The purpose of Successful Meetings' Super Six Awards of Excellence is to recognize event planning innovation, creativity, and achievement. We divide this formidable task into six areas: corporate meetings, association meetings, incentive programs, trade shows, special events, and innovation. (The final category we recognize with the special Pathfinder award.) And beyond celebrating excellence, the Super Six Awards give some of the most talented meeting planners in the industry an opportunity to educate and influence their peers by shining a spotlight on their outstanding work.
The Super Six Awards Best Corporate Meeting Budget Over $250,000 goes to 2003 IBM Global Golden Circle. Planned by: Scott Gilmore, president, Strategic Events, Atlanta, GA.
The Global Golden Circle honors IBM's highest achievers, and "making the circle" is considered a career milestone by those who achieve it. In 2004, the event celebrated 1,625 employees international employees and their partners who arrived in Hawaii in three waves, determined by geographic origin, over a 10-day period. Therefore the event featured three sets of general sessions and evening entertainment, each of which was simultaneously translated into the appropriate languages. A cast of 35 performers opened each wave with a dramatic interpretation of the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, and a troupe of mentally challenged individuals performed throughout each of the general sessions, only to reveal the secret of their challenges at the end. Cuban jazz great Arturo Sandoval and Welsh soprano Charlotte Church, in addition to a cast of some 80 dancers, musicians, and actors, performed during the event as well, creating a memorable and appropriately international get-together to remember.
The Super Six Awards Best Corporate Meeting Budget Under $250,000 goes to National Bank of Arizona. Planned by: Camille Hill, president, Merestone, Scottsdale, AZ.
The goal of this program was to celebrate the grand opening of the National Bank of Arizona's corporate headquarters while commemorating 20 years of the firm's presence in Arizona. All bank employees were invited to the event and were bussed in from all over the state. An elaborate stage that replicated the interior design of the new headquarters was custom-created to fit into a meeting space with an extremely low ceiling. Overflow accommodations became necessary, and the foyers of the corporate training center were equipped with 61" monitors with sound systems. The CEO's entrance was a highlight of the event, involving a seemingly "live-feed" video showing the CEO parachuting off a mountain, ending with the CEO's real landing on the stage. The bank then unveiled its new logo, presented in the form of a Native American sand painting centered on a low-relief, copper-laminated surface silhouetting the state of Arizona, and allowing enough space for each employee to write his or her name with a gold-paint pen. The sand painting is now on permanent display in the bank's corporate headquarters.
The Super Six Awards Best Association Attendance Over 500 goes to the New South Wales Premier's Forum on Spinal Cord Injuries and Conditions. Planned by: Suzanne Moore Consultancy, Annandale, Australia.
In the year before he died, the late Christopher Reeve lent his international celebrity to the New South Wales Premier's Forum on Spinal Cord Injuries and Conditions—an Australian event designed to boost awareness of this serious medical condition, and to promote research and fundraising for treatment. Premier Bob Carr, the top politician in the Australian state of New South Wales, took a leadership role in the event, launching the scientific summit with a high-profile press conference that was only the beginning of copious coverage in the Australian media. The event ended on a triumphant note, when Reeve spoke, and $35.9 million in additional government funding for research and care was announced, in addition to $250,000 in private donations.
The Super Six Awards Best Annual Conference Attendance Under 500 goes to the National Association of Women Business Owners' Annual Conference. Planned by: Mike Lowery, sr. manager of events, Association Management Bureau Inc., McLean, VA.
For its most recent Annual Women's Business Conference, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) wanted to bring in attendees from outside its core membership, both in order to increase the event revenue and to reach a wider audience of women in business. To accomplish this goal, NAWBO shifted its program away from chapter and membership issues to broader topics that affect all female business owners. And in order to promote the new content, the association created a new communications strategy, switching its marketing campaign from two mass mailings to a single mass mailing bolstered by regular e-mail updates. The change reduced costs by half and increased attendance by 25 percent, without the need for a second mailing. Together, the changes in marketing and content were very lucrative, prompting a 50-percent jump in total booth sales and an incremental gain of $50,000 in sponsorship revenues.
The Super Six Awards Best Incentive Budget Under $250,000 goes to Creative Memories, El Proyecto Communidad. Planned by: Lucy Eisele, manager of travel, events & meetings, Creative Memories, St. Cloud, MN.
Creative Memories is a business that teaches families techniques for organizing, documenting, and preserving their photographs and memorabilia for generations to come. Given that mission, the top achievers are accustomed to incentive programs that recognize their commitment to others. The central experience of the six-day program to Puerto Vallarta was "El Proyecto Communidad," which took the group into an impoverished Mexican village called La Cruz de Quelitan. The group was divided into teams to renovate the town's school from top to bottom. This incentive reinforced the culture of the organization while creating a true motivational experience for the participants.
