Tampa Bay Goes Live

What Tampa Bay Goes Live does

Tampa Bay Goes Live is a Tampa, Florida-based virtual event discovery and listing platform founded in March 2020 by Brittany Ward during the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform enables local small and medium-sized businesses and nonprofits across four Tampa Bay counties (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk) to post free online event listings, and allows Tampa Bay residents to discover and filter those events by location, date, and one of thirteen categories spanning Art, Business, Crafting, Entertainment, Food, Health and Wellness, Learning, Music, Networking, Pets, Philanthropy, Spirituality, and Other.

The underlying technology is a WordPress-based website deployed on WPEngine, featuring self-serve event posting (including recurrence options), user accounts for managing listings, and a directory/discovery interface with county and category filters. No native mobile application, public API, SDK, or third-party integrations are disclosed. A complementary sub-product is the PiVOT Friday Series, a weekly Instagram LIVE showcase in which local businesses and professionals share how they pivoted to virtual operations during the pandemic. Distribution runs through organic social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), an email signup, and a content marketing blog covering virtual event best practices and small business pivots.

The business model is freemium with no direct monetization from event listings; the company accepts voluntary PayPal donations to support website operations. The company is founder-owned and operated, with no disclosed institutional investment, no paid customer tiers, and no enterprise contracts. The sole identified leadership is Brittany Ward, who serves as Founder and CEO and is described as a brand marketer with prior experience at Burger King Corp, Buffalo Wild Wings, Disney, and Fox Sports Florida. Documented users/community partners include the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, Synapse, Tell Public Relations, Rising Tide Innovation Center, Food Not Flowers, and Naked Farmer.

Name

Tampa Bay Goes Live

Legal name

Tampa Bay Goes Live

Website

https://tampabaygoeslive.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Tampa Bay Goes Live is a free, founder-operated WordPress platform that lets local Tampa Bay SMBs and nonprofits list virtual events across four Florida counties and lets residents discover them. Founded in 2020 during COVID-19, it operates as a donation-supported community directory with no paying customer base.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Tampa

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Personnel

Revenue model

1. Platform Services: The platform appears to offer free event listings for local businesses. Revenue is generated through optional PayPal donations to support website operations.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Tampa Bay Goes Live operates a free virtual event discovery and listing platform for the Tampa Bay, Florida area. Local businesses across Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Polk counties can self-serve post online events with details such as name, date, category, and recurrence, while residents browse, search, and filter events by location, date, and 13 categories including Art, Business, Food, Music, and Networking.

Product overview

Tampa Bay Goes Live operates a virtual event discovery and listing platform for the Tampa Bay, Florida area. The core product is an event aggregation platform that enables local businesses to post online events and allows residents to discover and attend virtual events. The platform includes 13 event categories spanning Art, Business, Crafting, Entertainment, Food, Health & Wellness, Learning, Music, Networking, Pets, Philanthropy, Spirituality, and Other. A complementary feature is the PiVOT Friday Series, a weekly Instagram LIVE series showcasing local business pivots. The platform was founded in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to help local businesses continue engaging with customers through virtual events.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Tampa Bay Goes Live Platform A virtual event discovery and listing platform that connects local Tampa Bay businesses with residents by allowing businesses to post online events and users to browse and filter events by location (Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Polk), date, and 13 categories including Art, Business, Crafting, Entertainment, Food, Health & Wellness, Learning, Music, Networking, Pets, Philanthropy, Spirituality, and Other.

Quantifiable outcome

• Platform enables local businesses to pivot to virtual events during COVID-19

Named customers6 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators1 record

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Eventful: Event discovery platform aggregating local entertainment, music, and community events. Directly comparable as a local event listing and discovery destination for consumers.
• Meetup: Community-driven platform for local groups and events. Highly comparable in serving SMBs and residents seeking local in-person/virtual gatherings, with a stronger technology stack and broader geographic reach.
• AllEvents: Local event discovery and listing platform that aggregates events across multiple categories for a defined geography. Directly comparable model of curated local event directory, scaled to many cities rather than just Tampa Bay.

Emerging players

• 1 Million Cups: Kauffman Foundation-supported program of regular local entrepreneur meetups. Directly comparable to Tampa Bay Goes Live's hosting of weekly virtual entrepreneur events via ECC and could be considered a content/program peer.
• Goldstar: Event discovery and discounted ticketing platform focused on local entertainment and experiences. Comparable as a curated local event marketplace, with a different monetization (discount ticketing) versus Tampa Bay Goes Live's donations model.

Broad incumbents

• Nextdoor: Hyperlocal community platform where neighbors and SMBs share events and announcements. Comparable audience and use case for community-driven local event discovery, scaled nationwide with much larger user base.
• Facebook Events: Free event creation and discovery feature embedded in the world's largest social network. The primary alternative destination where Tampa Bay SMBs already post virtual and in-person events at zero cost.
• Eventbrite: Large-scale event listing and ticketing platform serving SMBs and consumers globally. Comparable as a listing and discovery destination for local events, though Eventbrite is much broader in scope and monetizes via ticketing fees rather than donations.
• Patch: Hyperlocal news and community platform covering events, business announcements, and local information. Comparable as a Tampa Bay / county-level community platform where local events are a core content vertical.

Regional players

• Tampa Bay Chamber / Visit Tampa Bay: Regional tourism and chamber organizations promoting local businesses and events in the same four-county Tampa Bay area. Comparable as a community-facing local event promoter with overlapping SMB audience.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/tbgoeslive
• Facebookfacebook.com/TampaBayGoesLive
• Instagraminstagram.com/tampabaygoeslive_
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/tampa-bay-goes-live

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Tampa Bay Goes Live