Extended MPI WEC 2020 Recap

Episode Transcript
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Staceyann Van Horne-Do (00:00):
Patrick.

Patrick Brochu (00:00):
Yes.

Staceyann Van Horne-Doria (00:01):
You have a mask on.

I'm doing to protect myself, Stacey.

Patrick, you're in your hotel room. By
yourself. By yourself, Patrick.

Yeah, I'm just trying to be safe, Stacey.

Oh my god. So tired.

And now it's time to start this week's
episode.

Staceyann Van Horne-Dor (00:31):
Welcome to another episode of Well
Seasoned the Podcast. I amStaceyanne and you are Patrick.
Welcome, Patrick. I'm so happyto have you here. Thank you for
joining us on our podcast,Patrick. Patrick and I have a
special episode for everyone. Weare at WEC about five rooms away

(00:54):
from each other recording thispodcast

It does feel awkward because she's literally
right down the hall in anotherroom and I'm in my room. I guess
if we look out the window, we'reseeing the same airplane flying
by.

Oh, see I close my window to kind of
help with sound because that ishow I show that I care.

This week's episode we wanted to do a recap
about what we just experiencedat WEC tonight. As we're
recording, there is still onenight left of the closing
reception, so I will also beattending that and give any
feedback from that that I canprobably on the next episode.
But today we wanted to just gothrough and let you guys know
what we experienced.

Let me also start off by welcoming
all of our new listeners thatjoined from WEC. Thank you for
tuning in. Thank you forsubscribing. And we are doing a
recap of everything on ourInstagram feed. So if you go to
WellSeasonedThePodcast, uh,you'll get to see some photos

(01:54):
because the stories will beexpired right then. But you'll
see some photos of what we weredoing and all those that are
actually following us onInstagram. You probably already
saw it. So let's get into ourrecap. Starting with day one.

Tuesday, November 3.

Was hosted buyer on Monday or was it
on Tuesday?

I believe the hosted buyer, people arrived on
Monday. And they started hostedbuyer on Tuesday for general
attendees Tuesday -- which wasElection Day in America --
Tuesday was registration, thosesorts of things. And then we had
the opening night receptionTuesday night.

Got it. It was pretty interesting
right from the beginning. We'retalking about a show that
generally has about...

3 to 4000 people.

And now the numbers that they shared
with everybody was about 600.

And Stacey and I both talked about this and that
number is probably the peoplethat registered but I can tell
you from being on the groundhere in person and keep me
honest Stacey, I'm gonna sayit's closer to 500.

I agree. And they said about 1100
people virtually.

Right.

And so right from the start, you
feel that a regular WEC, you getoff the plane, and you're
immediately greeted by so manyof your peers.

And from my experience coming from a
destination like a Miami or FortLauderdale. This was the first
one that I didn't know a singleperson on the plane that I was
on.

I'm coming from Reno and I know
people on planes. So it's it'sdefinitely different. But you do
feel that immediately. Andobviously, we account that to
the times that we're in. Sothat's fine. So we checked in to
Grapevine and you could see thatas with everything that you see
in your daily life, there'sPlexiglas that separating you

(03:39):
from the people that arechecking you in. There's a lot
of this six feet markers, theyhave everything standard and
off. And this is in Dallas. Andunfortunately, in terms of the
COVID rates on this date, theyare increasing. So I will give
it to the hotel and the teamshere that they are doing the
most to make sure that everyonestays safe. So you check into

(04:00):
your room. They have handsanitizer everywhere. And the
room experience is pretty muchthe same. There's nothing
changing once you get into yourroom and hand sanitizers in the
room. I think that was about it.
They didn't have a mask oranything when you checked in did
they?

Yeah, there were no masks. And then room service
is request only

Oh yes.

So you don't have people coming in the room
unless you're doing a specialrequest. So that means no
towels. I was just thinkingtoday Oh, my garbage is kind of
a little fool. Maybe I shouldhave handled that. But tomorrow
is my last day. So I'm just kindof letting it go. I woke up and
made my own bed. I didn't wantto feel like I was living in a
messy place.

Yep.

But different things like that.

Staceyann Van Horne-Dori (04:38):
Right.
Right.

One thing that you mentioned and we're going to
go to the show floor in aminute, but the hand sanitizers
everywhere, specifically at thetop and the bottom of every
escalator.

Yes.

Because you're not even thinking to yourself,
you're getting on the escalatorand you're holding on to the
handrail and then you get offand you're like, Oh crap, I just
touched the handrail, let mehand sanitize.

Same thing with the elevators too.
Right by the entrance and exitsof the elevator on every floor.

The amount of hand sanitizer electronic units
that you just put your handunderneath it sprays is amazing.
It's everywhere.

Yes.
And it's good hand sanitizers,not stuff that dries you out.
So, kudos to Gaylord for doingthat. And it's at the Gaylord if
we didn't say that, inGrapevine.

Gaylord Texan, not yet a sponsor, but we will
plug them.

