RALEIGH – Two years after relaunching as a digital broadcast/live events production company, The Special Event Company (TSEC), a long-time Raleigh fixture, says business is booming.

Sally Webb, who founded the company in 1987, said it’s producing a wide range of virtual events. Big-name clients have included SAS, Google, Duke, and Lenovo. It’s also exploring new verticals such as gaming and e-sports, recently producing “Stream Raleigh,” a hybrid event for a local networking group powered by Twitch.

Now, with the return of live events combined with its new digital capacity, TSEC is hiring and on track to have the “best year in its 35-year history.” This year’s projected annual revenue: $8 million in annual revenue, she said.

“The addition of in-house digital production enabled TSEC to not only survive the shutdown, but to offer added value,” Webb told WRAL TechWire.

“[We’ve been] able to both thrive and create new business amidst turmoil in the global events industry.”

Going virtual … The Special Event Company produced “Stream Raleigh,” a hybrid event for a local networking group powered by Twitch.

The Special Event Company’s new digital recording studio

Pandemic pivot

When the pandemic shut down live events in 2020, Webb said she knew she had to pivot quickly.

In less than three months, she sold its newly renovated office headquarters on Glenwood Avenue and set about renovating a new space for a “state-of-the-art” virtual event studio in Apex. Production techs and studio managers were hired; streaming technology, sets and acoustics installed.

“It was a risk. We had no roadmap or history of being a digital communicator,” Webb recalled. “But experience told us it was the right offering.”

The Special Event Company founder Sally Webb

It didn’t come without its challenges. At the start of the pandemic, TSEC initially furloughed 50% of its staff, eventually laying off nearly of a quarter of its workforce. But with a Small Business Administration-backed loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, and the rolling revenue from the new digital studio, Webb said she could keep its core team intact. Eventually, she brought back staff members that wanted to return a year later.

Through it all, Webb focused on the positives. “It enabled us to be the full-service agency model that was in our strategic growth plan, pre-pandemic. It just came a bit sooner than anticipated,” she said.

Today, the team stands with 14 members – just two members shy of its pre-pandemic levels — and she plans to add two producers by the year’s end.

Among its upcoming projects: producing an 800-person, 5-day franchisee conference for a Triangle-based corporation in Florida; and helping the state put together a competitive bid for the 2027 Summer World University Games.

“We have a lot going on both regionally, state-wide and nationally,” she said. “Events are back in force.”