1st week of Conferences

Last week I stayed on site at the Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center. Scottsdale Insurance Company held there annual Brokerage and Underwriting meeting from Wednesday to Friday. The meetings theme was Passport to success. So all the different activities were based on different countries. It was an awesome experience and I was able to participate in all the logistics of behind the scenes of the meeting and also was able to attend all the different activities of the meeting. I really learned how valuable sleep is! I worked three 19 hour days!!

I arrived at the resort on Tuesday night where myself and the other 3 meeting planners met and went over the BEO's (Banquet Event Orders) for the entire meeting. This was the only early night in which I was done by 9:30. Wednesday started bright and early at 5am. I set up registration and most of the meetings attendees showed up between the 10am and 4 pm. Wednesday was packed full of classes for the attendees to go to. Also we had a Line of Business cocktail party which was in 4 different locations in the resort. The theme of these cocktail parties was China. So we hired two Chinese dragon's to dance through out the parties and lead people to the general session which was a welcome meeting for all the attendees. Dinner followed with an international buffet.

Wednesday night we had 3 different rooms with activities. One room was a casino in which we hired Casino Arizona to set up different games for them to play. We also had an Oktoberfest Tent (Germany) which had a bar and also a Rock Paper Scissors Contest! It was a blast and people really seemed to enjoy that. Another room contained a Karaoke bar (Japan) and last but not least we had a tourist trap in the courtyard. This contained a lip reader, a graffiti wall that attendees could write on and also a palm reader.

Thursday was VERY busy with all the attendees. A trade show with 15 booths was open as well as 6 regional showcases. After they were able to pick from a variety of activities. These included F1 Race Factory, The Botanical Gardens, Shopping, Casino Arizona, Jeep Tours, a golf tournament or relaxing by the pool. They all said they had a great time enjoying the Arizona sun! Thursday Night was our main sit down dinner with the Theme of the Orient Express. (Europe) We had a 100 ft train poster with a real train whistle and steam. The dinner was 5 courses and really good. This night we also held the raffle that included over 30 different prizes. Thursday night after dinner we had a photo room(Paris), a Grand bazaar tent(Istanbul) with a oxygen bar, a comedy show and also a ice bar(Prague) in which we hired a band out of Chicago to perform.

Friday everyone checked out and I also was able to sit down! All in all I learned so much about meeting planning and it was awesome to see all the work I have done in the last 3 months be executed. So many people had great feedback. So this week I am doing the same conference again with just a different group! I'm glad I now know what I am doing and can be where I need to be with out being told where to help. I will post pictures next week for you guys to see. Hope everyone is doing great!