Every time you say a name. So I
actually got here a few hoursbefore Patrick. So once Patrick
came in, we went and grabbedlunch real quick, a lot of the
locations on site,unfortunately, signe of the
times, were closed. There's anItalian restaurant here that it
was closed, and they had limitedfood and beverage outlets open

(05:43):
during the time again, spaceseating, limited seating, lots
of plexiglass, but thatexperience would be much like
any experience in your hometownright now due to COVID. So
getting to the stuff that wewant to know now we're starting
to get to the conferences andregistering. What MPI did was
they instituted health andsafety checks prior to actually

(06:06):
passing any threshold into theconference. So the Gaylord is a
very long hallway that you walkthrough before you can get an
escalator. And that escalatorleads you upstairs to where most
of the meetings are happening.
So at the beginning of thathallway, everything here is QR
code related. So you're notgetting any paper menus or
papers in general They do stilldo the daily magazine that they

(06:29):
slide under your room door. Butthat's it. That's the only thing
that you'll get. But everythingis QR code related. So you have
to scan a QR code and you sign aform that says that you have no
COVID symptoms and that you'renot in contact with anybody that
you believe to have had COVIDyou sign that form. And it gives
you a text message and Adobeform that says you've been

(06:52):
cleared to enter thisconference.

Every day, you had to go in answer those few
questions. And then you show upto a table prior to entering the
conference area where you had toshow that on your phone, you had
to show the thumbs up, the greenthumbs up, and then they take
your temperature there. And thenthey give you a wristband and
every day there was a differentcolor wristband so the wristband

(07:17):
is good for one day.

You get that wristband, you walk up
a few more feet. And there'slots of volunteers, of course,
it's WEC checking to make surethat you got that wristband to
be clear before you can get tothe escalator. So now you get to
the escalator, you go upstairs,the first thing you notice is
lots of virtual elements. Andlike I said, the QR codes. So
there's a QR code to scan so youcan see what the menu is for the

(07:41):
day, QR code scan so you can seewhat your health screening is.
And you get upstairs off theelevator. And there's a virtual
host to the meeting. And thisvirtual host is on a screen.

Yeah, not yet a sponsor, but Cloud Touch
provided those screens that hadan interactive virtual host.

Yeah, yeah. And this person is
actually working from theirhome. And they're briefed on
everything for the conference.
So the location, the meeting,any questions you may have. So
if you get to the top of thatescalator and you realize you're
lost that person is standing intheir home, looking straight at
the escalator, you wave at them,you say hi, and you could ask

(08:20):
them anything from Where'schicken? Where's this room? I
have a question about the meal.
So that was a really coolfeature to have. And it just
kind of shows that even ifyou're not able to get all of
your volunteers on site, you'restill able to incorporate them
and still have that touch foryour attendees here. So you go

(08:41):
further up the stairs and that'swhere registration is. That's
where MPI TV was taking place.
That day, I think there was justa coffee and tea station there.
So you check in, you get yourbadge. Again, it's a touchless
process, you tell them yourname, they make sure that your
name is looking good on an iPad,they print your badge. And
that's it. And the first thingyou got was your kind of

(09:02):
tchotchke box with everything.
So you were used to gettingthese room drops per day. But
now since you can't entersomeone's room each day in this,
it's very limited, they give youeverything all at once. And of
course everything is morerelated to safety. So you're
getting the hand wipes, the handsanitizers, what are those keys

(09:23):
called Patrick? Those keys whereyou could kind of use it to
touch things?

I'm not sure what the name of them are, but
it's got like a round area thatyou can put your finger in it's
on like a little key chain andthen at the end is almost looks
like an old skeleton key.
There's kind of like a hook onit. So you can hold it, touch
the door handle pull a door andthen there's like a little nub
at the end that you can hit likein an elevator hit the elevator
button so you're not touchinganything. The new giveaway.

Yeah, that's the new giveaway kind of
like when everyone was givingaway fidget spinners? Because I
know we got to them and somesunglasses so they give you a
box with everything and the boxis already sealed. So where
before they would give you a bagthat you would know that
everyone's kind of making itbeforehand, this box looks like
something that they worked witha fulfillment center to create

(10:09):
prior to it coming here, so lesspeople were touching it. So that
was pretty nice to have. That'sthe registration process.
There's nothing too fancy aboutit, besides the fact that they
added the virtual elements ofhaving someone there to greet
you and lots of QR codes. Sojust something for the meetings
that you're planning, the QRcodes that they did were on

(10:31):
anything from easels to columnwraps, and it's a very
inexpensive, easy way to getinformation out to the public
without having to be in contactwith them. That night, they did
have a welcome reception. I didnot attend that. Patrick, you
want to talk about that firstnight, welcome?

