Mark your calendars. Next year's Meeting Professionals International (MPI) World Education Congress (WEC) wont' be taking place in late July or August as it has in years past. Instead, the next conventions in 2016 and beyond will take place much earlier in the calendar year.
The next MPI WEC conventions will take place as follows:
WEC 2016 (June 11-14) at Harrah's Atlantic City Waterfront Conference Center in Atlantic City, NJ
WEC 2017 (July 9-12) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas
WEC 2018 (June 2-5) at Indiana Convention Center & Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis
WEC 2019 (June 11-14) at Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto
What prompted the decision to move up WEC? MPI President and CEO Paul Van Deventer says the timing of WEC and its potential conflicts with summer vacations, holidays, and other industry events, was a major reason.
"This is is our major event; it's the most important thing that we do," he said at a WEC 2015 press briefing held at Moscone Center West in San Francisco on Aug. 2. "The timing of when we do it has abeen a challenge in the past; it's the heart of the summer holiday season, and it creates vacation challenges and often conflicts or coincides with certain national holidays and other industry events."
Van Deventer himself noted that MPI WEC was the fifth meetings industry event he will have attended in a two-and-a-half-week period this year alone. "We want to move WEC forward in the calendar."