Active Events & Community Operations Longer writeup

Event Operations Program

Jan 2024 - Present

VR Villa

Event Operations and Product Lead

Built Event Ops Manager to replace a manual Google Forms and Sheets workflow used during live VR activations, within a 100+ activation program spanning 60+ events per year. Designed the product as an offline-first operations platform for check-in, digital waivers, live player information, and staff coordination, then led it from architecture through production use.

Worth noting

A few things I would call out

  1. Replaced Google Forms and Sheets with structured player records, live metrics, digital waivers, automated game selection for 60+ studios' content, queue/status visibility, and staff coordination — reducing guest check-in from roughly 3–5 minutes to 1–2 minutes.
  2. Removed 1–2 minutes of manual game-selection support and roughly 1 minute of separate waiver-signing friction per user through automation and integrated digital waiver handling.
  3. Reduced 30–60 minutes of post-event data cleanup per event by improving data structure, built on an offline-first architecture that kept operations running when venue connectivity was weak.

01 // What was getting in the way

Live VR events were running on a patchwork of Google Forms, Sheets, and manual staff communication. That made check-in slower, waiver handling harder to track, and event-day visibility too dependent on whoever had the latest spreadsheet open.

02 // What I did

I designed Event Ops Manager as a practical event-floor tool first, not as an abstract admin system.

The build focused on four operating needs:

  1. Offline-first reliability so check-in and staff workflows could keep running when venue connectivity was weak
  2. Digital waiver and player records to reduce duplicate entry and make attendee status easier to verify
  3. Live operations visibility so staff could see active players, queue movement, and event status from one place
  4. Simple staff-facing workflows that matched how volunteers and event staff actually work during a busy show

I owned the product from architecture through production use, balancing technical decisions with event-day usability.

03 // What changed

Delivered a repeatable operating model for VR Villa live events that reduced dependency on manual coordination and whoever had the latest spreadsheet open.

The platform improved:

  • attendee check-in flow and waiver visibility
  • staff awareness during active event operations
  • resilience when venues had inconsistent or unavailable internet access
  • consistency of event-day execution across the team

The system now supports a program of 60+ events per year — within a broader 100+ activation history — with production-used workflows that staff can run without escalating to a single person.

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