Industry mega-gathering Convening Leaders has just taken place in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. The organiser PCMA, the Professional Convention Management Association, gave details of its flagship event’s impact at a press conference, just after the signing of a partnership with the Abu Dhabi Convention and Exhibition Bureau. From PCMA…
Associations Congress UK 2019 saw the event’s highest-ever association attendance drawn to Birmingham’s ICC for two days of education, engagement and entertainment. This included sessions on strategy, events, membership and education, followed by an awards lunch. From Association Meetings International…
Seoul is gearing up for a busy new year of international meetings, with six notable large-scale gatherings set to bring 17,200 participants to the city’s conference venues in the first half of 2020. The three biggest account for 10,900 of the total and are enjoying the destination’s event support programme PLUS SEOUL. From Boardroom…
Would you accept a media blackout required by your keynote speaker? PCMA, the Professional Convention Management Association, has just done so for former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Media outlets registered for Convening Leaders were strictly forbidden from reporting her main keynote. From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
In comes another year, and with it yet another list of trends to watch on the horizon. Events will deliver personalised experiences with the aid of artificial intelligence. Plus, sustainability, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and flygskam (flight shaming) are also on the map, as is Q and A 2.0, Conversation and input. From PCMA…
When an attendee posted video of a speaker’s lewd remarks at a financial services conference, it was actually the video poster who was breaking the rules, since the invitation-only event had a privacy policy. But the event in fact commended the poster and instead the billionaire panellist was barred from future events. From PCMA…
If the music of modern life seems too allegro, presto or prestissimo, then perhaps an occasional adagio is a good idea. The so-called Slow Movement started off as a protest against fast food, and now extends to many aspects of contemporary culture. So why not also hold slow meetings? From editor’s blog at Association Meetings International…
Events always mirror society, and major trends like globalisation have transformed the meetings sector in recent years. At the dawn of a new decade, German Convention Bureau MD Matthias Schultze looks at which trends we should follow, including sustainability and new borderless multisite meeting formats. From Matthias Schultze via LinkedIn…
This year Glasgow Convention Bureau launched the People Make Glasgow Healthier campaign, taking the messages from a few key medical congresses out of the convention centre and into the community. The conferences were able to create a deeper legacy for the city, with for example 180 people receiving lifesaving CPR training, From Boardroom…
Meeting venues are facing increasing event acquisition, property and staff costs and competition from new venues. Planners are having to reconcile rising venue and travel costs with their flat budgets. Both groups are embracing technology in solving these challenges. Carl Law is a Development Manager at Capita Travel and Events. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
Most conferences focus on success stories and those leaders who have chosen the right path with positive results. But real learning also comes when you talk about what didn’t go right. That’s the philosophy behind meetings known as “Fail Festivals”, which celebrate lessons emerging over shared “Fail Tales”. From PCMA…
New Zealand has won its bid to host the 2023 10th World Avocado Congress. The five-day conference will bring the world’s leading avocado growers, researchers, marketers, tech innovators and investors to New Zealand. The bid was led by NZ Avocado, with a video message from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. From AMI Intellectual Capitals…
Silicon Valley start-up “wordly”, which uses voice recognition and artificial intelligence to translate between 15 languages, has won the Iceberg partner IBTM World’s Tech Watch Award. The interpretation app was praised by judges for helping event planners reduce costs by eliminating the need to hire translators in sound-proof booths. From Association Meetings International…
Launched in February, #MEET4IMPACT is creating a framework to support and measure association meetings’ social impacts. In this fifth instalment of our Features series, founder Geneviève Leclerc discusses the one term everyone connects with legacy creation, measurement. Metrics should be a tool for understanding, not an end goal in themselves. From Boardroom…
Marketing Edinburgh has moved closer to collapse with the entire board of the organisation resigning “with immediate effect” after city councillors rejected a funding plea to implement new strategy. The publicly-owned organisation is set to lose all funding as the authority tries to cut up to £40 million from next year’s budget. From Eventsbase…
On the very day Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised the UK would be leaving the European Union “do or die” (October 31st, and spoiler alert, it did not), the European Tourism Association gathered over 100 delegates from across leisure and business tourism to discuss Brexit’s impact on the sector. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
Florian Gerdes is Marketing Manager Conventions at HCB, the Hamburg Convention Bureau. He describes here HCB’s approach to subvention during low demand, the relationship Hamburg has with UK, what the city has to offer the planners organising within prioritised knowledge sectors, its competition with Berlin and its recent secured bid wins. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
The British Association for the Study of the Liver has just held its annual meeting at the University of Strathclyde Technology and Innovation Centre. Taking the event outside of conference confines, BASL partnered with the British Liver Trust and Glasgow Convention Bureau to bring a liver health roadshow to the city streets. From Boardroom…
Companies offering event artificial intelligence, virtual reality and facial recognition technology feature in this year’s Tech Watch Award, with seven finalists now announced by organiser and Iceberg partner IBTM World. One company will be named overall winner by the judges, with another taking home the People’s Choice Award (voting now open). From Association Meetings International…
Brisbane’s brightest are again being offered grants to help them bring international meetings to the Queensland capital. The Lord Mayor’s Convention Trailblazer Grant will give young business leaders and academics a share of AU$30,000 to attend events specific to their field, and then help Brisbane bid to host the conference in future. From Association Meetings International…
In-house Corporate Events has unveiled new research at Cvent CONNECT Europe 2019. The ICE Insights 2019 report, in conjunction with Cvent, identifies how corporate meetings organisers are focusing on the use of different metrics including non-event data to better understand trends and to improve their return on investment. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
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