Planning the Gathering is exceptionally stressful. I constantly worry about the money. We work very hard to keep prices low and rely on sponsors. We explicitly do not do this to make a profit. This is about connecting my readers and listeners with the thought leaders of the right.
Thanks to Bidenomics, our refusal to charge exorbitant prices and rely instead on sponsors made planning this year’s conference challenging. But so many great groups stepped up to help, most notably Governor Brian Kemp’s Hard Working Americans PAC, which co-hosted the event with us. Governor Kemp’s team was invaluable in helping us get people in the room and on stage.
When it was all said and done, close to 1000 people from 40 states were in the room, with 47 states represented in the total registrations, though some didn’t come. We’ll keep working until all 57 states are in the room.
I could not have done it without Charlie and Philip. I’m so blessed to work with two great friends and do not ever want to do this without them. They make me look good and make it look easy. Charlie did all the heavy lifting on the conference. I just had to show up and sit.
Over two days, I spent roughly sixteen hours conversing with candidates for President, congressmen, senators, governors, and more. We had press from six countries present and got a lot of media attention nationally and locally.
If you’d like to see the interviews, please go to YouTube.com/ewerickson, where they are posted. We will be pulling the audio feed and putting them all in our podcast as well. I’ll review the highlights on today’s radio show. Also, The First made us look really good. Due to bandwidth issues at the hotel, we could not post clips from the conference in real time. The First ran so many clips on their social media and also broadcasted the event in its entirety. God bless them.
Thank you for the prayers, well wishes, and kind words.
Lastly, I want to thank Greg Mueller and his team at CRC Advisors. Greg is a dear, dear friend whose brilliant team has stepped up repeatedly to help us. They’re selfless, extraordinary, and professional. I also need to thank Mavvent and Dan Drennen. I’ve been so blessed to have Dan and his team produce the show and make me look good on stage.
I’m sure I am forgetting someone. Did I mention I am exhausted. I’m actually writing this Sunday evening so I can sleep in Monday morning a bit. I didn’t get to bed until 1 am Sunday morning and was up at 5 am and teaching Sunday School at 10 am (it was a great lesson, by the way).
So now, as you are waking up to read this, I’m sleeping.
I’ll be back on the radio live today nationwide at 12:00 p.m. ET
.
I echo everyone else's comments here. My first time attending from Tennessee. The format was fantastic. In depth discussion with time for policy and personal.
- I've been a fan of Tim Scott, but was really pleased with the depth of knowledge he demonstrated on multiple policy issues. You can't get that in 30 second sound bites.
- Desantis was just a fireball of energy absolutely great
- Agree with comments on Pence. He's never been super energetic, but his messages just seemed stale and outdated, funny insult to Biden notwithstanding
- Nikki Haley was also great and it was interesting to hear her personal story.
- Chris Christie was surprisingly good and he did great in the long format. Natural skill at interacting with both host and audience. A thought I had so the way home: Why do Southerners love Trump and hate Christie? Both loud, brash Northerners in suits.
- Vivek. My first time hearing him. Impressive oratory skill. Great answer to the question: Are you too young? But he lost me completely with his foreign policy which in summary was to abandon Ukraine and ultimately Taiwan as well. I thought his plan to isolate Russia from China by promising Ukraine won't join NATO was borderline delusional.
Other speakers were similarly great. Well done Eric. Hope to see you again next year.
Fantastic job you & your team did in organizing such a thought provoking event. This was my first time attending such a conference & I thoroughly enjoyed listening to each speaker among likeminded people. Thank you.