Girl About Town- Kirsten Sponseller

“If you don’t like Sarasota, you’re doing it wrong” she says. Kirsten Sponseller loves Sarasota and wants you to love it too! Between her nightly hosting gigs and weekly videos on all things happening here, she is the ‘go to girl’ if you want to find out what’s going on around town. Things weren’t always this way however.

Kirsten was born in Colorado and moved around the county in her early years.  She spent six years as a contractor and eight years under the employ of Verizon where she regularly dug ditches and crawled into manholes. Likely due to that, she quickly earned the respect of her co-workers and moved into a management position. But eventually corporate America did not fulfill her, and so at age 32 she took a voluntary early retirement so that she could take a year to soul search.

Eventually, she asked a friend of hers who was the owner of Cosimo’s restaurant if she could work there as a hostess. And so she did, but once the catering and events coordinator position opened up, she saw a new career opportunity and jumped at it. Being the natural networker that she is, Kirsten then joined every group she could at the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. But after some time, Cosimo’s closed its catering business and Kirsten had to look for her next adventure.

In a very brief time, a high school friend of Kirsten’s asked her to work with him hosting a trivia night at a local bar. He knew she would make a great partner. Besides the bar’s game night, they took their act to county clubs and even to the mall for children. When her friend decided that he wanted to hang up the towel in order to spend more time with his son, Kirsten was left to host on her own. Before long, Kirsten was hired by multiple bars and restaurants hoping to increase their crowds on weeknights. The work has continued to roll in, and Kirsten now hosts 6 different events from Monday to Friday.  She is a true local personality.

Kirsten is also now the co-host on The Nilon Report, heard every weeknight on WSRQ. She also hosts her very popular weekly video for Sarasota Day, called “What’s Up.” She finds out about everything that is happening and reports to the masses on what looks like fun for the weekend. Believe it or not, she filmed her first video for ‘What’s Up” in her bathroom, but it is now viewed by an average of 1,500 people a week and her most recent video reached an outstanding 155,000 people on social media!

To see Kirsten in action, you can check her out on Tuesday nights for Bar Wars at Daiquiri Deck on Siesta Key, and Thursday nights for Trivia Night at Smokin Joes. Starting on Wednesday, July 1st, Kirsten will also be hosting Bingo downstairs at The Starlite Room catering to the large theater crowd with some unique prizes. Bingo begins at 7:30pm and koraoke starts at 8:30pm upstairs.

With lots of hard work and her upbeat personality, Kirsten Sponseller has pulled herself from up from the manhole and into the limelight.