We’re on a mission to bring people together.
We’re not just an events firm, we’re a catalyst for the unexpected relationships that will change the world. We design and facilitate overnight group events for clients.
Who We Are
Thanks to our former lives in VC, corporate events, and graphic design, we’re well equipped to tackle the challenges of bringing people together for meaningful engagement. From “what shape should this event take” to “what shape should we make the posters,” we’ll be your full stack design partners, creating powerful throughlines between the physical and programmatic elements of your event.
Aaron Altabet
After 3 years in VC, 4 years in biotech, and 5 years in science education, Aaron finally realized he’s most interested in how people connect with each other in order to change their minds and invent new things. In 2024, he accepted a dare and tried to get 50 people to his first ever unconference, a 4 day event at an oceanography research station that had 105 attendees.
A compulsive bbq host and amateur urban planning critic, he loves logistics, especially when they get people to places with food and friends.
Laura has spent years planning 250+ events and building the communities that make them worth attending, most recently at the 9Zero Climate Innovation Hub and the Good Food Foundation. She’ll make your vision a reality, asking the hard questions along the way and sweating the details so you don't have to.
A home cook and amateur sewist, Laura loves to make things from scratch.
Laura Kirkland
Joe is a designer with a track record of distinctive graphic and video work for startups, nonprofits, and artists. Uninspired by the mass-produced corporate swag that is so common today, he seeks to create valuable artifacts that crystalize the unique identity of an event.
A longtime jazz trumpet player, Joe is all about finding a groove and jamming with like-minded people.
Joe Garlid
What We Do
Design
Interactive physical artifacts: posters, coasters, postcards, business cards, art walls, disposable camera wrappers.
We have our own print shop, so you can get human design beyond Canva’s categories.
Events
Summits, Conferences, Offsites, Reunions: we specialize in multiday group events.
We’ll make a bespoke white label gathering for you and be there to run its operations. You get to socialize at the center while we worry about catering.
We specialize in events with strong physical design components. If you’re looking to move beyond merch and into art-quality artifacts that matter, we’d love to help.
How We Happened
While he was working in VC, Aaron got impatient with the state of events. Why was he seeing the same people at everything? Why was everything a panel and a happy hour, and why weren’t they inspiring actual enduring professional collaborations? And, most importantly, why did his friends who were actively building startups not hang out with his friends who were actively funding startups? So he threw a 4-day, 105-person unconference to see if there was a better way to bring people together, and it went much better than he expected.
Using his backgrounds in both VC and science education, Aaron reverse-engineered his event up from the relationships he wanted it to create, and built out a niche in the Pacific Northwest’s startup, climate tech, and investor scenes. For the second iteration of the event, he hired Joe as graphic designer, and the two hit it off, rethinking conference merch and bringing fish-shaped business cards with custom sardine can carrying cases into the world as a new product category.
Laura, a seasoned events and operations pro from 9Zero and the Good Food Foundation, had attended both unconferences. The three asked what might happen if they combined their skills to tackle the challenge of better events in the age of too-many-panels-and-not-enough-connection. Set up as a collective, Shoal allows clients to tap into all three of their skillsets for more comprehensively-designed gatherings. From ideation to design to execution, we’re here to retool and reimagine the events you want to make an impact.
Get In Touch
Submit the inquiry form to receive a tailored proposal outlining how these services can advance organizational objectives and elevate forthcoming events.
