Last weekend we continued to hear how the Pepsi Center here in Denver was handing over the keys to the facility to the Democratic National Committee to begin preparations on the Democratic National Convention scheduled to begin on August 25, 2008. Stories of 160 miles of new cable to be installed, lights, cameras, and other things being added.  This morning the local news is reporting that the committee has announced that the acceptance speech of Barack Obama for the nomination of the democratic ticket for President will be held at Invesco Field at Mile High .  The officials indicate that those that want to attend the acceptance speech will be given special “community credentials” to attend.  As the time gets closer to the event the details will be provided.

Invesco Field is a relatively new stadium replacing the old Mile High Stadium where the Denver Broncos played for many years.  They have many of the latest features that are available to the newest of stadiums.  You can get some information for your event if you want to book a space at the facility including the visitors locker room, and other places in the stadium.  They have weddings, proms and other events held here throughout the year when they are not hosting the sports teams that use the field.  This is turning out to be quite a big deal for the people here in Colorado and the Denver Metro area.  Apparently, Barack Obama really wants to win Colorado as a swing state and is pulling out all of the stops.  To give some equal billing, John McCain is stopping in Denver today as well, but the big news is Obama is looking for some Mile High magic.

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I apologize for the scarcity of posts last week as I had a really bad bug that had me wishing that I might be at an end for this world. Luckily, the antibiotics have now kicked in and my lungs are back in my chest and the golf balls I swallowed are no longer cutting off my air supply. In case you haven’t figured it out I had strep and bronchitis and was my whimpering self.

Now that I have had a chance to get back in the saddle, I found a cool blog that is offering to give a code for all of you travel enthusiasts that want to attend a free pass at the Adventure Travel Expo. All you have to do is leave a link of your travel website or of your travel blog and you can get a pass for the expo.

The expo is going to take place at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center on September 13-14, 2008. The web site explains the overview of the event:

The event gathers hundreds of captivating destinations from exotic India to captivating Cayman and exciting, activities: a huge scuba pool, kayak demonstrations, an aerial zip line, a rope adventure course, cultural performers and much more. ATE is THE place to kick off the winter blahs and plan that ultimate vacation.

Sounds like a great event and some dynamite speakers are slated to talk about their trade. This from the press release:

Sponsored by the area’s leading newspapers, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, organizers will leverage the very lucrative Seattle-Tacoma DMA. ”Seattle is one of the largest media markets in the country with a high income population that is very involved with outdoor and leisure activities,” stated John Golicz, Unicomm’s CEO. “This is a great opportunity for travel marketers to expand market share in Seattle which increasingly serves as a main gateway to the Asia/Pacific region and Canada as well as an emerging market for the Caribbean and Latin America.“

I’ll be in Seattle next week myself giving a presentation and I’ll hopefully get to report from the area and see if I can get an interview with someone perhaps at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

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I have been to some pretty cool places to attend conferences, conventions, trade shows and events. One of the places I have never been is Hawaii. I was wondering why none of my conventions or trade shows have ever been held in the 50th state and I suppose it has to do with the logistics of having an event that far into the Pacific. The travel the cost and everything else that might be associated with planning an event to be held there may prove too difficult. I decided to take a look at the Hawaii Convention Center and see for myself.

The Hawaii Convention Center was opened in 1998 at a cost of $350 Million. It brings together all the real culture of the Hawaiian Islands. A release provided by the center states it nicely:

From a distance, the Hawai`i Convention Center is awe inspiring with its airy, glass-walled lobby featuring a 70-foot misting waterfall. The foyer is crowned with canvas canopies, reminiscent of ocean white caps and the sails of voyaging canoes. A grand exterior staircase descends to the Ala Wai Promenade. More than 60 percent of the center is landscaped, including an award-winning, 2.5-acre rooftop garden with flowing ponds and tropical flowers.

