Thursday, March 28, 2024

Industry Rocks It

By M+E Staff

(Photo: Grant Oakes Photography)

Two weeks ago was an amazing celebration of the meetings and events industry in Colorado between the magazine’s seventh annual Readers’ Choice Best Of Awards on March 25 and Meetings Industry Council of Colorado’s 13th annual Educational Conference and Trade Show on March 27, both in Denver. Record attendance numbers (more than 500 at our event and in excess of 900 at MIC) and sheer enthusiasm sent a message loud and clear that the industry in our state is thriving and that face-to-face gatherings have a ton of value.

We plan to continue this beneficial partnership with MIC to hold our events the same week, so mark your 2014 calendar for the MIC Conference on March 12 and we’ll shoot for March 10 as the date for Best Of Colorado. Thank you to the sponsors and partners who assisted with our event, making it one of the best on record, and congratulations to the award winners and Hall of Fame inductees. I love seeing families in attendance to support Hall of Famers, such as Lifetime Achievement recipient BT Carpender’s sister and father, who is in his 90s and couldn’t have been prouder.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock helped kick off MIC’s luncheon, recognizing the importance of meetings and events to his city and giving a shout out to his “peeps,” VISIT DENVER for their role in making it happen. Keynote speaker Dan Thurmon amazed everyone with his ability to use juggling, unicycle riding and acrobatics to deliver a powerful message, and one of our former editorial advisory board members, Ken Williams of Denver Mart, received the prestigious MIC Leadership Award.
 

The one big nugget that I came home with is that the configuration and presentation of meeting and event space is undergoing radical reinvention. The opening session of MIC and a breakout session that I attended and the tiered layout of our awards event made this very clear, so expect more on this in our pages. For now, check out our latest issue and the new Mountain Meetings magazine.

Beth Buehler
Editor
Colorado Meetings + Events 

MOST POPULAR