The Super Six Awards Best Trade Show Attendance Over 1,000 goes to The APRO 2004 Convention & Buying Show. Planned by: Shelley Martinek, education director, Austin, TX.
In 2004, the APRO Convention & Buying Show instituted a number of ideas the organization had never tried before. To address the issue of booking outside of the block, the organization reduced registration costs for those who booked at official hotels. Attendees who provided a verifiable room confirmation number upon registration received a 50-percent discount. The other challenge was to bring more qualified buyers to the show, so APRO gave complimentary registration to one buyer from any company that was a member of the association. This not only brought more qualified buyers, but encouraged non-members to join the association prior to the convention to take advantage of these savings. Finally, the board wanted to encourage buying on the show floor, so the event was turned into a buying show. As a result, over $13 million in purchase orders were written on the show floor.
The Super Six Awards Best Special Event Budget Over $100,000 goes to Hong Kong: Live It, Love It. Planned by: Andrea Michaels, owner, Extraordinary Events, Sherman Oaks, CA.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) wanted to re-brand Hong Kong as a destination with a new campaign, "Hong Kong: Live It, Love It." To launch the campaign, HKTB held a kickoff event in the studios of Good Morning America, in New York's Times Square. With just three weeks to plan, Extraordinary Events took on the marketing strategy for and execution of the event. In addition to the short lead time, Extraordinary Events had to work around the working schedule of the Good Morning America studios, which gave them only six hours to complete a very complex event setup.
At the event, Hong Kong's new promotional video featuring Jackie Chan was shown on the Reuters JumboTron, across the square from the studio's second-story plate-glass windows, which required a highly technical reconfiguration of the video. Live-feed cameramen captured the reactions of people in the street and fed them onto the plasma monitors surrounding the studio. At the end of the video, Kabuki screens around the room were dropped to reveal light boxes with images of Hong Kong citizens from the new print campaign. Next to each image was a real-life counterpart, such as a chef, sailor, flight attendant, and so on. At the same time, a band played Asian music on instruments usually found only in China, and food and drinks were served that represented the best in Asian delicacies, bringing to life the campaign's theme of "See It! Hear It! Taste It!"
The Super Six Awards Best Special Event Budget Under $100,000 goes to VIASYS Healthcare Chairman's Club. Planned by: Harith Wickrema, president, Harith Productions Ltd., Oreland, PA.
The objective of the gala awards evening for the 35 top sales producers at VIASYS Healthcare was to create a learning experience that would introduce the winners to the flora and fauna of the Everglades without leaving the grounds of the host property, the Ritz-Carlton, Naples. To start the evening, the attendees gathered in the courtyard where a group of children dressed in butterfly wings handed out tiny envelopes. An actor dressed for a jungle safari then instructed the attendees to open the envelopes. When they did, 70 butterflies were released into freedom. The group then interacted with wildlife native to the Everglades—brought to the event by Ngala, a nearby safari-themed meeting facility. The Ngala exhibition led directly into a ballroom which had been transformed into a detailed replica of the Everglades. As the group enjoyed a lavish show, a series of nature-themed courses were served, culminating in the desert, called "Dare to Dream," a stunning confection designed to look like a flurry of monarch butterflies emerging from their pupae. As the waiters revealed the final course, a singer on stage sang the Celine Dion song, "A New Day," which reinforced the overall message VIASYS was trying to convey to its incentive qualifiers.
The Super Six Awards Best Special Event Budget Under $100,000 goes to "A Night of Reflection & Remembrance." Planned by: Theresa Cherry, Ngala Private Game Reserve, Naples, FL.
To honor American soldiers and the late television journalist David Bloom, who died covering the war in Iraq, the Ngala Private Game Reserve in Naples, FL, created a special event dedicated to those who served in the war with a reunion of Task Force 3-15, an elite Army unit which occupied Saddam Hussein's palace on the Tigris River after his Baathist regime was vanquished in 2003. More than 200 veterans and family members came out for the event, which comprised several days of rest and relaxation, and culminated in an elaborate safari-themed dinner at Ngala, featuring a speech from two-star General Raymond Barrett and a tear-inducing video tribute. The Ngala event represented a donation of over $50,000 in goods and services, and it garnered front-page coverage in the local newspaper, the Naples Daily News.
The Super Six Awards Pathfinder Innovation for Association goes to Health Care Information Management Systems. Planned by: Elli Miller, director of meeting services, Chicago, IL.
Health Care Information Management Systems (HIMSS) was experiencing a disturbing trend in its annual conference: Every year, attendance on the last day of the show would drop off dramatically. To combat this, last year HIMSS changed the normal dates and times of all their keynote sessions. They placed their strongest keynote speaker, Rudy Giuliani, as an anchor on the last day of the conference. The rest of the speakers were strategically placed throughout the week, but more towards the end of the week. As a result, HIMSS increased its room-nights by 52 percent on the last night of the conference. Not only did the practice increase room-nights, it kept the attendees in the education session and on the exhibit floor longer.