I would not expect anything different from a tropical paradise such as Hawaii. It does seem that they have difficulty in getting meeting and event planners to choose their facility but they give the top 10 reasons why they should be considered for an event. They have an uphill battle with the prices of air fare to Hawaii, but they seem to offset that cost with some lower pricing than their competitors. The Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau talks about the return on investing in an event held in Hawaii:

“As much as anything, these past few years have amplified Hawai‘i’s value as a meetings destination. Clients have found that holding meetings in the islands consistently provides a proven return on investment and that we satisfy their objectives while staying within budget,” said Michael Murray, CMP, CMM, CASE, vice president of sales and marketing for HVCB’s CMI division.

Murray sums it up nicely about the Hawaiian experience:

“Groups and incentives love to come here. Associations consistently see attendance exceed expectations, and we’re the number one destination for incentives. The net result is that attendees return home refreshed and reinvigorated. Add it all together and it’s easy to see why Hawai‘i is the ‘ultimate global gathering place’ for business meetings.”

I would love to attend a meeting, or event in Hawaii to test that theory of feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. If you are planning an event there and need someone to report there about the experience of your show drop me a line. I still owe my wife that Hawaiian honeymoon.

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These photos were taken inside the Atrium at the Gaylord Palms Convention Resort in Orlando, Florida. Those large lizard types are actually alligators and they are joined in the water buy turtles. The children standing around were in awe of these creatures, and they could not wait to get in the pool later! Well, of course, I had to tell them that the alligators were in training in this water feature so when they grow up they could be in the pool! This is a great feature by the folks at Gaylord Palms. I am here at a conference and I’ll have a complete review of the facility and perhaps if I can manage an interview with the management here.

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I talk about my kids often and they recently have been having bouts of nightmares and have been scared of ghosts.  I think it is a result of their sister instilling the horror in them.  I think I will wake her up each time they wake me up because their is a ghost in the closet.  If I was really sinister I would hide in her closet and scare the you know what out of her!  This made me think of the people out there that really do like the idea of ghosts and other things paranormal.  I search out where I could find a paranormal convention and ran across “Scarefest” in Lexington, Kentucky.  Scarefest is brought to us by Ghost Chasers International and their principals, Patti Starr and Jeff Waldridge of the Ghost Hunter Shop.

This event will be held at the Lexington Convention Center.  According to the Scarefest site the convention center is right in the middle of everything!

The Lexington Convention Center is located in the center of the city, in the center of Kentucky and the center of 75% of the population of the United States, at the intersection of I-64 and I-75. In fact, Lexington is no more than a 5 hour drive from the most distant reaches of this massive market.

The Lexington Convention Center is a faciltiy of nearly 130,000 square feet, but only 18,000 square feet will be used for the Scarefest.  The convention center is owned and operated by the Lexington Center Corporation and they also operate the Rupp Arena, the Lexington Opera House, the Shops at Lexington Center and Triangle Park.  If interested in booking an event at the Lexington Convention Center they have an information page.  For now I have to run and check the closet again for that scary monster that is hiding inside.

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In keeping up with discussing other venues besides those located in the United States to hold your trade show or conference I headed across the Atlantic to London, England.  One the convention centers I found in my search note was ExCeL London.  This facility has won many awards and is recognized as one of the best conference or meeting venues in the world.  It is obvious as they state:

9 of London’s top ten trade shows are held at ExCeL London - World Travel market, Professional Beauty, Salon International, IFE, Hotelympia, London International Wine & Spirits Fair, London Book fair.

That’s pretty impressive to say the least.  One of the more impressive things in my eyes and as a way to use a social media tool that I haven’t seen yet in my travels around the Internet looking at convention centers is their use of Facebook.  As a part of their Facebook page they have a contest to win tickets to the upcoming British International Motor Show.  This is a great example of a company that is taking advantage of a very explosive tool in the online world.  Great job for the folks at ExCeL London!

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I was thinking the other day about how event planners and convention planners choose the locations of their trade shows or events.  The title of this post is not intended to be an endorsement of Chicago as a place to choose for your next event but merely the name of the official site of the City of Chicago and the Chicago Conventions and Tourism Bureau.  The site talks about planning your next event:

Chicago offers an incredible range of venues for events as small as corporate board meetings to the largest trade shows and convention in the world. The one thing that every Chicago meeting has in common is the assurance that the city’s hospitality community is fully committed to its success.

