Daniel Davisson is the Founder & Executive Director for Arizona’s original & largest Vegan Food Festival. Started in 2015 as an off the cuff-idea, Davisson and his team created Arizona’s 1st fully vegan festival in a matter of 3 short months. Since then, the festival has grown in popularity and in size. After outgrowing its first venue in two short consecutive years, the festival is now situated in downtown Phoenix‘s oversized Margaret T. Hance Park., home to the most famous & popular music & food festivals annually. Each year the festival has grown in size and adds another thousand visitors per year. The 2020 festival had over 6,000 guests in an all-day into night experience.
The festival was included as #4 on the top 13 list of International Vegan Festivals (https://www.livekindly.co/13-
How long has your company been producing events? What is your main focus?
We have been producing Vegan & Earth-conscious related events for over 5 years. Our main focus is the creation & execution of Arizona’s original and largest fully vegan festival, The PHX Vegan Food Festival. Our festival features over 100 vegan vendors including food trucks, artisan beverage vendors, products & arts and craft vendors. All fully vegan!
We also showcase 2 stages of live & local music rotating all day and into the night. Our VIP area offers those guests with some awesome perks such as massages, free alcohol & food tastings, swag bag with over $150 in products and savings, personalized experiences & more. Our community event is one of Arizona’s best festivals and the vibe is Welcoming and personalized to each guest.
Do you have any advice for a company having a hard time choosing a theme? Is a theme necessary?
When choosing a theme, do not get too overwhelmed with having to pick a certain topic or tangible theme. Sometimes you can find inspirations, phrases, locations, or feelings to help create a theme. Generally speaking when creating a theme, always talk with your client and gauge what they want. You may have some great underwater eco-idea, however, perhaps the client wants it to be a forest eco-idea.
Although you have to have general ideas and focus on what you want, you have to be open to taking your clients’ ideas and interpreting them in an eye-pleasing and cost-effective manner.
What are some ways to personalize a corporate event?
Some good ways we like to personalize our events are to make sure our logo is well represented at the event. Whether that be on signage & banners located throughout the event, or on lanyards & staff badges. It is always good to have repetitive artwork on your event grounds.
We also always play into our color branding & color psychology. By using certain colors to remind guests about our brand and certain ways color triggers various actions. Such as driving sales in certain areas, or making guests more hungry or thirsty in others.
Sustainability is a current movement that can be challenging for large events. What is your approach?
We pride ourselves on sustainability. Our team is comprised of those that are educated & well versed in sustainable actions. Being a Vegan Events company, we have to make sure we are making smart & eco-conscious choices in all of our events. Sustainability can come in many forms in today’s age, and we are making sure that we include the best practices & initiatives in our largest and most successful event, The PHX Vegan Food Festival. We work with many local groups & organizations to ensure our techniques are not only sustainable for us, but also for the community we live in and impact.
How do you measure the success of an event?
We measure the success of an event-based around the number of happy guests we interact with, the number of sales our vendors do during an event and the post-event feedback we receive. We love to interact with our guests to make sure they are having a good time as well as to make sure we can receive any direct feedback from those who are experiencing our events first hand. We are always open to their concerns and comments and love to ‘make face’ with them. We also like to ask for people’s opinions in post-event surveys as that helps us to receive some unfiltered perspective as well.
