As a new addition to the Smart Meetings team, I was excited and eager to attend the recent MEET USA-West event hosted by EMCVenues at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District. In its fourth year, this was the event’s first time in California. Registering was a treat, as we editors received our "interactive nametags" (courtesy of nTAG), which eliminated the passing around of business cards and instead used some foreign-to-me technology with really cool flashing lights to exchange information with other attendees.

As the first call to attend my chosen breakout session was announced, I was unsure of what to expect. We entered "Meeting Planning 101: An Executive Overview" and interacted with meeting planners who spread across the board from government and state planners to disaster relief planners and everyone in between. The instructor was compelling, and for an hour we discussed the topic of negotiation (something that has become even more prevalent in the meeting planning process with the recent economy).

The middle of the day included a "wow" break and trade show with event sponsors that provided interactive games such as Operation, Perfection and Ring Toss to get us talking. The venue was filled with what I refer to as a Smart Meetings' editorial team’s dream: meeting planners and new information. The event was well-attended (128 planners) and turned out to be quite a lot of fun. Though the keynote speaker was a no-show due to a case of laryngitis (meeting planner nightmare!), we saw a video of his previous work and it mustered up some laughs amid useful information on the positive effects of a good attitude.

After a fabulous catered lunch at the property’s restaurant, Seven Fifty, the afternoon breakouts began and I again entered “Meeting Planning 101” Part 2. We ended the day with conversations on the best way to go about site inspections, and the planners shared stories of clients needs. We also talked about green initiatives and a hotelier from the San Francisco area shared her point of view. The moral of the session seemed to be that both the planner and the sales person/hotel staff can do things on both sides to set each other up for a successful event.  

Though I believe that the event was a true success for planners and sponsors, I personally enjoyed spending the day with our magazine’s audience. In the end, I found it hard to say goodbye to my interactive nametag and move on, but back to the world of tangible business cards I went.