Expo 2020 Dubai’s postponement will allow time to reflect on how to improve people’s lives after current COVID-19 challenges subside. So says Dimitri Kerkentzes, Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), which has in principle agreed to postponing the event until 2021. An official vote will complete on May 29th. From Meetings International…
Following the use of UK convention centres as hospitals, Twickenham and AMEX Stadiums have become coronavirus drive-through testing facilities for healthcare and essential workers. Both arenas are significant event venues. The UK government is rapidly scaling up testing capacity. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
The conscription of venues as field hospitals can be seen as one of the grimmer aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, but can also foster optimism and hope. Ana Carrazon, Congress Sales and Logistics Expert at IFEMA Feria de Madrid, has been working as a volunteer at the IFEMA Hospital. From Association Meetings International…
COVID-19 has made virtual events necessary, acceptable and habitual. The crisis will change the industry beyond recognition in that meeting face-to-face will not take place for a while at anything like the usual scale and frequency. In the mid to longer term, social distancing and hygiene protocols will also transform. From SoolNua’s Pádraic Gilligan at Padraicino…
When life gives you lemons, there’s only one thing to do with them. The massive economic disruption aside, meetings professionals, venues and organisations have still found ways to support both each other and their communities. These include Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID), help in housing healthcare workers and donating food. From Associations Now…
Hillary Rodham Clinton chose the Javits Center for her election night party in 2016, but in the end didn’t shatter its glass ceiling. Leadership gender equality within the meetings industry was discussed at a Cvent CONNECT Europe panel in October hosted by BBC Director of Creative Diversity June Sarpong (pictured). From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
From feeding workers on the front line, to making sure that food from cancelled events goes to the hungry and not to landfill, here’s a roundup of how organisations from across the business events industry have offered help during the pandemic, like the Los Angeles Convention Center and Levy Restaurant (pictured). From PCMA…
Luxembourg has a new convention bureau aiming to punch above its weight in business events. The CVB is prioritising green meetings, so wants to register with Iceberg partner the Global Destination Sustainability Index. As not only a city, Luxembourg will be registered as a country, the first to be benchmarked in the index. From Boardroom…
This AIPC and UFI guidance aims to help convention and exhibition centres prepare for and perform in an exceptional role they were not designed for but are increasingly being asked or forced to perform: as temporary emergency facilities. The immediate worldwide concern and context for this guidance is the COVID-19 pandemic. Convention and Exhibition Centres…
During education sessions of the suddenly virtual Global Meetings Industry Day (GMID), leaders from Meeting Professionals International, IMEX and other sector organisations advised fellow professionals to focus on long-term recovery and to work together to help the industry come back stronger than before. From Northstar Meetings Group…
About 60 percent of the UK event industry’s supplier base faces ruin unless the government offers more support, according to a survey just published. Around six percent of businesses polled said they were unlikely to survive until the end of April. Some 1,490 companies took part from all across the UK. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
Harrogate Convention Centre is the latest UK event venue to become an NHS Nightingale temporary hospital. Harrogate has joined ExCeL London, the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre and the Manchester Central Convention Complex, with the SEC Centre in Glasgow also set for use as a hospital. From Meetings & Incentive Travel…
A nationwide initiative led by the American Hospital Association is working to ramp up production of the personal protective equipment (PPE) that healthcare workers need during the COVID–19 pandemic. The 100 Million Masks Challenge joins up manufacturers, community businesses and individuals to leave a life-saving legacy. From Associations Now…
Stockholmsmässan in Sweden has now been set up as a field hospital to manage the current COVID-19 crisis, in joint partnership with the Swedish Armed Forces plus Region Stockholm and Locum. 140 beds were ready by the end of March, with 50 additional staff members preparing a further 600 for Easter. From Boardroom…
Adelaide has been doubly hit by bushfires and coronavirus, causing unemployment and food poverty. So the Adelaide Convention Centre and other venues of its parent operator are now using their big commercial kitchens to make tens of thousands of meals for food charities to send out into the community. From Boardroom…
In January, the Javits Center in New York was hosting a meet-and-greet for the American Kennel Club. Now the space is housing 2,600 hospital beds. Across the US the story is the same, inside venues like McCormick Place in Chicago and the Michigan Expo Center. But why choose them for this use? From Fast Company…
Once they relied on actors or even mannequins, but more and more medical associations now involve real patients in their congresses. Whether as speakers, panellists or co-designers, they add a different perspective. The result is meetings that are engaging, insightful and enlightening. From Association Meetings International…
Everything has changed. Meeting and travel are banned. Venues are hospitals. Events are online. We are learning so much about ourselves, but also need the world outside to learn about us and our £70 billion sector. Together we have to keep banging the drum. From editor’s blog at Meetings & Incentive Travel…
New York’s Javits Center has been put to use in crises before. It was a command and control base for the Federal Emergency Management Agency after 9/11, and in 2012 also had minor government operations running after Hurricane Sandy. But the venue has never been used as a hospital until now. From PCMA…
Globalisation, the world’s closer integration, is under attack. After nativism, terrorism and of course climate change, now a microscopic pathogen is even stopping us from gathering to meet. If globalisation does have a positive legacy though, international association meetings may be the best of what closer integration gives society. From Association Meetings International…
Māori culture gives New Zealand its distinct identity, but is also moving centre stage at meetings hosted in the country. This was very evident during the 2019 International Union for Health Promotion and Education Conference, which drew to Rotorua 1,185 attendees from 73 countries. From Association Meetings International…
Powered by 
