Coronavirus Education Package

1 Clock Hour |Domain A: Strategic Planning

Hosting a meeting safely during a pandemic requires more than the critical needs for solid Duty of Care and hybrid event strategies—it means transparently communicating those strategies and the tactics therein early, often, and effectively with your participants and industry stakeholders. Discover the strategies MPI implemented to not only market the hybrid WEC Grapevine in-person and digital experience effectively, but how we designed and executed a robust communication approach to ensure that lack of awareness wasn’t a barrier to attendance. Learn what worked and what didn’t and how these hard lessons well learned provide a blueprint for marketing and communication not just in a pandemic world, but in the new world of live events.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Learn Geomarketing techniques and how they played a key role in the WEC Grapevine marketing strategy.

2. Discover the critical importance of communication, with emphasis on the duty of care, behavioral expectations, and personal responsibility.

3. Consider key lessons and applicable communication strategies for during- and post-Coronavirus era marketing.

This session is powered by:

Communicate in Any Language - Everything you say, translated on the fly.

Graciously Sponsored by:

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning

MPI’s WEC Grapevine wasn’t just a groundbreaking in-person experience, it also offered an early look of what hybrid events will look like in the pandemic era and beyond. Join this critical conversation about MPI’s hybrid event strategy, with an emphasis on the digital attendee experience. From strategy to execution, what lessons did MPI learn from its live digital event? Learn what worked and what didn’t from the WEC Grapevine Digital Experience, and what considerations and questions you should be asking as you plan hybrid meetings, both today and tomorrow. What considerations should you take into account and how does the design of the digital experience differ from the in-person event? Gain access to MPI’s hard lessons well learned from the design of a truly live hybrid experience—and the critical decisions that impact a parallel digital event.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Discover the strategy behind MPI’s design of the WEC Grapevine Digital Experience.

2. Learn why and how critical decisions were made, and their impact on the digital participant.

3. Consider the challenges and opportunities of going live, and how you can make the best technology decisions for your participants.

This session is powered by:

Communicate in Any Language - Everything you say, translated on the fly.

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning

Join this deep dive into the considerations and design of the Duty of Care strategy for the WEC Grapevine event. From social distancing and mask policies to health checks and onsite medical care, walk through the questions MPI asked and the steps we took to ensure a safe-as-possible experience for our participants and guests. Through a mix of photographs and videos gain greater insights into what meetings will look like for the near- to mid-term and walk through MPI’s journey, as well as the results of its efforts. Take advantage of MPI’s hard lessons well learned and find a path forward to meeting safely, when health and government authorities say it is safe to meet.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Discover the strategy behind MPI’s Duty of Care at the WEC Grapevine.

2. Learn how current guidelines can be applied to the logistics and tactics of executing events during the pandemic.

3. Consider critical practices for hosting safe events.

This session is powered by:

Communicate in Any Language - Everything you say, translated on the fly.

This webinar is graciously sponsored by Mohegan Sun 

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting and Event Design

In November 2020, MPI delivered an industry-leading hybrid event in-person at the Gaylord Texan in the heart of Grapevine, Texas, and live online to a global audience representing 17 countries. With more than 600 onsite and 1,200 digital participants, MPI’s lofty mission—to execute a safe, engaging experience for all attendees that delivered on its theme—Reunite for Recovery. Join MPI for this deep-dive conversation about the strategy and execution of the World Education Congress Grapevine from early critical choices to duty of care to the realities of hybrid. These hard lessons well learned to provide a pathway for meetings and events moving forward and a blueprint for our industry’s recovery.

Learner Objectives

• Discover best practices for duty of care and participant health and safety during a pandemic.
• Discuss critical considerations for creating hybrid experiences that connect people across borders.
• Learn key lessons learned by MPI for designing experiences that bring people together—at six feet

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting or Event Design
When COVID-19 shut down The Allied Genetics Conference, the organizers decided to go virtual and make it free to attend. Registration tripled, the conference was swamped by positive tweets, and recorded session views overwhelmed all expectations. Learn about how ATIV software helped this conference flip their format—in a matter of weeks—to fully online, allowing more than 1,000 scientists to present their research in more than 100 oral presentations and poster Q&A sessions.