The City of Chicago has McCormick Place located along Lake Michigan, Navy Pier, and the Arie Crown Theater.   If you think they can’t handle a large event I guess we could always wait and see how a show with 74,000 attendees does in the next few days.  The National Restaurant Association is holding an event at McCormick Place.

I really like the layout of their site and the ease of use it provides for Meeting Planners.  They have a great resource guide for the people in the industry and list them all out so they are easy to find.  With hundreds of businesses listed they also have them broken down into categories for a quick look at what you might need.  They make it nice to actually “Choose Chicago”.  Job well done for the people at CCTB.

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I’m suddenly faced with making a number of travel arrangements as a result of speaking gigs, consulting trips, and attending events, and it made me think about travel conventions.  What are the top travel conventions or trade shows?  I decided to hop over to Google and find out.  Turns out there is a travel convention and it has actually named itself “The Travel Convention” as if to say there are no other conventions out there but theirs.  I like the boldness of that statement.  Who makes the bold statement?  Why of course none other than THE Travel Association.

The Travel Association is a UK based association:

Formed in 1950 by 22 leading travel companies, ABTA - The Travel Association - now represents over 5,500 travel agencies and 900 tour operations, throughout the British Isles. Our Members range from small, specialist tour operators and independent travel agencies through to publicly-listed companies and household names; from call centres to internet booking services to high street shops. All of them carry the ABTA logo, which means choice, value, and high levels of service.

The Travel Convention is set to be held on October 6-8, 2008 and is taking place at Gran Canaria.

Of note is Mark Tanzer, Executive Director of ABTA’s behind the scenes blog.  Although this is more like an online newsletter than a blog, I see that they are trying to move into the social media marketing arena of using a blog to communicate.  Tanzer states:

“The Maspalomas Conference Centre provides us with another stunning business setting which is perfect for the UK’s premier travel event of the year,” said Mark Tanzer, ABTA’s Chief Executive.

The Maspalomas Conference Center is described in its site as a very beautiful facility and I think its in a beautiful part of the world.  I would be interested in attending just for the scenery and the fun on the beach.

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All over Mexico and North America, people are celebrating Cinco De Mayo or the celebration of the victory at the Battle of Puebla.  Many believe it to be the celebration of Mexico’s independence but although not, it is a highly celebrated day in Mexican history.  I thought that in honor of the holiday, and staying with the idea of talking about convention centers outside the U.S., I would  head down to Cancun and check out the convention center there.

The Cancun Center is located in the heart of the hotel district of Cancun and has 152,852 square feet of exhibition space.    The Yucatan Peninsula is a gorgeous setting for a convention or trade show.  The Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau describes the faciltiy:

An extraordinary setting with a panoramic view of the Caribbean Sea combines with state-of-the-art technology and personal attention from a team of professionals.
The result is a full range of support services, from audiovisual and security to booth decor and food and beverage.
Everything you need to guarantee an event’s success is yours at Cancun Center.

I checked out their facility with their virtual tour and it looks like a wonderful place to have a convention or trade show. 

This past weekend The Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) Education Foundation held its first international Partnership Summit at the Cancun Center.  It was a chance to really showcase the convention center to industry leaders.  Arturo Escaip, President of the CCVB said just this:

“We couldn’t be more pleased to be hosting the Foundation’s Annual Partnership Summit,” said Arturo Escaip, President and CEO of the Cancun Convention and Visitors Bureau. “This is an unprecedented opportunity to ‘show-off’ all that Cancun has to offer to this group of highly-respected meetings industry executives. Additionally, the focus group and town hall meetings will provide us with some candid insight into the needs of meetings professionals, while also giving us a unique opportunity to demonstrate the many advantages of planning a meeting in Cancun.”

A great opportunity for the Cancun Center and I hope they took advantage of the chance to shine.  If you are an event or convention planner check out what Cancun has to offer.

