How to Run a Convention on the World’s Biggest Stage — Meetings Innovation Report

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is a weekly newsletter defining the future of business events by deciphering disruptive strategies that improve engagement and knowledge sharing. Subscribe.

The Future of Meetings & Events

The one thing common to all tourism bureau CEOs is their ability to juggle a lot of opposing demands from different people with non-aligned interests. But for David Gilbert, who’s running the ship for both Destination Cleveland and the Cleveland RNC Host Committee this week during the Republican National Convention, this is a step up. Not to mention, the threat of violence leading up to the event has made things even more complicated.

With a sense of cautious relief in his voice yesterday, Gilbert told me that Destination Cleveland’s primary role this week focuses on connecting visitors with local organizations, so the bureau created a standalone social media command center that other bureaus and convention organizers should look to for inspiration. The organization also developed the host committee website, which provides a great template for event-specific portals.

“All of the infrastructure and software developed for the social media center will remain with Destination Cleveland, so it’s ours,” Gilbert said. “That will be a huge resource for us for future meetings and conventions.” Read the full story here.

— Greg Oates, Senior Editor

Social Quote of the Day

“Destination Cleveland launches new mobile app on eve of RNC influx: cleveland.com/cmOgHNP @2016CLE”

— @bdunphy on Twitter

Tourism & Hospitality

Cleveland Tourism Cautiously Optimistic Midway Through Republican Convention: Destination Cleveland raised the bar on integrated web and social media content to promote the city to visiting delegates and convention planners around the globe. Read more at Skift

Destination Cleveland Has a Social Media Help Channel for Visitors Using #AskCLE: This video of a Destination Cleveland staffer speaking about the tourism bureau’s social media command center conveys the value of driving real engagement at events on social. Read more at WKYC Cleveland

NBTC Holland Marketing Describes Its Approach To Partnerships And Key Challenges: Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions is emphasizing collaboration with industry partners and non-traditional industry disruptors to “learn by doing” and evolve with the changing tourism and convention sectors. Read more at Destination Think

Next Generation Event UX

EmotiCannes — An Evolution of Data Visualization: EmotiCannes is a colorful kaleidoscopic sculpture made up of small computer screens that, viewed from certain vantage points, resolve into a playful representation of the Lion, the icon of the Cannes Festival of Creativity. Read more at the Society for Experiential Graphic Design

Ball Pits, Buskers And ‘Ninja Gardeners:’ This Business Conference Is a Circus: Two lines encapsulate the bohemian cool sensibility of the C2 Montreal conference: “They told us we could make money or make change, but we can make both,” and, “I don’t care what you do as long as you do it with passion.” Read more at The Washington Post

The 15 Best New Apps For Event Planners: Google’s new Space app for small crowd social networking, the Ummo public speaking assistant, and the Detour urban tour platform are all actually worth checking out. Read more at Eventbrite

SXSW PanelPicker: Learn About Convergence Tracks: In an attempt to create a more interdisciplinary event experience, the 2017 SXSW Conference will include 24 programming tracks divided amongst Interactive, Film, Music, and Convergence, presented in a variety of session formats. Read more at SXSW

Caffeine and Crews: Getting Your Buzz On at The Center Camp Cafe: Go behind the scenes at Burning Man to meet Rusty, Monkey Boy, and the Good Witch. Read more at the Burning Man Journal

Subscribe

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift senior editor Greg Oates [go@skift.com]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

Subscribe to the Skift Meetings Innovation Report