About Upside
Our objective is simple: Be the best vendor you have ever worked with.
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We exist because we have lived the frustrations of event planners first-hand and decided to offer a solution.
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Whether managing high-end incentive trips across the globe or supporting small meetings locally—we saw the same problem everywhere: vendors are either overpriced, deliver unremarkable experiences, or are simply difficult to work with.
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Upside was built with the sole mission of providing a genuine solution and check all three boxes on every single project, because planners shouldn't have to compromise on exceptional creativity, fair value, and an easy planning process.
How we do it
Upside melds the highest corporate Standards with unparalleled creative assets. This gives us a unique ability to either execute amazing pre-designed experiences OR bring your personal vision and ideas to life.
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As an official partner of Make Salt Lake, we have access to a rich community of wildly talented artists, makers, and creative visionaries. When that creative brain-trust is combined with more than a decade of corporate planning and management, the results are sensational.
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Our story
James Gagnon has straddled the line between creativity and operational efficiency for most of his life. With parents being successful artists and investment agency owners, you get lots of inspiration for both.
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His love of theater, sports and analytics always seemed contradictory until discovering the world of corporate event management in 2012.
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As his career advanced he saw the industry from just about every angle: Hotel banquets, DMC operations, freelance planning, onsite management and business management.
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At every level he found the same pain-point: A serious shortage of Low-Friction / High-Impact vendor partners.
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In 2024, Upside Event Management was created with the goal to become the vendor partner everyone wanted but seldom found.
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Upside is a carefully designed and strategically aligned organization with a simple goal: to be exceptional.
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With a background spaning everything from front-line hospitality to corporate business operations, we understand the exact precision, reliability, and service levels needed to exceed expectations.
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We’ve walked a mile in your shoes, it's time to upgrade so you can dance.
Meet The Team
James Gagnon
Founder - Manager
Andrew Charbonneau
Creative Partnerships
Michelle Swartz
Operations & strategy
Ian Brantley
Onsite Staffing