Learner Outcomes:
1. Learn technologies and strategies to convert a scientific meeting into a virtual event
2. Re-imagine poster sessions in a virtual environment
3. Explore scientific meeting engagement options

Event Cost

• Non-Members: $9.99
• Members: Free

Want access to great educational content year-round for a free or reduced rate? Learn more about MPI membership here today!

1 Clock Hour | Domain C: Risk Management + Domain G: Meeting Design

The Events Industry Council recently released new guidelines to help organizations make decisions on when and how to begin hosting gatherings—and strategies and tactics for safe meetings have been released from any number of organizations, hotel brands and industry associations. Discover highlights from these reports that can help guide your guidance with clients and your conversation with potential meeting partners and facilities. What questions should you be asking of both to ensure you are following duty of care best practices for a safe-as-it-can-be event? Learn how other organizations are slowly bringing back the business of meetings.

Learner Outcomes:

• Apply practices and guidelines for safe meetings.
• Feel comfortable asking key questions for organizations to rebuild trust in meetings.
• Design experiences using new guides in the areas of crowd control, hygiene, health and food and beverage.

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning 

As virtual and hybrid events become the “new abnormal” for the association community, the role and functions of meeting professionals is changing at a rapid pace. Changing more slowly is the perception of the role that planners and professionals can – and should – play as meetings and events go from in-person to virtual. Some associations have placed virtual events squarely in the marketing department, others have determined they remain with the meeting planners, and many are still navigating how best to address this important transition. This session will highlight the reasons it is important for association planners to have a “seat at the table” in developing virtual event strategy and offer tips for how to claim your seat in your organization.

Learner Outcomes: 

• Recognize the key players and decision makers in their organization’s approach to virtual events.
• Identify they key strengths that planners bring to virtual event planning.
• Discuss opportunities to advocate for an ongoing role in the association’s virtual event strategy.

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning 

In this engaging, interactive, and entertaining presentation, you as a meeting planner will dramatically improve your adaptation and planning for the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic using cutting-edge neuroscience and behavioral economics-based strategies. Research shows that our gut reaction is to adapt to and plan for best-case scenarios and to focus on short-term threats, instead of taking a realistic and long-term perspective on slow-moving disasters such as the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Neuroscience reveals that instead of such hopefulness, you will be better off by planning for the worst, while hoping for the best, since the best-case scenario is the end of the pandemic by 2022, but the worst-case scenarios take the pandemic into 2025 and beyond. You need to protect yourself and those you serve by shifting your meeting planning to adapt to the ongoing major disruption of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. You also need to make an effective long-term plan to cope with the consequences of this pandemic going forward, as well as the post-pandemic transition. This presentation will offer you neuroscience and behavioral economics-based strategies to navigate successfully the disruptions caused by the pandemic into the post-pandemic world, ensuring that you as a meeting planner not only survive but thrive in the new abnormal.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Learn about the neuroscience-based evidence for how meeting planners and other professionals tend to make poor choices in the face of slow-moving major disruptions like the pandemic
• Discover techniques to evaluate and shift your work as a meeting planner to adapt to and plan effectively for the long-term impact of the pandemic
• Develop a long-term strategic plan to navigate successfully the disruptions caused by the pandemic for your meeting planning

As virtual and hybrid events become the new normal, examine the best practices from Mike Dietrich, Vice President of Marketing at Cvent and Drew Holmgreen, Vice President of Brand Engagement at MPI regarding marketing and engagement strategies for your events. You will also have the ability to ask your questions regarding strategies, best practices, and tactics across the full event marketing funnel (from leads to revenue) and expand your role beyond execution to designing experiences that deliver on business objectives by understanding how event marketing works.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the eight essential planning steps of event marketing
• Learn engagement strategies for virtual and hybrid events
• Leverage technology, data and design methods to deliver ROI and with measurement and revenue attribution

This webinar is graciously sponsored by:

1 Clock Hour | Domain G: Meeting or Event Design 

Join us for an MPI-moderated conversation with Biran Patel, Vice Chairman of the Asian American Hotel Owner Association, on how hoteliers are creating best practices for reopening and forecasting for the next 12 months. In this session, we will take a look at what associations and companies have been sharing with hoteliers in terms of their event sizes and needs. You will also have the ability to ask your questions regarding what the association is doing to assist hoteliers.

