan meals and activities—I was thinking, how many days of work am I gonna have to give up to do this?”
Planning an event that’s only two days long can require more than 50 hours of dedicated work doing research, outreach, negotiation, communication, and vendor management. For a team that’s already wearing plenty of hats, fitting those hours in can be a daunting task. “Then I stumbled on BoomPop,” Melissa said. After a consultation to review the end-to-end planning services the team could offer, she signed the contract and quickly got started with the planning process.
Custom events without endless research
When planning began, Melissa and her team knew a few key details about their event: when they wanted it to happen, the price range they were aiming for, and the location. “We knew that we wanted it to be in Southern California and have that classic beachy vibe, so that was our vision. But we also knew that beachfront hotels in the LA area start to get really expensive.”
The team also had two main pieces of feedback from 2022’s offsite that they wanted to address: that there was too much time spent traveling to activities and that those with dietary restrictions didn’t feel they had enough options.
BoomPop’s planners kicked off a search and found a hotel in Costa Mesa that fit Kiva’s budget and their vibe, plus it was in close proximity to all the classic beachfront activities that they were looking for. “l got a lot of positive feedback about the hotel,” she said. “I don't think we would've even looked at that hotel if BoomPop hadn’t recommended it to us.”
With the hotel sorted, next came finding dining options that fit the team’s laid-back vibe and could accommodate dietary restrictions without sacrificing variety or quality. “BoomPop did a wonderful job working closely with the restaurants,” she said. “We had six gluten-free attendees, two vegans, and two vegetarians. Multiple people stopped me and said, ‘thank you so much for considering my diet. The food was amazing and I’ve never had the right diet options for me at an event like this before.’”
But customized planning isn’t just about finding the best quality options at the right price, it’s also about aligning events with the unique vision and brand of a team and organization. “We're coming out with a White Russian-flavored chew inspired by The Big Lebowski, so we wanted to go bowling one night to celebrate,” Melissa explained.
The team had a private dinner and then strolled over to a bowling alley that had been booked out for the night. “We had the whole place to ourselves and drank White Russians and chewed some White Russian gummies—everyone was like, that was so cool. It took us a minute to come up with the right idea, but the results were so worth it.”
BoomPop’s focus on addressing the feedback from Kiva’s last event and creatively aligning with their brand helped deliver overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees. “We did a survey to see what people thought of the meeting—about 50% rated it as excellent, and no one answered fair or poor,” she said.
Pivoting on the fly
Although Kiva’s selection and planning process with BoomPop was thorough, events rarely go exactly as planned—and some unusually rainy and windy weather in Southern California threw a wrench into the offsite on the week of.
The crew was planning to go on a whale-watching cruise followed by drinks and team building activities at a beachfront bar, but the weather meant both those plans had to be scrapped. Instead of scrambling to find something new, Melissa and her team were able to proceed with business as usual while their on-site planner handled everything. “I was able to go and participate in a meeting while our planner was locking down an escape room and booking a different bar nearby,” she said. “I came out of the meeting and there was a new plan ready.”
Overall, having the help of an experienced planner allowed the team to sit back and focus on what mattered—connecting with one another. “I felt very calm during the event, which had a lot to do with us having a BoomPop planner on-site to make sure everything was set up and running smoothly,” she said. “That's probably the best decision we made, especially because some of our plans had to be changed at the last minute.”
“Finding BoomPop was so helpful because all of the work was taken off our plates. Everyone was so surprised at how much was getting done—they kept asking, how can I help? Usually, there's a whole event committee, and everyone's in charge of different tasks, but we didn't need that because we had BoomPop helping us.”
Investing in connection
What’s most important for Kiva Confections’ team is using their time together wisely, whether that’s collaborating on the future of their company or simply having meaningful conversations. “I think it's worth it in a big, big way to not have to sacrifice my workload and time to event planning,” Melissa said.
When you’re only meeting in person once or twice a year, connection-building can make an incredible impact on your organization. Getting outside your circle and having face-to-face conversations with a variety of teammates you don’t usually interact with helps create cohesion and new opportunities for collaboration.
With all of the research, logistics, and communication involved in planning handled for them, the Kiva Confections team was able to focus on their critical time together and get excited for the year ahead.
Featured resources
8 Steps for Planning Your Company Retreat
A resource for new organizers on creating fun, productive, and successful corporate events.
