Business After Hours events provide an ideal platform to highlight your company to local business professionals. Held monthly by Chamber member venues, Business After Hours lets you showcase facility tours, products, or service demonstrations and meet attendees directly.
Host venues typically provide food and beverages to their guests during an enjoyable program that features door prizes and announcements.
Networking Opportunities
Business after-hours chamber events provide members with an informal networking setting to meet other business leaders in a casual networking setting. These events serve to showcase local businesses, offer the opportunity to learn about fellow Chamber member’s products and services, as well as make valuable contacts. Chambers typically host various networking events ranging from low-key mixers in coffee shops or breweries to larger business expos with keynote speakers and vendor booths.
Business After Hours events typically occur in a Chamber member facility and feature appetizers, beverages, and door prizes from their host business. There may also be brief presentations by host businesses that highlight key features about their product or service before a representative from the Chamber hosts a door prize ticket drawing and 50/50 raffle draw, with attendees then free to network over the remaining time.
Streamwood Chamber of Commerce has added an exciting twist to the traditional Business After Hours format by hosting an event targeting home-based businesses. Not only is this an effective way of connecting with an otherwise hard-to-reach segment of our community, but the Chamber is demonstrating how working from home can be both productive and fulfilling!
Are You Looking to Expand Chamber of Commerce Networking Activities with an Expo? Consider Hosting a Large-scale Scale Business Expo. Events hosted by Chambers often span one to two days and feature keynote speakers, panels of industry experts, vendors, and other businesses displaying booths to represent themselves and networking opportunities. You can get involved by sponsoring or participating as a vendor at community-wide events in your community. Your Chamber could support an annual Pride parade or Cherry Blossom Festival to attract members out into the streets for networking and public relations opportunities. By expanding the number of networking events offered by your Chamber, more members may become part of your organization; test different occasions to see which works best with your members.
Food & Beverages
Business After Hours provides Chamber members the chance to build valuable connections in an informal setting while enjoying food and drinks provided by one of their fellow chamber members. Another member hosts each month’s event.
Business After Hours provides businesses with an ideal platform to showcase their facilities and products to other Chamber members while networking. Host businesses typically supply all hors d’oeuvres and beverages for this event – in return, they gain ample exposure at the event itself and leading up to it.
While the Chamber will handle all the marketing for Business After Hours, hosting allows businesses to promote upcoming events or special deals within their organization. The Chamber may ask the host business to give a short presentation about themselves and what services or goods they can provide other business owners during this networking event.
An event is an effective way for new businesses to introduce themselves and connect with their local community. As an added benefit, hosting such an event often results in many calls and business card exchanges afterward – this shows their dedication and commitment to their community.
The Chamber also organizes other community events, including its widely attended annual Christmas Parade involving civic organizations and business groups across the county. The parade attracts over 100 entries annually and is one of the area’s premier business-to-business holiday activities.
The Chamber constantly searches for members to host Business After Hours events at their facilities. Becoming a host is easy; enter a lottery system each fall. Once selected as host, they must provide all venue requirements, including food (hors d’oeuvres are also welcome!), promote the event via social media channels such as Facebook, and be prepared to speak briefly about their business at the event itself.
Prizes & Giveaways
Business After Hours is the Chamber’s premier networking experience, allowing members to make valuable new contacts while enjoying food and beverages in an informal setting. Held each month at a different member location, Business After Hours will enable members to showcase their facilities, employees, and products while giving away door prizes – possible only through membership at the Connected ($849) level or higher.
Hotels, retail stores, warehouses, and office spaces all host Business After Hours events, usually on the third Thursday of each month and drawing between 75 and 100 attendees. At these events, businesspeople bring plenty of business cards for networking opportunities, while some even wear formal attire to network during this networking event.
Hosting a Business After Hours means providing appetizers and beverages for attendees, with some hosts opting to put more effort into their event by creating themes or providing unique entertainment – for instance, Orlando Health hosted one at Reunion Village ER where guests were treated to charcuterie boxes, live saxophone music and drumline performances – it was an enormously successful evening and each guest left with gifts from them!
Food and beverages will usually be provided, while most host companies offer door prizes as part of the event experience. Door prizes and giveaways may range from gift cards to services or products free for attendees who may have never visited before; giving out such giveaways allows attendees to get acquainted with both your company and yourself better.
The Chamber staff will promote your event via social media, the weekly e-bulletin, and the chamber website, and printing information in our quarterly Express magazine.
Your sponsorship level determines your access to additional marketing opportunities at each event, and you could even be listed as one on its flyer, distributed to participants at each gathering.
Fun & Fellowship
Business After Hours Chamber Events provide local business professionals with an opportunity to network and have some informal fun while building relationships in a relaxed setting. Events generally feature food and beverage, networking opportunities, and chances to win prizes and meet potential customers. Held monthly at various locations around their community.
Whoever is looking to host a Business After Hours should contact the Chamber. Hosting such an event provides your company with a great marketing opportunity that will showcase its facilities, employees, and products – plus promotional opportunities through social media, website, and newsletter promotion! Plus, the Chamber provides high-resolution logos so the host can promote it effectively!
Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce hosts Business After Hours monthly at different member businesses. This networking event is open to all Chamber members, their guests, and first-time prospective members; light appetizers and beverages will be provided. If you would like to host one yourself, please reach out to us or check our Calendar of Events for details.
Business After Hours provides an ideal platform to introduce your company and staff members to fellow Chamber members in an informal, relaxed setting. Attendees of this event are encouraged to discuss products/services offered, ask any related questions, and network with other businesspeople present.
Monthly networking events hosted at various business locations around the Island feature captivating conversation, complimentary beverages (provided by Eleven Winery as the event’s 2023 principal sponsor), and delicious appetizers – all for free and open to all members.
Guests are encouraged to bring business cards and can network freely. Hosts of each event will be recognized for their efforts at the event and allowed to introduce their business before activities conclude at 7 pm.
Attendees interested in this event should dress professionally and bring plenty of business cards. Inviting friends, colleagues, and clients is also encouraged.
