This book includes a plain text version that is designed for high accessibility. To use this version please follow this link.
Exhibition Center, the Oregon Conven- tion Center in Portland, and the Quebec City Convention Centre.


Venue Initiatives


BEST


OTTAWA CONVENTION CENTRE’S RED TAG PRICING PROGRAM ottawaconventioncentre.com For the right meetings, the “Red Tag” Meeting Space Special at the Ottawa Convention Centre in Ottawa was one red-hot deal: It offered half off the price of meeting space, Wi-Fi, and AV services for qualifying meetings. To be eligible, events had to be booked after June 5, 2012, and be held in one of two periods — one in late summer and one in the winter — over the next nine months. The offer, which resulted in 79 bookings, was restricted to smallish meetings, defined as 250 people meet- ing for less than three days. Designed to fill out the center’s schedule, it was “mostly promoted locally,” said Zoe Lomer, sales and marketing associate for the center, since local organiza- tions were more likely to be able to take advantage of the short booking window. And since Ottawa is the capital of Canada — and a budget-conscious destination, according to Lomer — it was a slam-dunk for government meet- ing planners, as well as organizations like Canadian Labour Congress, which is headquartered in Ottawa and took advantage of the promotion to hold a leadership meeting at the center.


TOP OF THE LOT, LONG BEACH CONVEN- TION AND ENTERTAINMENT CENTER visitlongbeach.com When Herbalife, the global nutrition company, wanted to throw a party for 10,000 people during its North American Extravaganza in Long Beach, Calif., last October at the Long


60 PCMA CONVENE AUGUST 2013


Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, the CVB had an interesting suggestion: “They said, ‘Well, we have a rooftop parking lot that we can use as a space,’’’ said Adolfo Romero, an Herbalife corporate alliance manager. Can concrete be chic? Herbalife has a reputation for throwing great parties, and the Long Beach bash “turned out to be one of the most successful parties in our company’s history,” Romero said. The downtown parking lot roof offered panoramic views of the beach and the city skyline, with the Herbalife logo projected onto a nearby hotel, and went from functional to fabulous by way of lighting, portable bars, cabanas, and two dance floors.


FREE WI-FI austinconventioncenter.org; advantageboston.org; oregoncc.org; convention.qc.ca; and others By offering “free Wi-Fi,” Nicole Bur- rows, a sourcing manager at Experient who is based in Seattle, knew that the Austin Convention Center wasn’t offering to provide all of the wireless access that her meeting client — which happens to be Microsoft — could use. But the center’s complimentary Wi-Fi provides good basic coverage, Burrows said, for high-tech meeting attendees, who expect to travel from free networks in their hotels to a free network in the convention center. Access to free Wi-Fi “is very important,” Burrows said. “It’s one of the top things we look at.” In addition to Austin, our survey respon- dents had good words for the free Wi-Fi offered by the Boston Convention and


MYBCEC advantageboston.org Since the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) develops its own mobile app for its annual meeting, there’s some overlap with the features of MyBCEC, the mobile app developed by the Boston Convention and Exhibi- tion Center, said Jim Donovan, ISSCR’s director for membership and meeting services. But the MyBCEC app is so useful and well done, Donovan said, that ISSCR promoted its use to members in the final program. One of the things that the convention-center app did best at the ISSCR Annual Meeting in June was to help the more than 4,000 attendees make their way out of the center and into the city, he said. In addition to listings of nearby restaurants, entertain- ment, and retail options, with maps, the MyBCEC app helped users — including Donovan — navigate the local public- transportation system, opening up even more of Boston to attendees.


DENVER ZOO GREEN PRACTICES denverzoo.org


When it comes to sustainability, the Denver Zoo has some heavyweight credentials: It was the first zoo in the country to achieve Platinum LEED certification for a large-animal exhibit, the Toyota Elephant Passage. The Pas- sage, which is only one of multiple sites available for rental, includes a preserve that is home to Asian elephants and other animals. For meeting attendees, sustainability translates into F&B practices that rely on locally sourced produce, sustainable seafood, and recyclable dinnerware. (A program that turns zoo waste into energy aims to make the zoo a zero-waste facility by 2025.) Meeting planners also appreci- ate the role the zoo plays in preserving wildlife, said Felise Buckhart, corporate events manager for the zoo. “Planners love how the fees go directly to the zoo,” she said. “It’s a giveback.”


. PCMA.ORG


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112