Learning Objectives: 

• Learn what steps hoteliers are taking to keep meetings and events safe.
  
• Discover resources for hoteliers in regards to best practices.
• Understand the booking trends the hotels are seeing for the next 12 months.

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning 

What will the “new normal” look like for event sustainability when the COVID-19 pandemic has finally ended? Are the days of buffets and bulk condiments long gone? Join us as we discuss strategies and options for implementing sustainable practices into your events that save money and resources, while still considering our environmental impact. While the future of our industry remains uncertain, there’s no doubt that as event professionals we have an incredible opportunity to work smarter and better than we did before. Sustainability is just the vessel we need to propel us toward a brighter, more resilient future.

• Gain an understanding of event sustainability practices and areas of focus, including venue and accommodation selection, F&B, material procurement, engagement and communication, A/V, and community.
• Identify opportunities to implement sustainable practices into events and adapt previous practices to adhere to new post COVID guidelines.
• Discover new innovations and technologies to propel sustainability forward for the future of our industry.'

1 Clock Hour | Domain D: Financial Management

We’re in unchartered territories and not only will our budgets look different moving forward, our budgeting processes likely will as well. You may be asked to start your budgeting process earlier and may be required to offer a more data driven approach to prove the value of your meetings to your organization’s business mission and balance sheet. In this session we’ll highlight three key concepts to help you prepare for the upcoming budgeting process.

Learner Outcomes:

• Participants will demonstrate the ability to analyze and understand conditions that may impact their budget.
• Participants will be able to develop and implement budget strategies based on market research and conditions.
• Participants will be able to articulate meeting value based on their budget.

This Webinar is Graciously Sponsored by:

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning

Learn about how the meeting environment will shift into a new way of gathering. Understand 4 pillars – Meeting type, Meeting layout and Flow, Technology Considerations, and Cleanliness. How can you take these new ideas and still create an engaging meeting with great outcomes.

Learner Outcomes: 

• Articulate to your stakeholders the potential new normal of meetings.
• Be able to define new types of meeting options – in person and hybrid.
• Cite best practices around cleaning expectations in the meeting environment.

1 Clock Hour | Domain I: Marketing

This webinar will explore how to create a sponsorship strategy that will generate revenue through sponsorships, partnership and other sales opportunities through in-person & digital events. Learn best practices and innovative ideas on how to maximize your sponsorship dollars to deliver an amazing event, whether it be in-person or digital. We will share numerous sponsorship examples that you can incorporate.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to build a robust sponsorship strategy that will generate revenue.
• Learn how to increase sponsors, grow revenue and escalate attendee experience.
• Discover new ways to monetize digital events.

1 Clock Hour | Domain A: Strategic Planning 

The Idea Hunter is proud to bring Chitra Anand to your screens, while we infuse virtual entertainment to enhance the experience, because “We Don’t Do Ordinary; and we don’t think you should either.”

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change” – Charles Darwin.

Our world is changing at a rapid-fire pace. Whether it be a global pandemic, global markets presenting competition at a heightened state for business or the ever-increasing informed consumer; businesses must fight to stay relevant. We are in a constant state of evolution and change. Businesses need to think about how to adapt quickly, how to make quick decisions, how to pivot their business operations, or perhaps even what products they offer to their customers. In order to survive companies, need to think about their organizational capabilities that foster rapid adaptation.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Understand foundational Adaptation theory and how it can apply to various industries and businesses.
• Identify what are the signals in the market that can impact how we operate?
• When we are overwhelmed with changing information, how can our managers pick up the right signals to understand and harness change?

This Session Graciously Sponsored By: 

Trend Setters in Corporate Events; Creating Human Connection and experiences.

We are an Entertainment Production & Event management company with a vision to transform event experiences. At The Idea Hunter “WE DON’T DO ORDINARY.” Our desire to break boundaries and create what matters is what sets us apart from the rest. With our roster of exclusive entertainment and creative collaborations, we are ready to elevate your next corporate event. While our foundation was established in Toronto, our ideas travel across Canada, the United States and beyond.