Organization: American Dental Association, Chicago, IL
Dates: Oct. 16-19, 2006
Host City: Las Vegas (Mandalay Bay Convention Center)
Attendance: 41,000
Planner: Jim Donovan
Title: Director, Council on ADA Sessions
Greatest Challenges: City choices; competing shows
Almost Like Pulling Teeth
To the average person, the ADA’s annual meeting is the best-known tooth-drillers’ gathering, but it’s hardly the only one: Planner Jim Donovan’s greatest challenge is competing with regional conferences like the Yankee Dental Congress and the Greater New York Dental Meeting.
Since the ADA has no set city in its rotation other than San Francisco, where it meets every five years (and will meet this September), it often can’t meet in first-tier cities because its rivals are gathering there, Donovan explains. That means having to squeeze into places like San Antonio and Philadelphia, which he says are “wonderful cities, but not quite large enough.”
Another case in point: Honolulu, where the ADA is headed in 2009. The Hawaii Convention Center was built specifically to win the ADA’s business, but the meeting has already outgrown it. So Donovanwho expects attendance to be “extremely strong” in Honoluluhas devised a creative way to accommodate the crowds: incorporating continuing-education programs into post-session trips so attendees can see the different islands and get educated at the same time.
Over the past few years, Donovan and his team have added a roster of celebrity speakers to the general session to differentiate the ADA meeting from its competitors. In past years, conferees have heard from the likes of Bob Dole, Madeleine Albright, former President George H.W. Bush, Ted Koppel, and Richard Bransonan offering that’s proven highly popular, judging from the thank-you letters Donovan gets. What’s more, the staging and room setups get reused for the evening entertainment, which is just as high-profile (think Billy Crystal or Bill Cosby).
Tickets for the evening event cost between $95 and $150 extra, but Donovan is quick to note that his registration fees are a modest $50, which includes workshops and lectures. “Over 75 percent of our programs are free,” he says. “So a dentist could pay fifty bucks and get four days of programming equivalent to 32 hours of continuing-education credits, plus the chance this year to see Lance Armstrong and Barbara Walters speak.”
Donovan used to work for Freeman, the trade-show/exposition giant, and came over to the ADA seven years ago, originally as exhibit sales manager. While at Freeman, he worked on mega-meetings for the American Bar Association and the Radiological Society of North America. But even with the challenges he faces today, he says he doesn’t miss the old days: “To work on one show and make it the best dental show in the world has been an excellent opportunity.” Sara J. Welch
Organization: IEEE Computer Society, Washington, D.C.
Dates: Nov 11-17, 2006
Host City: Tampa, FL (Tampa Convention Center)
Attendance: 10,000
Planner: Anne Marie Kelly
Title: Associate Executive Director
Greatest Challenges: Accommodating growth
In Florida, Even Shows Grow Quickly
What’s it like to have too much of a good thing? Ask Anne Marie Kelly.
Kelly, the associate executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based IEEE Computer Society, guided her annual conference through a record year in 2005, so she was prepared for continued growth in attendance and overall exhibits. But interest in the 2006 show surpassed everyone’s expectations, and the show threatened to outgrow the Tampa Convention Center, where it had already been booked. “That is the challenge of booking meetings several years in advance,” Kelly says.
To accommodate the show’s ballooning size, she took over meeting space at the Marriott hotel across the street from the convention center and held her education program there. But still, she says, had she had access to more exhibit space, she could easily have sold it.
But that was the least of her problems. Because her conference allows for on-site registration, there was no cutoff by which attendees had to confirm attendance. As a result, she says, “There were several stages of searching for additional hotel rooms to meet demand.” She initially arranged for housing in 2004, when she booked the conference. But as she watched her pre-registration numbers swell, she added more hotel rooms in early 2006. Then in late summer, she added still more rooms.
What’s more, after central Tampa ran out of inventory, she turned to neighboring communities. Eventually, she was booking rooms as far as 45 minutes away from the convention center. Kelly was also able to rely on the Tampa Bay Conventions & Visitors Bureau (CVB), which she applauds for rising to the challenge. “Even after our cutoff date, the CVB agreed to work with us to accommodate last-minute requests for housing, until and through the conference, and that’s not typical in most cities.”
Once all the heads were in beds, though, Kelly faced a new problem: transportation. The sheer number of bodies that needed to be moved, in conjunction with the far-flung nature of the hotels, proved to be a major hurdle in a city of Tampa’s size, which naturally has fewer transportation suppliers than metropolitan areas that routinely host such large events. But using a variety of vendors, Kelly was able to arrange shuttle buses for all but the two hotels closest to the convention center, which didn’t truly need them anyway.
