Let’s get creative

Let’s get creative – interactive sessions and new Play Room at IMEX America

Creativity and engagement are set to top the agenda at IMEX America this year. A new Play Room and dedicated education sessions from both meeting and entertainment professionals are set to provide a fresh look at meeting planning.

The new Play Room, powered by Play With A Purpose, will be held throughout IMEX America, 13 – 15 October in Las Vegas, offering attendees a creative, interactive, hands on “play space”.

With ‘quirkshops’ during Smart Monday on 12 October and on the Inspiration Hub throughout the show, the Play Room will showcase a variety of tools and techniques, providing planners with immediately useable ideas to implement in meetings. Quirkshops will cover room design, technology, networking tools and teambuilding ideas, enabling planners to create more engaging, creative meetings. Planners can work with others to get to grips with human whiteboarding, gamification, humour power and zen tangles among others.

The Inspiration Hub, home to all show floor education during IMEX, has a dedicated creative learning track with impactful sessions designed to boost engagement and create a memorable delegate experience.

Human connection – a lost art in a noisy world will be delivered by award winning magician and MPI Keynote Tim David on 13 October. Through his work, Tim has learnt what makes people tick and will share many tips in this motivational presentation uncovering the key to effective and persuasive communication and fostering connections.

Award winning film director Josh Tickell makes movies geared toward the 80 million people between the ages of 18-35. According to Inc. Magazine, he is “America’s #1 Strategist” for connecting with the Millennial Generation (also known as Generation Y). His MPI Keynote Managing and marketing to the future of Generation Y on 14 October is set to explore this further, explaining how to tailor sustainability policies, communication, HR and customer service to meet the needs of the attendees of the future.

Patrick Henry, former Nashville songwriter, performer and MPI keynote says: “If you can’t create an emotional connection with your customers…you’re going to lose them”. His keynote address on 15 October, Becoming ‘Remember-able’, shares real life stories to show how to build an extraordinary customer experience, achieve personal and professional excellence and build loyalty among their team.

Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX Group, comments: “In a rapidly evolving marketplace, it’s essential to stay up to date with the latest trends and develop a fresh approach to planning and hosting meetings. Our new Play Room is an exciting new addition to IMEX America. When combined with our creative education sessions and the outstanding line up of MPI Keynotes, we hope to provide delegates with the latest business practices which they can take back and apply to their meetings.”

Alongside the Creative Learning focused education sessions are nine other speciality tracks including Business Skills, Marketing & Communications, Risk Management & Compliance, Technology & Social Media, Trends & Research, Health & Wellbeing, Diversity, Sustainability and General Education.

The Inspiration Hub, home to all show floor education at IMEX America, is split into six areas with more than 180 education sessions – each catering to different learning styles. There are seminar rooms, a campfire area and a Hot Topic area providing the opportunity to debate the latest industry issues with peers. The Meet the Experts Clinic offers individual appointments with an industry expert and presentations at the Research Pod area showcase the latest industry research.

Skills, networking and marketing – IMEX helps with business through education

Skills, networking and marketing –
IMEX helps with business through education

Buyers at IMEX in Frankfurt will acquire many valuable business skills and extensive marketing knowledge through the show’s wide ranging education programme at The Inspiration Hub.

New early morning deep dive sessions on Business Networking and the other on Building Confidence are among the latest additions to the vast choice of business skills seminars and workshops at the event, which takes place on 19 to 21 May.

Effective Negotiating, Ten Business Skills that Never Go Out of Fashion, Engaging Today’s Audiences Differently, You Don’t Want a Meeting You Want an Outcome and Cultural Differences Beyond Behavioural are some of the 30 engaging and inspiring business skills sessions.

The Marketing and Communications programme is also extensive and will cover key subjects such as increasing the ROI of marketing events, content marketing, audience engagement and using storytelling techniques.

The overall Inspiration Hub programme covers all aspects of business with 10 tracks and more than 170 sessions designed for the meetings industry, from Technology & Social Media, Risk Management & Compliance, Trends & Research, Health and Wellbeing, Diversity and Sustainability, Creative Learning and General Education to Business Skills and Marketing & Communication. The education sessions, 30 of them in German, will also be divided into strands for the Young Professional and Senior Professional.

Creative Thursday is another innovation within the education programme this year and the sessions will be delivered in a variety of formats including interactive hands-on workshops, seminars, campfires, the research pod, hot topic tables and meet the expert.

Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group says: “While business meetings on stands are the centre point of IMEX, education is an essential element as we aim to inspire buyers and exhibitors and fulfil their needs. The comprehensive Inspiration Hub programme will be valuable to buyers whether they want to refresh their knowledge, or acquire CMP/CEU and ISES Points or are looking for new ideas.”

To find out more about the educational tracks, please search http://portal.imex-frankfurt.com/events.php