News

Mar 18, 2019
Sitting on your trade show floor is an exhibitor who is spending quite a bit of money to be there, but he or she may be thinking, “For this type of investment, I could be doing an amazing brand activation out of the confines of this booth.” Or, “We really would like our products to be seen by our end-users, the consumers, but they aren’t allowed into this show.” As a result, some shows are losing major exhibitors, such as E3 — the big video gaming show held annually in Los Angeles that’s had several major gaming companies drop out wanting to use their marketing dollars in other ways. A… more
Mar 15, 2019
If you could create the perfect event tech platform that would solve all of your event-related issues while helping you to achieve your ultimate trade show goals what would that technology look like? We posed this question to three seasoned professionals and here’s what they had to say. Their answers can be applied to any event that includes exhibitors.  Jenn Ellek, Senior Director of Marketing, Taffy Event Strategies Since I am a marketer at heart and a data-follower by design, I’m always looking for ways to customize and personalize a prospect’s journey of engagement and their ultimate… more
Mar 14, 2019
April 4 is Global Meetings Industry Day 2019. Led by the Meetings Mean Business Coalition, GMID brings together event professionals around the world to champion the positive impact meetings and events have for business, communities and individuals. MMBC believes in the power of face-to-face interaction, and that great things happen when people come together — as it states in the mission for both GMID and its Meetings Mean Business campaign, “deals are struck, relationships are forged and ideas are gathered.” Research supports these assumptions. Did you know that meetings held in the United… more
Mar 13, 2019
The $130 million, 250,000-square-foot expansion of MGM Grand Conference Center is now complete, meaning MGM Resorts now offers a total of 4 million square feet of meeting and convention space on the Las Vegas Strip. (For reference, that’s more than all the convention space in Manhattan combined.)   “With our expansion, upgraded amenities, new outdoor space and user-friendly connectivity packages, we provide our convention customers an enhanced meeting experience with more options,” said Ernest Stovall, vice president of Sales for MGM Grand.   He continued, “I’m proud that many of our clients… more
Mar 12, 2019
One way event professionals choose to share their expertise within the industry is through books. In the past several months, I’ve read a number of editions that run the gamut from self-help to event design and strategic planning to improving sales. Here are some of our top picks. Create Conferences That Work Adrian Segar, event design expert and founder of Conferences That Work, is also the author of two books on event design. Segar wrote Conferences That Work: Creating Events That People Love to share with a larger audience the techniques he had discovered to be successful. “I invented [… more
Mar 08, 2019
Venue management and hospitality company Spectra will become the new provider of venue management for Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas, effective April 1. This marks the first time in the center’s history that it will be run by a private operator. The City of Dallas City Council unanimously approved this partnership. Spectra will focus on short-term bookings, taking over a role historically maintained by City of Dallas employees. Visit Dallas will emphasize bookings 18 months out or more at KBHCCD, in addition to other venues in the city. “Partnering with Spectra is going to… more
Mar 07, 2019
The Center for Exhibition Industry Research has released the seventh and final report in its Attendee ROI Playbook series, a multiple fact sheet series that identifies general attendee practices while delivering insights on differences by specific attendee categories. Designed to summarize all aspects in the Attendee ROI study as well as analyze how attendee preferences and behaviors vary by the size of an event, “Where Value and Metrics Vary by Event Size,” uncovers competitive advantages for B2B exhibitions large and small, according to Nancy Drapeau, CEIR vice president of research. “… more
Mar 05, 2019
You could say the team members behind MAD Event Management are masters of creativity. Based in Warwick, New York, they’re owners and operators of several large pop culture conventions, from Long Beach Comic Expo to C3: Comic Creator Conference. As such, they’re frequently managing events that involve large numbers of attendees dressed in costume, as well as in-depth education sessions designed to help high-level comics creatives learn and grow in the industry. Yet for its latest challenge, MAD stepped into a similar, yet different role in a new location: Havana, Cuba. Working with the… more
Mar 04, 2019
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is celebrating its golden anniversary this year with the addition of a new on-campus flagship hotel with event space. Hilton Birmingham at UAB opened its doors on Jan. 31. In November of 2016, UAB purchased the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Birmingham. The property was closed in March 2018 for a multimillion-dollar transformation, renovating and rebranding to reflect both the Hilton brand and the university’s spirit. “The transformation has been extraordinary,” said Lisa Castagna, general manager, Hilton Birmingham at UAB. She added, “It’s been a… more
Mar 01, 2019
At Corporate Event News, we aim to bring you all the news from all the locations. During the month of March, we’ll be focusing on California and the Southeast, although that doesn’t mean we will be ignoring the rest of the world. This month, you can look forward to learning about the greater Palm Springs area, Miami, Chattanooga, the latest developments at the Georgia World Congress Center and more. Plus, we’ll be bringing you insights from the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that might spark some ideas for new ways of marketing corporate events. We’ll also be reporting… more
Partner Voices
Just when it seems like Las Vegas can’t get any bigger, brighter or more exciting for groups, MGM Resorts raises the bar again. The company continues to invest and innovate across its portfolio of Las Vegas resorts, with new attractions and upgraded experiences for attendees of all interests.  Remodeled Guest Rooms MGM Grand is the largest single hotel in the world with over 5,000 guest rooms and an 850,000-square-foot conference center. It is home to the newly remodeled MGM Grand Studio Tower—700 reimagined guest rooms with a fun mid-century vibe. Nearby, the iconic New York-New York Las more