From August 14 to 17, more than 5,000 association and hospitality executives convened in Minneapolis for the American Society of Association Executives' annual meeting. A main focus of the conference was the "Meeting & Exposition Days" educational track, which comprised 16 sessions out of the nearly 95 offered to attendees. The track focused on how associations can improve the contracting, coordination, and attendance for their events, as well as how associations can determine return on investment for various elements of those meetings. "Over the past few years, we've made a conscious effort to target the meeting- and event-planning community with our programming," says Chris Vest, communications manager for ASAE.Also at the conference—the first since the July merger of ASAE, the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (GWSAE), and those entities' research foundations—the Center for Association Leadership (CAL) presented its initial meetings-specific findings from its extensive Economic Indicators Initiative that tracks the size, scope, and needs of the association community. "We used the conference session as a focus group, presenting our rough estimates of the association meetings market to our attendees," says Michelle Mason, vice president of research for CAL. "Our goal with the initiative is to help suppliers make better decisions when marketing to the association meetings community."