Lauren Toncich
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
It's been incredible. I attended SAS 2017 as a student. I had my final interview there. And to see what Turning Point and these events have grown into over the last few years is nothing short of amazing. We started this event four years ago, and now it's over doubled in size.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Thanks to our amazing events team, all of our staff that put in so many hours outside of their normal jobs to make this all happen. And we're excited to welcome 20,000 people this week.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
This will be number seven on Sunday.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Good is never good enough. We always strive to be the best in the business and execute to the highest level. Something that you touched on yesterday and that we really pride ourselves on is our staff is what makes these events happen. So from people walking in to going into each lounge and into the sponsor halls, we have our staff everywhere going above and beyond.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
If someone has a question, you should be taken to their seats. If a speaker needs something from CVS, we're going to go and, you know, go and... you know, kind of like make that happen.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
And we really want that turning point vibe and that turning point standard of excellence to bleed through everything that we do because many people have never been involved, you know, like with our movement or with our org before. And this is their first time coming in.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
And one of the best parts about this job is really all the messages we get afterwards saying, hey, I had never been to a turning point, you know, anything before. And now I'm starting a chapter on my campus. Now I'm running for office. Now I'm having my daughter start a chapter, whatever that looks like next. And we build this movement that we've created today.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
In the case of this last year, we did a lot.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Well, thank you guys. And honestly, it takes the whole team a lot of credit to Charlie and Tyler, who really set the bar for a standard of excellence. Like I said, good is never good enough. It's what can we do better? What can we make better? What can we make a better experience for everyone here?
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
And every year it's a learning opportunity where I have no doubt that the next few days are going to be, you know, absolutely amazing. But we're constantly taking notes on, well, this could have been done a little bit better to make our experience for everyone here better. And we're going to continue to keep on growing.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
The breakout sessions are amazing. There are the trainings and the grassroots trainings, a lot of which are brought to you by Turning Point Action and our sponsoring organizations.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
And this is where attendees really get that smaller, intimate setting and have that grassroots training to really go apply what they learn there into their communities, into their schools, and make that difference in their either campuses, on communities, and go from there.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
My team, including graphic designers, I want to say is 10 total. So huge shout out to our events team. They are the hardest working team in the entire country.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Because we have a high standard and everyone really is bought into the movement and into the impact that we make.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
The difference is they have to pay for those people and we don't.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Yes. And a big part in that, too, is, again, we have an incredible army of full-time staff in other departments that come to these events outside of their normal jobs and are working on registration, on breakouts, on speaker check-in, on ushering. And they set that tone as well to make sure that these events are executed. They spend long days, sleepless nights, but it gets the time.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
It's time when they're over. I think seeing everything come together and seeing the impact that it's making on people, whether it's them meeting new friends as a student and getting inspired to start a chapter and getting that voice that they thought that they were alone on their campus. And then they come and they see thousands of other people and they're like, wow, I'm not by myself.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
I want to be more involved. And I think. One of my favorite parts, too, is just the opening night and seeing all the energy, all the people in here excited to be here and excited to be involved in something bigger than themselves.
The Charlie Kirk Show
The Gang's All Here — Live at AmFest 2024
Quick schedule, at least, that I know of right now. We have our Young Women's Leadership Summit in June. That will be in Dallas. Our Student Action Summit in Tampa. That will be in July. America Fest, obviously, next year here in Phoenix. And I have no doubt that there will be multiple more.