When Covid lockdowns hit Melbourne in 2020, Victor Tran faced what seemed like an impossible choice. His events company had just lost 90% of its contracts overnight. With six employees and mounting uncertainty, the easy path would have been to shut down and wait out the storm. Instead, Victor and his wife made a decision that went against all conventional wisdom – they would keep every single employee, even if it meant personal sacrifice.
“We lost 90% of our contracts overnight due to first lockdown. We’d already signed up the whole year in terms of our event calendar and we were going to have the most successful year,” Victor recalls. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Finding a Way Forward
Rather than accepting defeat, Victor’s team threw themselves into exploring virtual events, well before Zoom became a household name. They started small, creating free community programs to help other struggling Melbourne businesses and artists.
Their first experiment was refreshingly simple – pairing local chefs with comedians who had lost their Melbourne Comedy Festival slots. “We started live streaming and producing a program called Chef versus Comedian,” Victor says. “The chef teaches a comedian how to cook. And the comedian obviously can’t cook, so it was a lot of fun in terms of the jokes.” Starting with just iPhones for filming, the team gradually built their technical capabilities. After producing 16 free community episodes, they had developed enough expertise to start approaching paying clients.
Building Through Crisis
Universities came calling first, desperately seeking ways to keep students engaged during lockdown. The team adapted their chef-and-comedian format, adding students to the mix. Success with these programs led to virtual awards ceremonies and government contracts. By focusing on quality and reliability, they found a unique market position. “We became the company you can plan for both,” Victor explains. “If we have to switch, that’s fine. We can move it all virtual and that can be last minute and we can still deliver it.”
Expanding Through Resilience
The results were remarkable. From a team of six facing potential closure, they doubled to twelve people by late 2021. A year later, they’d grown to over 18 staff members. This growth came not from chasing profits, but from solving real problems for their clients. Their experience during Covid revealed serious gaps in event technology. Existing platforms were clunky and outdated, particularly for in-person events. This led Victor to launch Future Events Lab, developing a more sophisticated event management app.
“The way they operated and the user experience, the UX design and everything with the apps available was quite dated,” Victor notes. Their solution focuses on practical problems – like helping university students find relevant employers at career fairs, or connecting conference attendees with shared interests.
Connecting Globally to Solving Real Problems
What started as a survival strategy has led to international opportunities. Recently, the company ran simultaneous sustainability events in Montreal and Canberra, using their technology to connect participants across continents.
For Victor, this success stems directly from the team’s resilience during those early pandemic days. “This is not just us saying it – it’s actually the team that’s really pushed through the challenging times,” he emphasizes. “I can only lead people who I am able to lead, and these people really allowed us to make sure that we’re not giving up.” Looking ahead, the company continues to focus on meaningful impact. As Victor puts it, they’re “creating a more social, sustainable and inclusive world, one event at a time.”
To learn more about Future Events Lab’s event management solutions, visit their website or check out Victor Tran’s LinkedIn profile.
