IMEX America 2016, taking place Oct. 18-20 in Las Vegas, will broach two themes currently trending in the industry: the sharing economy and where personal meets professional. Both topics greatly affect the way meeting planners do business and will be discussed in detail throughout the hundreds of educational sessions during the three-day conference. In addition to the themes, IMEX America recently announced some new additions, participant programs and the keynote speakers to get attendees ready for the show.
New in 2016, IMEX America will offer buyers the opportunity to connect with peers through the Zenvoy matching app, which will organize introductions between buyers who share common attributes. Once they make the connection, they can meet face-to-face in the new Networking Hub in the hosted-buyer lounge, where the IMEX hosted buyer team will organize networking sessions during convenient times throughout the show.
“We are particularly pleased this year to be using the latest technology solutions available to facilitate peer-to-peer connections and believe that this will bring an important added benefit to our buyers,” says Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group.
Each day of the event, including the Smart Monday pre-event day of education, will kick off with a keynote speaker—all of which address the personal-meets-professional theme. Jonathan Bradshaw, the founder of Meetology Lab, will share his company’s behavioral research on how humans connect to provide practical insights and tips into improving performance by communicating effectively. Tuesday’s session with Jay Samit, serial entrepreneur and digital guru who helped launch eBay, LinkedIn and iTunes, will highlight strategies of today’s fastest-growing companies and how they can be applied on the individual level to achieve success. Pablos Holman, a notorious hacker, inventor and entrepreneur, will bring his expertise to explore the topic of innovation. And lastly, Tami Evans, an author and motivational speaker will finish off the conference with tools on how to increase engagement and create communication cohesion.
In addition to the keynote speakers, meeting professionals will discover hundreds of other education sessions across the three-day show. These sessions cover at least 10 categories of special interest in a variety of learning formats, including hands-on, creative sessions at the Play Room, which offers a more fun way to learn how to create interactive events and increase audience engagement.
For visitors who want to connect and give back to the local Las Vegas community, IMEX also organized CSR programs with local charities such as Opportunity Village and The Shade Tree shelter as well as the new initiative Garbage Grabbers, which encourages volunteers to cleanup walking trails and parks organized by the Outside Las Vegas Foundation.
For interested attendees, the event will also take part in WaterWiseWednesday on that Wednesday, Oct. 19, by offering food items that minimize water use. Different types of foods are produced using different amounts of water—for instance a turkey burger takes 1,258 liters of water less to produce than a beef burger—so the event is encouraging attendees to choose food wisely to help support the cause.
