The classroom falls silent as Selena Gomez leans in, creating an intimate second with a highschool pupil. It’s not a typical movie star look however a fastidiously designed occasion that transforms a easy house into a robust platform for psychological well being consciousness. That is the magic of Hallie Seltzer’s occasion manufacturing—the place each element is intentional, each second purposeful.
When Google.org dedicated $10 million to increasing psychological well being assets for younger individuals, they didn’t simply need an announcement. They wished an expertise that would actually join. Working with Seltzer’s Pinpoint Productions, they created an occasion past the everyday press convention. College students created imaginative and prescient boards, engaged in significant conversations and watched as their experiences had been validated by a worldwide pop star and California’s management.
“It simply was a type of occasions the place you could possibly see the lights turning on within the eyes of the children, the lecturers and the room,” Seltzer recollects.
The place most occasion producers see a room, Seltzer sees potential for transformation. This elementary distinction has been the driving power behind Pinpoint, the groundbreaking occasion design firm rewriting the foundations of company and nonprofit gatherings.
Closing the business hole
A decade into her profession, Seltzer was fed up with the occasion business’s cookie-cutter strategy. Whereas different companies centered on artistic execution and technical precision, she craved one thing deeper—occasions that had been actually significant.
“Occasions are extra than simply logistics and aesthetics,” Seltzer says. “They’re about making which means.” Her frustration fueled her motivation. At 29, with almost 10 years of expertise producing huge activations for manufacturers like Financial institution of America and Samsung, she noticed a vital hole. Most companies had been merely executing duties. She wished to create experiences that would shift views and encourage motion.
Pinpoint Productions launched not from a meticulously crafted marketing strategy however from an surprising alternative. A shopper who wished to work with Seltzer requested if she had an organization—and in that second, she determined she did.
Past generic occasions
Her strategy was revolutionary in an business usually centered on spectacle. Seltzer wished each occasion to have a objective, to be designed particularly for the neighborhood it served. Whether or not launching a product or internet hosting a convention, her staff would ask: “Who’s within the room? What context issues? What deeper connection can we create?”
This wasn’t simply occasion planning—it was storytelling via shared experiences. Her strategy reached new heights with one other Google.org challenge supporting financial alternative. As an alternative of a generic volunteer expertise, Pinpoint Productions designed 9 region-specific occasions with Feeding America. In Mesa, Arizona, the neighborhood wants seemed utterly completely different from these in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By diving deep into native contexts, Pinpoint created volunteer experiences that matter—updating refrigeration, supporting meals infrastructure and connecting “Googlers” straight with neighborhood wants.
Past generic occasions, these are orchestrated moments of significant connection. Whether or not working with tech giants or nonprofit organizations, Seltzer’s staff proves that strategic occasion design can remodel how manufacturers work together with communities.
A management journey of vulnerability
Launching Pinpoint with a “fake-it-’til-you-make-it” perspective, 30-year-old Seltzer recollects her early years as a crash course in management—and survival. “I used to be attempting to continuously handle up and determine issues out as I went,” she says candidly. With early days characterised by relentless work and a reluctance to delegate or automate, Seltzer admits to micromanaging the whole lot, believing that “working her tail off ” was the definition of power. She felt impostor syndrome kick in, which led to burnout and some teary moments.
Then the pandemic examined her management in methods she by no means anticipated. When stay occasions disappeared in a single day, Seltzer made a unprecedented choice. “I finished taking a wage for a couple of yr and a half simply to maintain my staff on,” she recollects. Her staff shrank from 20 to simply three individuals, however her dedication by no means wavered.
Probably the most profound lesson got here via vulnerability. “The staff is form of the whole lot,” she realized. “Corporations are solely as robust as their staff.” Studying to belief her workers, give them house to contribute and lead with empowerment grew to become her biggest transformation.
“You may give clear route whereas permitting house for creativity and collaboration,” Seltzer says. Her revolutionary strategy prolonged past occasion design to elementary enterprise philosophy. As a woman-owned enterprise, Seltzer noticed range not as a checkbox however as a core strategic benefit.
“I really imagine that range in each sense of the phrase is simply sensible enterprise,” she emphasizes. “We’re constructing occasions for everybody. Which means having individuals with completely different backgrounds, identities and life experiences contributing to planning and executing occasions to make them actually genuine.” This dedication means deliberately constructing a staff (now again to about 20 workers) that displays the communities her occasions serve. Whether or not working with tech giants like Google or neighborhood organizations like Feeding America, Seltzer understands that significant experiences emerge from numerous views.
The way forward for connection
In a world drowning in digital noise, Seltzer sees stay occasions as a lifeline of human connection. “Individuals don’t simply need info,” she argues. “They need to really feel one thing. And once they do, they keep in mind it.”
The way forward for occasions, in response to Seltzer, isn’t about grand spectacles however intentional experiences. “We’ve been seeing that greater corporations are leaning extra into smaller-impact occasions,” she explains. Her imaginative and prescient goes past intimate gatherings—it embraces technological innovation.
Synthetic intelligence, she believes, shall be transformative. “AI goes to assist us with effectivity, price range administration and producing concepts,” Seltzer notes. However expertise gained’t change human creativity—it can improve it. “Incorporating new expertise in a wise method and never being terrified of it’s what’s going to maintain us forward.”
Her prediction is obvious: Occasions will turn into extra strategic, extra significant and extra technologically built-in. However the core stays unchanged—creating moments that genuinely join individuals. Seltzer factors out, “Dwell occasions break the noise as a result of human connections actually are extra necessary than something.”
Management knowledge
For Seltzer, management boils down to at least one important reality: “Authenticity is the whole lot.” Her strongest recommendation cuts to the center of real management: “The most effective leaders set excessive expectations with out making individuals really feel small.”
In a world of fixed noise and stress, she believes true management includes navigating challenges “with a way of calm and care and perspective.” Her closing knowledge resonates with simplicity: “You may be considerate and constructive with out dropping kindness.”
This could function the blueprint for creating not simply profitable occasions however significant human experiences.
This text initially appeared within the September/October 2025 difficulty of SUCCESS© journal. Picture courtesy of Pinpoint Productions.