In this 12‑minute vlog, entrepreneur and YouTube creator Evan Carmichael gives viewers an insider’s look at the 2016 Sage Summit in Chicago. He documents his arrival, backstage moments, and the massive scale of the convention center, noting the presence of 15,000 attendees and high‑profile figures like Stephen Kelly and Sir Richard Branson. Evan walks through practical logistics—sign‑in, badge collection, charging his phone, and finding food—while interacting with Sage staff (Drew, head of social media, and Andreas, a business executive). He shares his schedule, preparing for a 12:30 pm session on Raising Capital, and later reflects on the session’s success and the extended Q&A that followed. Throughout the day he meets fans (Rosa, Tracy, Itzy) who discuss their own ventures, and he records behind‑the‑scenes footage for his YouTube channel. The vlog also captures his post‑session activities: filming, responding to emails and social media, a dinner with Sage executives at a Chicago steakhouse, and his thoughts on walking versus taking transit. The narrative blends conference logistics, networking with industry leaders, audience engagement, and Evan’s personal productivity routine, illustrating his commitment to helping entrepreneurs while maintaining his content‑creation workflow.
Chapters
I can't do that. I can't do that to you guys. So I'm in line backstage to see Branson. 15,000 people. Gonna be crazy! So I realized I'm in the wrong time zone. I got here a little too early for my presentation. But we need food! We need food! Let's get food! 日本の大会、日本の大会。Alright, just got to the convention center. Have to go sign in, get my badge. So happy last night that Baby did not wake up. Had a pretty solid sleep, much better than I expected, so I'm happy about that. Woke up just a couple minutes before my alarm. So this apparently is the largest convention center in the world. Which is pretty impressive. So I'm gonna go get my badge and then excited to see Stephen Kelly and Richard Branson. Let's do it! I'm here in the room, super jazzed. Huge room, let's do a 360. Look at this, look at this, look at that. 15,000 people, gonna be crazy! They just gave me a mobile phone charger in case my phone dies, I got something here to charge it up. Thanks to this man, Drew, right there, head of social media for Sage. This is Andreas. Hi guys, he is executive, executive to Stephen Kelly? Business executive. Business executive to Stephen Kelly. Eleven, the man here is a visionary, serving a visionary, a visionary serving another visionary. So I'm in line backstage to see Branson, but they told me I'm not allowed to bring the camera in, so some strict contract that they have with him to speak here, so I gotta leave the camera outside. I'm going to go in and snap some shots with our B. A warm welcome to Sage Summit 2016. At Sage, it's great to have you here. We're so passionate about the power of entrepreneurs. You are the engine of the economy. You are our heroes. Got the head out. My session's starting. Haven't even done a tech check. Gotta get something to eat. And go to the bathroom. So here we go, rush, rush, rush, rush. So I realized I'm in the wrong time zone. I got here a little too early for my presentation. So I got a little more time to do my stuff. So, first one is at 11:15. And mine's at 12:30, Raising Capital. So I still got time. See, my phone Let me show you. It says 12:03, so I'm supposed to be here half an hour early to get ready and set up. So I'm like rushing to get out. But I actually have a little bit of time to explore, get some food. People are pouring in. Session just finished. It's time to get some food and to get ready to do some presentation. Fan of the channel. Hi! What's your name? Rosa. Yep, Rosalina Moza is my actress name. Act— team name. What do you do? Ah, well, what don't I do? So I create jewelry. Nice, is that yours? Yeah, I create all this jewelry. So I do high-end malas. This is a giho. Look at that. Yeah, so it's for the fashion-conscious but also spiritual-conscious woman. Okay, so no guys? Come on, where's the guy stuff? I can do the guys version too, but I'm also an actress. Okay, so Chicago, relocated to LA, and I used to do marketing for engineering. What don't you do, right? Basically, what don't you do? Just put your mind to it, you will do it. We got another fan. Hey, Tracy! Tracy, what do you do? I have my own health and wellness company. Nice, I like it. I help people, men and women, get beautiful inside and out. You like it? Yeah. My name is Itzy Carmichael, and we just saw Evan, I think, a few weeks ago. Amazing guy, authentic, sincere. I mean, as a speaker, I mean, you don't find a lot of authentic speakers. A lot of them, if you go behind the scenes in the green room, a lot of them are scammers. I think Evan is a real one, so check it out. I gotta bring you with me everywhere, man. That was flawless. I'm Evan's new manager. But we need food! We need food! Let's get food! So there's a ton of different food options here. We got the Italian station, American station down there, more American station. This is all food. It's crazy. We gotta eat. Alright, had a great lunch, good conversation, belly's full of food, and I'm ready to go hit the stage at the right time. This time. Super excited to be here. Sage Summit, my second time here. Today talking about raising capital. Okay, so I'm done my session. I ended up talking to people for an hour and 15 minutes afterwards and basically ran over the entire— the other guy's entire session. He kept having to move me over and over and over and over more because of people that wanted to chat, which is super flattering, awesome. A bunch of fans that already knew about me and got to meet for the first time, which is awesome, and a bunch of new people who had never heard of me before and are now gonna check out the channel. Always such a high to be able to meet fans and to meet entrepreneurs and save them time and help them and know that they're gonna like take that knowledge and go and drive it into their business. Always just makes me come alive and super excited for Thursday when I'm gonna be talking about marketing. And, uh, yeah, can't wait to do it. So pumped, so pumped. Always such a rush, man. Helping entrepreneurs is the biggest rush in the world. Ah, so pumped. I found the plug, a power bar that could plug my camera into and my computer. So I'm gonna do some filming for the channel. What's up? It's actually hard here because everything is covered up. It's hard to actually get access. So I'm gonna get my laptop out and start recording for the channel. Live from Sage Summit. