Plan Your Meetings

Marriott Atlanta Marquis General Manager Erica Qualls is excited about a lot of things. She’s excited MPI’s MeetDifferent conference is in town, she’s excited about the completion of her hotel’s $138 million renovation, and she’s excited about being the host venue for MeetDifferent’s Closing Night Reception.

At your service is an occasional series PYM does to introduce meeting planners to the people behind the scenes who work hard to help them produce flawless events. If there is someone who’s given you exceptional service, let us know. Or film an interview yourself and send us a link.

At the end of the MeetDifferent opening general session, Bruce MacMillan gave a rah-rah “Buy MPI” speech and sent attendees out on a high note. In the corridor, a drum squad beat a lively path to the trade show floor, where lunch was served.

But despite the excitement, the good intentions and the great build-up, the feeling on the trade show floor was tense. Walking through, there seemed to be far more exhibitors than planners. And with a four-hour window, when the floor seemed empty, it seemed really empty.

I don’t usually walk through the trade shows, but I was looking for someone from Columbus, Ohio (whose booth I never found), and a sweet person from SignUp4 that I sat next to at the general session (who wasn’t at his booth when I went by). I did run into some old friends and talked with them. I also conducted an interview with a representative from Galveston Island, because I wanted to get the word out that her destination is up and running and wasn’t knocked out by Hurricane Ike last fall. And I got some quotes from planners about what they thought of the general session.

Since a lot of sales reps seemed to have downtime, I was going to do some “At Your Service” interviews — short profiles about how people got into the hospitality industry and why they love what they do. At the first booth I went to, however, the rep I spoke with thought it would be more appropriate to talk with their VP of Sales & Marketing in the home office. I gave her my card and started walking off, when I was grabbed roughly and accosted by her sales partner. I didn’t understand why he was so rude or upset, until I realized that he thought I was a vendor that hadn’t registered to exhibit. “I paid a lot of money to be here,” he said.

When I explained that I was media and in the process of conducting press interviews, he calmed down, but it was clear that he had witnessed several people “cruising” planners rather than paying to exhibit like the other vendors. “We keep telling MPI to do something about it, but it falls on deaf ears,” he said.

He was frustrated because of the amount of money spent and the diminished return, but also because the traditional trade show model is broken. Another exhibitor pointed out that she gets more business done during the educational sessions and other events; that the trade shows just aren’t worth it. Planners seem to be uncomfortable with the set up, and the atmosphere doesn’t promote casual, intimate conversation, which is how most people prefer to make contacts, build relationships and do business.

So it was a relief to hear from a MPI rep that this will be the last year a trade show will be a component of MeetDifferent. MPI does such a great job with introducing innovative ideas that the trade show seemed almost anachronistic in the larger context of the event. It will be interesting to see what the trade show will be replaced with at next year’s MeetDifferent in Cancun.

“The government has declared war on the meetings industry,” Meeting Professionals International’s President and CEO Bruce MacMillan declared to an audience of nearly 2,000 at MPI’s MeetDifferent Opening General Session in Atlanta on Feb. 8.

The opening general session involved presentations from economists, panel discussions on hot-button topics and short promo speeches from MPI President and CEO Bruce MacMillan, and the heads of the Atlanta CVB and the MPI Foundation. But the main dialogue centered on the state of the economy, and current legislation that calls for greater scrutiny of meetings and events, specifically for financial institutions who received government bailout money.

CNN anchor Terry Savage facilitated three panel discussions that explored how meeting planners can advocate for the continuation, not cancellation, of events. The announcement of Wells Fargo’s cancellation of employee appreciation events and the full-page ad it placed in the Feb. 8 issue of the New York Times about why they were forced to do so galvanized the debate. And the fact that Citigroup canceled Primerica’s Biennial Convention, an event expected to bring 55,000 attendees to Atlanta in June, brought the issue home. Also discussed was the domino effect irresponsible reporting has had, creating a negative perception of events that are truly the best way for companies to recover, raise morale, strategize and make money.

“Meetings are not the problem; they are the solution” was the message trumpeted over and over again during the general session. Planners were encouraged to focus on saving money for their companies, measure the business impact of their events and understand how their boss’ boss measured success, so they could help their bosses succeed. The No. 1 goal for meeting planners, presenters stressed, should be to have a system in place to measure the business impact of each event and to understand how the event achieves organizational objectives. Having those metrics, they said, is the best way planners can defend the need to meet.

PCMA and MPI don’t intend to take the threat of increased legislation and the lazy reporting of the press laying down. Along with a coalition of travel industry providers, they have employed a PR firm and an advocacy group in Washington D.C. to get the word out and fight the misrepresentation of what meetings mean to business, to tell the story of how important the meetings industry is to local communities, to inform the American public of the real impact of the meetings industry on our economy and share ways in which meetings can speed up the country’s economic recovery.

Stay tuned, the advocacy group will be meeting later this month, and we’ll be posting video statements on the topic on our YouTube.com/PlanYourMeetings channel.

He started out as a marine biology major and now he’s manager of leisure sales at the Georgia Aquarium. During MPI MeetDifferent 09’s opening night reception, we had a chance to talk with Selby and see what the Aquarium’s venues are like when a party is in progress.

I am so excited. Mike McAllen just posted this podcast interview he did with me earlier this week. So if you’ve ever wondered about how Plan Your Meetings got started, why we do the things we do, what we have coming up and why Cirque du Soliel wouldn’t hire me, listen to this podcast and learn, my friends.

And let me know if you’re going to be at MeetDifferent. Send me a tweet @PYMLive.

At the Atlanta CVB press conference Feb. 6, MPI Chair-Elect Ann Godi gave her top reasons companies should be holding meetings.

You can watch the video here:

Yesterday, the City of Atlanta declared this is Meeting Professionals International Week, in honor of the 2009 MeetDifferent Conference kicking off at the Georgia Aquarium tonight and the $2.1 million they hope the meeting will bring the city. One of the MPI representatives at yesterday’s press conference quipped they’d bring much more.

At PYM, we’re really excited to see how the convention plays out, MPI’s annual gathering is always a great resource for innovative ideas. And we’re not alone, there are a lot of people attending who are on Twitter, broadcasting their thoughts. To create a gathering place of those ideas, we’ve created this Twitterfountain, which will be continuously updated with new “tweets” about the event. Think of it as your live news feed to the best (and most trivial) elements of this event.