Smart Meetings

To help prepare the industry’s next generation of professionals, LEO Events launched the LEO Fellows program with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, introducing communications students to career opportunities in corporate events and experiential production. Smart Meetings spoke with Cindy Brewer, co-founder and principal of LEO Events, about the program’s origins, its hands-on approach and the role it could play in developing the industry’s future workforce.

When gathering at coastal venues, incorporating marine vegetables—seaweeds such as kelp, nori, dulse and wakame—into event meal plans is an exciting way to add a wave of wow and an occasion for memorable storytelling. Among more inventive ideas, Seaweed for Everyday Cooking by Aurélie and Eric Viard, reinvents popular favorites by slipping in marine ingredients, an easy way to lure attendees to your ocean veggie table.

Bringing more than two people together for business events has an outsized impact greater than the sum of its parts. This fusion-level exponential amplification on inputs goes unappreciated because the business of producing sales kick-offs, user conferences and scientific symposiums is embedded in every other industry. That disbursed nature complicates attempts to project a clear picture of the nuanced brilliance of the events world.

A clear, thorough contract can set everyone up for success and eliminate problems. We asked Michael DeMarco, founder and CEO of Celebrity Direct Inc, also known as the Event Planner’s Advocate, for tips to help everyone shine.

Most of us already know music changes a room. We feel it when a walk-in track builds anticipation, when a soundtrack makes a video land harder or when one familiar chorus turns a room full of strangers into a shared moment. But too often, music is still treated as filler instead of strategy. That is the opportunity.

As someone who speaks on employee engagement and workplace culture, I hear this from meeting planners regularly: "How do we make the energy last?" The good news is that a few intentional design choices, built directly into your event experience, can dramatically extend the shelf life of what attendees learn and feel at your conference.

New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium is hosting the final match on July 19. While the event is taking place in East Rutherford, New Jersey, its placement near the New Jersey-New York border has led FIFA to name the venue “New York New Jersey Stadium” during the matches.