Channel Strong in Orlando: Seeing familiar faces in The City Beautiful

We’re back on the road for our last week of the Channel Strong: Positive Vibes Tour and we started Week Three of our 7,000-mile journey in sunny Orlando, FL.

We popped up our tailgate event on Monday and, after this whirlwind tour, we’ve got the whole set-up and tear-down routine down to a science. It used to take us a good hour to set up, but now we can get everything ready in 15 minutes and tear down in 10. Talk about operational efficiency!

Our host in Orlando was ION247, who earned major thanks. After rolling into town and getting ourselves set up, we were met with a little liquid sunshine. Thankfully we only lost one tent to the wind and as soon as the rain blew through, ION247 and our Channel Strong team made sure everyone who attended had a great time.

What else would you expect when the theme of our being grateful for the chance to get out and take a little break!

We played a little cornhole and had the best burgers on this tour to date from Cruisin’ Cuisine. Antonio, who owns the food truck, said he’s been hit hard by the pandemic since all events he would normally serve his tasty treats at simply shut down. The good news is he was able to secure some of the small business funding that was issued as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stimulus (CARES) Act and that should be enough to carry him through.

This tour has been focused on connecting with our colleagues in the channel and showing them our support. So it was a huge personal highlight of the Orlando event that I was able to pick up the infamous JZ – Joel Zaidspinner from ChannelPRO – and bring him over to the tailgate.

Joel brought a box of canned goods and a couple of cases of water and hung with us for a while until his wife Janna picked him up to take him home. Thanks, Joel, for the canned goods and the interviews and all your social posts of the events!

Our next stop is Hotlanta ... Atlanta, GA.