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe. Alright, just finished filming my videos. So far round 1, I'm gonna have to do this in 2 shots. A bunch of background noise and had to leave to go to a different location, but getting there, getting there, getting there. It's what, 5 o'clock now? I'm gonna head back to the hotel. Check in on Nina, see how she's doing, answer some email, do some tweets, watch some videos because I need to review those for you guys so that we keep the schedule up. Otherwise you'll freak out. What happened? A week and no videos? Can't do that. Can't do that to you guys. And then I have a meeting at 8 o'clock, dinner with some of the social media guys here at Sage. It should be some fun times, and I'll keep you posted. I love it when they have Wi-Fi on buses. Send some messages to Nina, check in on email. Not just killing time, but stuff to do. Beautiful day here in Chicago. Really feeling it, but I gotta get inside the hotel. Uh, Christina messaged me that I need to check in on some videos urgently so she can get editing on them so that you guys have something to watch. So, uh, that's what I'm gonna do for the next 2 hours and then head off to dinner. Alright, had a good session. Got a little bit of work done, not as much as I would have wanted. I'm so passed out. I'm tired. Today took a lot out of me. But whatever, you know, I needed the nap, I guess. So now I'm heading out to dinner with the— I forget the official titles— Executive Vice President of Marketing for Sage. Basically the number 3 guy at Sage. And some other people, some of the other influencers. We're going to a steakhouse. And I want to walk it as much as possible. When I get a city, I'd much rather walk than take the bus or take the subway or take a cab. Sometimes it's not always doable. Sometimes it's just too far. Sometimes you're in a rush. Sometimes it's raining. Sometimes it's too hot. But a beautiful night like this, I just like seeing the city, experiencing the vibe on foot. Maybe it's my thing. I don't know. When you travel, do you rather walk or subway? So it means it takes a little extra time to get there, but I don't know. I like the experience. So time to walk Chicago and then get some steak. I just got stopped on the street by Paulo. Paulo, what's up, man? Hey, man, just wanna say you're amazing. Thank you so much for all the videos. You know, you inspire me every single day, so I have to stop by and say hello. Love it. What's the business? What do you do? So I'm building a messaging app for sports. Okay. Where people can talk about life events. Okay. And we are almost like 1 million users, and I'd love to share with you, you know, if you wanna take a look and see, because you have a great vision for what success is and entrepreneurship. Sure, man. You know, hit me up, send me an email. You can find me on my website, has my email. Cheers, man. Okay, cheers, bro. All right, this is the place, Gene and Giorgetti, Chicago's finest since 1941. Here's our team, Canada in the house. Canada in the house. All right, most of our table is here having a chat. Yeah. You guys are interrupting my session here. I'm starting off with a Chicago-based IPA. Super excited to give that a shot. Then I'm going to try some T-bone. We'll see how it goes. This steak is bigger than your head. There's no way he's going to eat that. There's just no way. I'm going to send it to Drew, man. Drew, did you finish your steak? I finished 95% of my steak. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. I'm tapping I can't handle this ginormous steak. Alright, we were the last ones in the restaurant. What time is it? What time is it? It's like 11. It's 11, yeah. I feel like it's 11. It's 11. I feel like it's 11. We gotta wake up. 11:15, Drew tries us. We gotta wake up. When do we gotta wake up tomorrow? We have to be back at the conference at 9:30 tomorrow morning for the keynote. Oh wait, no. That's not that bad actually. 9:30 is not that bad. Not that bad, right? We gotta wake up and get going. We get up at 9 for Gwyneth Paltrow and Zooey Deschanel. We're gonna cram how many people into an Uber? 5. I'm gonna try to get in. They feel like I'm— they feel like I'm small. Apparently I go for small. I go for small. He's got his flat shoes on. I'm 6-foot skinny, so they feel like— you've got these— got the flat shoes, right? Still taller. So we're gonna take an Uber back to the hotel, and then, uh, I still got— I still got work to do. I gotta transfer this. I gotta tweet. Yeah, I have to do an Instagram Instagram and a tweet. Listen, I'm here to work, okay? This isn't just social. I hear you, man. We're here to work. Here to work. Impact, impact. I'm number 2 to Richard Branson. I gotta change that. Apparently that's what he told me. We're having a fun time at Sage Summit Chicago. Our Uber's here. We're gonna cram in. I feel like I should get in first. Make sure I get my spot. We don't have Uber in Vancouver. Yeah. It's very cool. Vancouver's a little behind. Oh, come on. It is. I get lots of legroom in the front seat. Okay, we're driving back. We're safe. We're safe.
