Emcee, producer, author
Sean Specie
I have spent my career on both sides of the fourth wall: in front of live audiences as an emcee and host, and behind the scenes as the producer building the events those audiences came for.
Since 2011 I have helped plan, produce, emcee or DJ more than 700 events in front of over 450,000 people, for nonprofits, schools, universities, public companies, and small local businesses.
700+
events planned, produced, emceed or DJ'd
450,000+
people in those rooms
264
pages on why some of them worked
Why I wrote a book
In March 2020, every event on my calendar disappeared inside about a week. If you work in events, yours probably did too.
I had spent nine years by then planning, producing, and emceeing events, and suddenly there were no rooms to stand in front of. So I started writing, mostly as a hail mary to stay in this business while the business was shut. I did not know if events were coming back.
Losing the rooms turned out to be the only thing that could have made me write it down.
It forced me to put words to what I had only ever done on instinct. Why some moments land and most do not. Why the events people still talk about years later are almost never the expensive ones. Why an audience gives you their attention, and what makes them take it back.
Then events came back, I got busy, and the manuscript sat in a folder.
It is finished now.
Shatter the Fourth Wall
Simple steps to plan memorable events and engage your audience.
In theater, the fourth wall is the invisible plane between the performers and the audience, and everyone agrees to stay on their own side. That works on a stage. It is quietly killing events.
The wall itself is not the problem. You need it. The problem is that almost nobody plans the moments that break it. The book is the system for planning them.
What I build
Pulling off a great event means tracking a hundred moving details, and without a system built for it they scatter across notes, spreadsheets, and a dozen apps. I have planned over 700 events, and every tool I tried said "sure, you can use it for events" but none were actually built for one.
So I built Ripluo: one place for every event detail, timelines, checklists, and tasks, easy to find and ready to use.
The book teaches you how to plan events. Ripluo gives you the tools to implement them.
Hiring me for an event
I emcee and produce events for organizations that want their people to leave with something more than a lanyard. If you are planning something and would like help, I would love to hear about it: sean@ripluo.com.
I hold a degree in elementary education from the University of Central Florida, which turns out to be excellent preparation for holding the attention of a room full of adults. I live in Jacksonville, Florida, with my wife and our two kids.