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On April 21 the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) in conjunction with consulting and systems integration company Optaros announced that they will be partnering to launch a new event management system (EMS).  After the release went public I had a chance to hook up with a couple of the people involved in the project and was able to ask them further questions and find out more about their project and what it entails.  I want to first thank Steve Snyder the CIO/CTO of the MCCA and Marc Osofsky, Vice President of Marketing at Optaros as they allowed me to take some of their time to find out more about their project.

I first phoned Marc Osofsky (pictured left) of Optaros to find out about his company and what they specialize in and how they were approaching the project with the MCCA.  Optaros is a consulting firm of about 200+ employees and they handle the needs of over 70 companies across the U.S. and in Europe.  Optaros was hired by MCCA to come up with a different approach to their event management system.  The MCCA looked at what was available and found that off the shelf applications could handle only about 60% of their needs, and they were limited to only 2 companies that provide the top used systems in the convention and trade show industry.  These options were not only not what MCCA needed it was also a very costly endeavor.    Optaros sat down with MCCA and found out exactly what they wanted the event management system accomplish and through those efforts came up with the perfect solution.  Using open source, and inexpensive applications already available, they were able to build the perfect EMS for the folks at MCCA.  Osofsky was very pleased with the project and applauded the vision of MCCA.

“Like many specialized industries, the event management industry is ignored by large enterprise software players and niche providers that are not keeping up with customer requirements for enhancements,” said Marc Osofsky, vice president of marketing at Optaros.  “Innovative players such as the MCCA are designing and rapidly assembling solutions using open source components.”

The visionary at MCCA was their executive director James E. Rooney.  At his direction, Steve Snyder (pictured right) ran with the project.  I had a chance to sit down and have a phone conversation with Steve Snyder to find out more about their new system and hear the story behind why they decided to build their own EMS using the services of Optaros.  After the first few minutes of our conversation, I could tell Snyder was well versed in the use of technology and found that he was very passionate about the program. 

They first came up with the idea about two years ago when they had a chance to look at how it was that they did business.  In fact, that was the question that Snyder asked, “How do we do business?”   He came up with the answer in a 36 step process of what they do and how they do it.  Their current system could not handle that process, and when he looked at other companies that were providing other event management systems their off the shelf products could only handle just over half of their needs.  Having companies like Oracle, SAP or other large software companies build them the system was cost prohibitive and companies such as Concentrix couldn’t provide the data Snyder required.  He knew there had to be a better way.  Optaros proved to be that better way. 

Snyder was impressed that the people at Optaros sent people out to the MCCA and literally watched over the backs of employees as they worked to see how they could make their lives easier.  The release sent has a nutshell look at the EMS:

The EMS will enable MCCA staff to quickly and easily determine facility availability and book new events.  Users will interact using a common interface for all modules, streamlining service order fulfillment and improving service delivery performance.  The virtually centralized event management system will foster enterprise-wide collaboration and enhance internal communication across the entire organization, strengthening internal controls and minimizing the risk of procedural errors.  Additionally, the EMS will manage workflow, customer contacts and business intelligence, among other business components.

Executive Director Jim Rooney goes on to reveal:

“We’re building this innovative new system with our customers in mind - we’re confident that they’ll benefit from an ease of doing business, better access to information and an improved service experience all around.”

MCCA is changing the way they do business to better fit the needs of Show Management, Exhibitors and Attendees.  They are truly leading the way in this innovative thinking and they are leading the charge to doing events, trade shows and conventions differently using technology.  At the end of my conversation with Steve Snyder it became very apparent that they are innovators in the convention space when he revealed that all of the MCCA properties including Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC), which was recognized by the 2007 Spotlight Awards as the “Convention Center of the Year”, the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, and The MassMutual Center, have or will have free Internet access through the use of WIFI technology.  Now that is innovative.  I hope other convention sites will take note of this and follow suit.

If you are a event management company or manage a convention center, I urge you to take a minute and contact the folks at MCCA and ask them about their system and how you might be able to learn how they are changing the way convention management is done.  They are truly out front leading the charge.

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