Congress Agenda

Welcome & introductions. Overview of Chatham House Rule, housekeeping, ELX vision & Congress expectations

This session sets the stage for the next 2 days by sharing data from ELX's most recent research and by outlining the event industry's biggest challenges and benchmarks.

This session will identify and discuss member generated topics and challenges in leading meeting and event programs. 

This session shares ELX benchmarking insights and members' individual scorecards and results. You'll see how your program stands against your anonymized peer set regarding event technology, resources, sustainability, event measurement, general event function size and scope, etc.

Travel boycotts have become increasingly popular tools for corporate leaders, public officials and grassroots activists and this has a direct impact on the event industry. Geoff Freeman, President & CEO of U.S. Travel Association will provide context to these issues followed by a moderated panel discussion with Geoff and several ELX members designed to generate candid conversation, open dialogue and implementable solutions. 

DEI&B is a critical and challenging area for meetings and events leaders.  Understand what success looks like for some, learn about the Neu Project and help contribute to this industry initiative.  

As more organizations adopt CSR and sustainability goals, many event and exhibit professionals are looking for ways to align those objectives with their brand events and experiences. The demographic shift with more young professionals in decision making positions also means more attendees and exhibitors are looking to align their purpose-driven goals when determining which business events to attend.

As the world reopened, the reasons why people attended (and businesses invested in) events changed. Now that the reunions are fulfilled, recession fears are looming, and virtual access is an expectation, the reasons why people attend events will change again. In this session, we will explore the current trend lines and discuss how they will impact attendee behavior. We’ll workshop how to communicate and set expectations with your evolving audiences. Together, we will uncover the potential for brands and attendees alike.

Measuring event performance is cited as the second highest ranking challenge event leaders seek to tackle in the next three years. We'll look at who's using metrics well and what changes are needed. 

This session provides an overview of the current state of global corporate event sustainability programs and growing mandates for corporate wide sustainable efforts. We will explore lessons learned and co-create new and improved program wide event sustainability solutions. 

The M&E supplier models and particularly the hotel industry will never be "pre 2019" again. We'll have candid straightforward discussions regarding supplier partnership, hotel revenue management, M&E distribution channels and buyer relationships. We'll drop the old, imaginary boxing gloves and focus on ways for all parties to win.     

This session will ask members to share their key meeting technologies and challenges and discuss the best options today for event leaders who need to support their programs.

Members pitch a problem or issue and ask peers to generate a solution; we'll also address "Parking Lot" issues from previous sessions. 

Stephen Rose and other ELX members lead discussions regarding the current state and ideate the future of compelling attendee engagements and experience concepts and strategies.

Summary of key Congress takeaways and next steps.