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IMEX America 2018: Four Industry Trends Across the Show Floor

IMEX America has taken place in Las Vegas. A key focus for this year was corporate social responsibility and sustainability, including another Legacy Wall (pictured), and MPI’s call for planners to be “legacy creators”. Also topical: wellness and support for attendees, and sector collaboration, like IAEE, MPI and SITE’s Global MICE Collaborative. From BizBash…

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The Minneapolis Convention Center: Sustainability for Staff

In 2011 the Minneapolis Convention Center’s leaders talked to their staff about what mattered most to them. Sustainability turned out to be the top priority. The intervening years have seen recycling performance measurement, goal setting and signage improvements, resulting in the current 60 percent recycling rate. The venue is also reducing water usage. From PCMA…

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The Association Model: Not a Dead End After All, Says Research

The rise of the ‘individual’, modern consumerism, social media, open-source publishing: all have been cited as reasons why the traditional association model is doomed. It’s a viewpoint which does assume that associations are incapable of self-reform. And yet industry research keeps showing the number of international association meetings going up and up. From Association Meetings International…

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IMEX America 2018: A Last Day of Learning and Experience

Designed for an industry that never sleeps, IMEX America 2018 was brimming with opportunity and learning right down to its last moments. From hearing hosted buyer experiences and exhibitor perspectives, to education content like C2’s session on connecting with audiences and The Events Industry Council’s on cybersecurity, it was a packed final day. From the Event…

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Conferences Working Mothers Can Attend: Bring Your Own Baby

Along with bookings panels and not manels, gender inclusivity should also extend to working mothers attending business meetings and conferences. At In Good Company, an event for women entrepreneurs at Fort Mason in San Francisco, the sessions were emphatically BYOB: not “bring your own bottle” but “bring your own baby”. From Forbes…

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Panels Not Manels II: Learning from the Lessons of Herstory

The Duke of York may have had ten thousand men, but recently when the University of York announced an all-male panel of seven for a history (sic) conference, a well-known female alumna tweeted academic displeasure. The conference sponsor immediately took the message on board and postponed the event, winning himself a GenderAvengers award. From PCMA Convene…

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Multi-Hub Meetings: Partially Virtual in Multiple Locations

Some things just work better when you’re hearing from two locations at the same time. The industry has been talking for a while about virtual and hybrid meetings, both on the rise. But what about multi-hub events (partially virtual meetings where groups in different places share the same programme at the same time)? From PCMA…

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Creating a Healthcare Legacy with Intelligent Sponsorship

If a company sponsors a bar tab or breakfast at an event, the return on that investment may quickly wear off. But at the inaugural MANOVA in Minneapolis, one of the healthcare event’s biggest sponsors chose to offer something rather more lasting. Walmart installed something most unusual for a conference: a flu-shot station. From PCMA…

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Putting a Price on the Knowledge Imparted at Events and Meetings

Can the knowledge imparted at a congress really be worth close to €1 billion? That’s the claim made by the European Society of Radiology and Vienna Convention Bureau about the European Congress of Radiology held in Vienna earlier this year. What does it say about the way we value knowledge? From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…

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David Peckinpaugh: Designing Experiences for the Future of Events

Event designers are always imagining new ways to harness audience attention and make experiences memorable. But the pressure to be bigger and better than last year always seems to grow. David Peckinpaugh spoke at the Experient “Change Agents”-themed conference earlier this year, and here offers views on video about experience design. From Maritz Global Events…

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Event Waste: Meetings’ Green Credentials Take Centre Stage

The meetings industry has a huge environmental impact, from the distance delegates fly, to the reams of paper printed and kilowatts of energy used. As green culture takes hold, events with environment-friendly certification already have a market advantage. As expectations rise, this will become a minimum requirement. Views include Iceberg partner IAPCO. From Skift…

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Charleston: $63m Events Loss After Hurricane Florence

While Hurricane Florence didn’t touch down in Charleston, the destination estimates it took a $63 million hit as a result of cancelled events. Some organisers postponed early to avoid potential issues, others tried to move forward right up until the governor issued the call for mandatory evacuation. Some groups even turned events virtual. From PCMA Convene…

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Homeless Hackathon Glasgow: A Legacy of Hacker Action

In 2017 Gallus Events’ William Thomson read in a Scottish newspaper that in his native town of Glasgow, one homeless person dies every week. He created Homeless Hackathon Glasgow, which brought together forty hacker participants, and which has yielded not one, but three projects currently under development, including an app for distributing surplus food. From PCMA Convene…

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CVBs: Giving Planners the Personal Touch During Site Visits

Comments from planners surveyed by the biennial Watkins Report show that when convention bureaux go out of their way to make personal connections with them, it has a big impact on site selection. Making introductions, escorting planners round hotels, and demonstrating how well stakeholders will work together, all make an impression. From PCMA Convene…

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Meetings and Events Across a World of Political Disruption

Where meetings and events choose to go, and how they approach their content, are affected by many factors, not least the influence of political disruptors like Brexit or the 2016 US presidential election. So says Rod Cameron, Executive Director of the Joint Meetings Industry Council, which presents The Iceberg. From CIM News Magazine…

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Corporations: More Events, Measurement Still a Problem

A new Harvard Business Review report called “The Event Marketing Evolution” (already available in The Iceberg’s Research section) shows that more than half of corporations place more value on face-to-face than other marketing channels, and have upped their event activity. Yet they still struggle to quantify return on investment. From PCMA Convene…

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