It was Friday the 13th of August and gappers were showing their true colors at gapCon 2021, aka gapCon X.
It had been over 2 years since gap intelligence hosted gapCon, its most valuable day of the year, and gappers were seriously in need of some in person connection, as well as some good old-fashioned competition. gappers are well-known to be a competitive bunch, but on this day, they reached a whole new level.
The day started calmly enough. Our official gapCon emcee Dustin Downs (it was his 6th time hosting) kicked off the day while gappers settled in with coffee, bagels, and of course, some mimosas. This may have been where the trouble began…
Being on the gapCon Games Committee along with Scott Peterson and Lisa Brown, I had the pleasure of introducing our first on-going game of the day: Bingo. It was initially the fear of the committee that we may not have a Bingo winner by the time we started our final event of the day, but this ended up being a completely ludicrous concern as there was a Bingo winner within about 20 minutes (shoutout to Val!)…
In fact we rushed through so many bingos before our keynote speaker had even finished that we decided to implement Bingo ‘Blackout Protocol’, which we could only hope would slow things down.
gapCon’s keynote speaker was Penny Zenker, a motivational speaker and business strategy coach. She led us through an exercise of trying to connect a series of dots using only one line where your pen never leaves the paper. Only one gapper did this successfully in the time allotted, Val again (we get it Val, you’re very talented), while the rest of us scratched our heads in defeat.
Clearly, we weren’t ready for this brain teaser (maybe we needed more coffee? Or mimosas?), but Penny used the exercise to illustrate that sometimes as a company we must think outside the box to work through new challenges and to better help clients. Message received!
Then it was time for a highly anticipated event: gap’s Got Talent! The gapCon committee had asked gappers to volunteer to show us their talents, and gappers did not disappoint. Whether this was due to a generous cash prize for the top 3 winners or due to gappers just wanting to strut their stuff is still up for debate.
All kinds of talents were performed, including musical performances, dance routines, poetry, stand-up comedy, lifting, life hacks, solving a Rubik’s cube, cat tricks, and even a beer chugging contest between some of our most elite chuggers. All the performances were very well received and enough to make even the toughest judge swoon.
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In the end, gappers voted for the musical stylings of both Kristina Dasal and Adrienne Spear (tied for 3rd),
… the beautifully written prose of Soren Frohlich (2nd place),
… and the grand prize winner, Christine Insabella, for bringing the house down with her gapper-specific stand-up comedy routine.
As you can imagine, after gap’s Got Talent, gappers were riled up and in full on party mode.
Just in time for the final event of the day: Trivia
Let it be known, gappers don’t mess around when it comes to Trivia. Even during quarantine gappers participated in weekly virtual Trivia’s and we’ve had it at multiple company events over the last few years. Meaning we are seasoned trivia experts, and take it very seriously.
Knowing expectations would be high, Scott, Lisa, and I put our heads together to come up with challenging gap-related trivia questions that would really put gappers’ brain power to the test. This ended up causing a slew of reactions, ranging from those who got answers correct:
… to the not-so-subtle reactions of those who struggled:
As the Trivia hosts, we reflected carefully on some of the teams’ feedback that certain answers should’ve been counted, and we definitely never lost our cool during said feedback.
When Trivia finally came to a close (surprisingly with no fatalities), we tallied the votes and announced 2 winning teams. Of course, the winning teams took it gracefully while thoroughly acknowledging the other teams’ efforts:
And the teams that didn’t win also showed some great sportsmanship back:
Despite it all, the day ended with toasts, cheers, and thoroughly entertained gappers. gapCon’s mission for our 10th year was to provide connection to gappers both in person and virtually, and it’s safe to assume this was achieved.
…at least until the next competition
See you next year at gapCon 11!
Do you have what it takes to be a gapper? We’re hiring! Head over to Culture and check out available positions.