Solving problems, however, often comes at a price. “Transportation became a large expense for which we had not originally budgetedmore than double what we’d spent in
previous years.” Suzie Amer
Organization: Radiological Society of North America, Oak Brook, IL
Dates: Nov. 26-Dec. 1, 2006
Host City: Chicago, IL (McCormick Place)
Attendance: 32,000 professional; 60,000 total
Planner: Bob Hope and Janet Cooper
Title: Director of Housing, Registration and Travel Services; Director of Convention Operations
Greatest Challenges: Housing; F&B
The Doctors Are In
When you bring 60,000 people together from 100 countries for six days of educational programs and technical exhibits, the easiest part of your job is choosing your host city. (Only three U.S. cities can readily accommodate a convention of that size: Las Vegas, Orlando, and Chicago.) Once that’s been done, the real work begins.
The Oak Brook, IL-based Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) lays claim to the world’s largest international medical meeting: its Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting. For its 2006 meeting, the RSNA and specifically Bob Hope, its director of housing, registration, and travel services, secured more than 100,000 room-nights at 61 downtown Chicago hotels.
Hope says the challenge isn’t necessarily finding hotels rooms, but finding the right mix of hotel rooms. “We use properties that range from hostels to the top-of-the-line places, because there’s a lot of variation in the needs of our attendees,” Hope says. “A lot of our members are able to spend $400 per night for a hotel room, but the large majority can’t. And then there a quite a few international attendees who pay only slightly more than one would at a hostel.”
Like many other annual-meeting planners, Hope starts working on locking down room rates for the next year’s conference just days after the current year’s conference closes. But Hope works on a much larger scale than most. “We have multiyear contracts, of course, but every year there are roughly 20 hotels that are up for total renegotiation of contracts and room-block reviews, plus we have to allow for our annual percentage rate of increase in attendance.”
Despite the importance of the convention to a host city (attendees bring some $116 million to the local economy), hotels haveand wieldthe upper hand at the bargaining table. “With not a whole lot of new inventory coming online lately, the hotels are pretty much in the driver’s seat when it comes to rates, particularly when our goal is to increase the percentage of rooms in each hotel,” Hope says.
Once the housing’s hammered out, the RSNA team turns to its second-biggest problem: all those mouths it has to feed. “Feeding 60,000 people during a 90-minute period? That’s a major challenge,” says Janet Cooper, director of convention operations. To diversify the culinary offerings , Cooper introduced a “neighborhood” concept in the dining area to provide a “taste of Chicago” meal experience; to address the seating shortage, she began offering boxed lunches at grab-and-go stations throughout the meeting-floor corridors. Both strategies proved so effective in 2006 that Cooper plans to expand them for 2007’s show. Suzie Amer
Organization: U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, Tucker, GA
Dates: Jan. 24-26, 2007
Host City: Atlanta, GA (Georgia World Congress Center)
Attendance: 20,000
Planner: Charles Olentine
Title: Executive Vice President
Greatest Challenges: Balancing the needs of domestic and international attendees
Getting It Eggs-actly Right
The U.S. Poultry & Egg Association has drawn an increasing number of international attendees over its 60-year history. In January, the association’s convention drew 20,000 attendees4,000 of which are international, with a large proportion of those coming from Latin America, according to Charles Olentine, executive vice president for the Tucker, GA-based association.
And ever since the convention came into existence, it made Georgia’s capital its home “because of its international accessibility,” says Olentine. For this past year’s convention, the association considered New Orleans, but eventually decided to remain in Atlanta through 2010. In addition to being at the heart of the U.S. poultry production center, the city has convenient light-rail transportation to downtown, where most of the 26 hotels used for the convention are located.
Olentine concedes that the coordination with all the hotels needed for the convention is a constant concern. “Negotiating with each one is tough enough, but in the past, we’ve also had a history of certain hotels overbooking and walking our attendees. And there is nothing that gets somebody more aggravated than to show up at a hotel and be told that there’s no room for them.”
As the association and its show evolve, a new challenge becomes more visiblechanges in the attendees’ expectations. “In the 1970s and 1980s, it was more of casual, fun experience,” says Olentine. “But lately, the show has evolved into a more business-heavy atmosphere.” In that sense, networking is on top of attendees’ to-do lists when coming to the show. To accommodate that, this year the association hosted a reception especially for international visitors. However, it was short, so as not to compete with business dinners or evening leisure activities.
Moving forward, the greatest challenge Olentine sees is blending the needs and desires of attendees from the U.S. and those from other countries, so that international registrations continue to climb. “In the United States, the poultry industry is consolidating,” says Olentine. “While we do bring in the top managers in the buying-decision [spectrum], the universe of attendees is shrinking stateside, while the international arena is growing, and we have to adapt to that.” Mariana Lemann
Organization: Future Farmers of America, Indianapolis, IN
Dates: Oct. 25-28, 2006
Host City: Indianapolis, IN (Indiana Convention Center)
Attendance: 55,000
Planner: Julie Adams
Title: Team Leader, Marketing & Communication Services
Greatest Challenges: Handling the unique needs of adolescent attendees; using volunteers
Planting the Right Seeds
Even as a dedicated planning team works year-round on the next annual convention for the Future Farmers of America (FFA)its 80th will be in OctoberRFPs for potential host cities for 2013 through 2019 are sent out. With a convention that draws about 55,000 attendees, you can never start too soon.
In addition to FFA’s 154 full-time employees, some 3,000 volunteers pitch in when the three-day convention is in session. And “they range from local people who have knowledge of the host city and who simply want to be a friendly face and guide, to folks who have to have specific planning knowledge,” says Julie Adams, team leader, marketing and communication services, for FFA. Her utmost worry is effectively communicating all the crucial information to everyone concerned. A close look at the attendees’ feedback, which comes from an annual survey, lays the groundwork for what she puts out to staff.
“I’d say that 40 percent of the decision-making is based on the average total cost for attendees’ housing and transportation,” says Adams, acknowledging that the attendees’ agethey are between 12 and 21 years oldadds another layer of concerns to the planning of the event. “They are not going to be businesspeople, but rather groups of young people traveling with chaperones or an FFA advisor,” says Adams. Moreover, the audience’s young profile guides the planners’ hotel choices and their negotiations on behalf of those participants. “Since most of the people coming to the convention are high-school students, we have a lot of them sleeping four to a room.”
Last year in Indianapolis, 160 hotels were used–14 of them in the downtown area, and completely taken over by FFA attendees. Other hotels on the outskirts of town guaranteed a certain number of rooms for FFA. The housing process starts one year ahead of time and FFA collects a $50-per-room deposit on behalf of the Indianapolis housing bureau. The deposit is later deducted from the attendees’ bill once they check out.
Engagement from several different city constituencies is crucial for the convention’s outcome. There is always an FFA subcommittee tasked with communicating with all restaurants within a 40-mile radius of the convention center, to make sure that they are aware that 55,000 people will need to be fed. Adams recalls that in the late 1990s, in Louisville, KY, the McDonald’s closest to the convention ran out of food by noon on the first day of the convention. That lesson was learned the hard way. Now, the association sends memos in advance to all restaurants in the area, with bullet-point advice on the order of, “Stock up, staff up, and be prepared for waves of people,” says Adams.
“It is impossible for the average person to understand the scale and scope of this event until you actually see it,” says Adams, who joined the organization in 1998. “Nothing really prepared me for the sight of 55,000 kids in blue jackets walking down the entryway to Louisville’s Freedom Hall. Big is not the right word; it’s mammoth.” Mariana Lemann
Organization: GCSAA, Lawrence, KS; Club Managers Association of America, Alexandria, VA; National Golf Course Owners Association, Charleston, SC
Dates: Feb. 22-25, 2007
Host City: Anaheim (Anaheim Convention Center)
Attendance: 23,109
Planner: Bonnie Stephenson, Guy Doria, Ann Lindrop
Title: Director of Conference Events and Meeting Planning; Senior Director of Conferences and Meetings; Meeting and Trade Show Coordinator
Greatest Challenges: Partnering with other associations; exhibit space
A Second Shot in Anaheim
How about that: More than 23,000 golf industry folks descend on California, but not a single tee time is on their formal schedule. “There are no golf events during the Golf Industry Show. We don’t really want them out playing golf during the event,” explains Bonnie Stephenson, director of conference events and meeting planning for the Lawrence, KS-based Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), one of the major players in the conference. There is a pre-conference tournament for interested attendees, though.
When the show rolled into Anaheim, it wasn’t just a challenge to house the attendees and find enough exhibit space, it was also the first time that six golf industry associations had all come together for one massive event (the three other groups involved were the Golf Course Builders Association of America, the American Society of Golf Course Architects, and the National Golf Foundation). So communication among the groups was critical, of courseespecially when educational programming must evolve to interest all attendees. “The attendees are all working on the same objective in their work,” says Stephenson. “We’re trying bring a cohesiveness to this group of people who need to work together to be successful.”
Because of the show’s size, the choice of destinations is limitedand complicated by members yearning for warmth. “We always go south because our show is in February and our members don’t want to go north,” Stephenson says, so the group often visits Orlando, New Orleans, and San Diego. This was Anaheim’s second crack at the show, which it hosted back in 1998. “It looked like Beirut the last time they were here,” admits Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau, referring to the construction going on at the time. “It didn’t look good, and they probably weren’t fully happy with their experience.” But that construction has now paid off for groups. “It was bad before,” agrees Stephenson, “but the city made so many improvements since the last time we were there, and this convention center is a beautiful facility.”
The Golf Industry Show shows no signs of slowing down, so Stephenson and her counterparts at the other associations continue to wrestle with housing and tracking down enough space for the trade show, educational seminars, and general sessions. “We were medium-sized some time ago; I remember the show when it was 5,000 attendees,” she says somewhat wistfully, before adding that for the most part “we do many of the same things now, just on a bigger scale.” Kinley Levack