Sure. At the beginning, we had the bus
station, it was an off siteevent in downtown Grapevine. Not
too far of a drive. So everybodywas asked to be at the bus
station. And they're losingpeople on the buses, one at a
time, asking people to keep afew seats in between each other.
So there were a lot more buseswith less attendees, if you
think about it that way that youwould need to accomplish

(11:15):
something like this to keep safedistance. So people were getting
on, there was a tour guide totell us a little bit about
downtown Grapevine, etc. You getoff of the bus. And then you
walk in, you're greeted bypeople that are looking for your
wristbands again. So not justyour conference name tag, but
your wristband. There were somepeople that were also getting
temperatures rechecked to walkin, you walk in, like any other

(11:36):
opening reception, there werelots of activities, bands
playing all of those types ofthings going on. But at all the
bars, there was the plexi glass,all of the food stations were
served. People either alreadyportioned out meals or things
that were dispersed by a personor somebody was serving from
behind Plexiglas to keepeverybody safe. And then as far

(11:59):
as the COVID modifications, Ithink that was pretty much it at
the opening and plenty of signseverywhere to remind people,
they did it in the theme ofTexas, which I thought was kind
of smart. It was like mask upy'all.

And they had on those like church
fan kind of things sothat peoplewere walking around.

Yeah like a church fan. And the mask was
like the Texas flag, so theywere playing in the theme a
little bit with the conferencelogo and the Texas theme. So
really, that's all the thingsthat that one keep everybody
separated the signs about themask and on the ground about
keeping separation.

What I think is really nice, that is
is great to know, as we'replanning these meetings moving
forward is that I was under theimpression that we were going to
lose our buffets and really losea lot of the true creativity in
food and beverage because of allthe restrictions now, and they
did such a great job with themeals from day one straight

(12:55):
through. So Patrick experiencedwine tastings on the train, and
really cool food experiences.
And that was the first night Iremember he came back and he was
talking about how great it wasto see that. So that was day
one. Day two, we actually had asession and that was the later
session. But before we got tothat we had general session, of
course it is exactly what youwould think it is very, very

(13:18):
socially distance, we were in aballroom that easily could have
fit 1000 people seated.

Multiple thousand people.

Yeah.

I believe that when Connect was in this exact
ballroom A few years ago, Ibelieve that there were 2500 to
3000 people in this room.

Yeah.

That now we're looking at for these 500 people.
The room was almost filled withthe tables but separated more
than normal to have more spacingin between tables than you
normally would. And I believethey were 72 inch rounds. And at
each 72 inch round, you had fourchairs.

Yes.
And what they did is every daythere was a tent card at your
seat, and you'd write your nameon your tent card and there was
a dot, so, you know, just one ofthose regular sticker dots,
whether it's blue, or red oryellow. So when you sat down,
you wrote your name on a tentcard. And what that meant was,
that was your seat for the day.
And so you would always returnto that seat. And the dots

(14:13):
really was for exiting. So whenwe were all in general session,
they would say okay, we're goingto start with the blue dots
leaving first and the green dotsand the yellow dots. And so it
wasn't that mass exodus and thatbottleneck at the door, because
they allow people to leave inwaves. And what they also did,
accounting for that if younotice, we're used to, you know,

(14:34):
general session leaving andeverybody has two minutes to run
to their breakout session. Thistime it was general session
ended, and you had maybe 30 or40 minutes to go to your next
session. So it actually allowedfor more time for the movement,
which was really nice. In termsof the actual general session,
they did a great job of doing ahybrid event and making sure

(14:57):
that the online attendees wereincorporated into the general
session experience. So therewere screens in general session
where you can see the attendeesfaces. You can see what they
were chatting about. Dena-

-Dena Blizzard-

-Dena Blizzard is the person who's
emceed for five years now. Shewould actually ask questions of
the online attendees to kind ofput in chat, they had some
people who volunteer to stay oncameras, so they will be
interactive, they played gameswith them. So that was a really
cool experience. We got out ofthe general sessions and
everybody went into breakouts,but in terms of food and

(15:34):
beverage for the breaks, a lotof things are touchless, of
course, so we're used to kind ofpulling the handle for coffee
and tea. Now they have thisthing where you kind of use your
cup, and you press against it sothat you're not touching
anything. Condiments are nolonger this open pitcher of milk
and cream, or you could grab asmany sugars as you want. It's-

-everything's portioned.

Yeah, everything's portion. So it's
kind of like a little box thathas your two stirrers, your two
sugars, whatever it is, in alittle box, you grab one box,
and you leave. And so they didit that way. In terms of breaks,
everything, of course, is alsoagain portioned, so you get a
box. And it's not what you thinkof as a typical box. So this

(16:18):
little tray, kind of if youcould imagine a divided plate
would have maybe ricotta cheesewith a jelly or strawberry jam,
and some bread for dipping, orchocolate covered pretzels with
something else or apples andpeanut butter, however it may
be. So you were stillexperiencing the brakes, but you
weren't picking them up, youwould get that handed to you by

(16:40):
an attendant. All attendants aremasked and gloved. And what I
thought was interesting when Ilooked at that was there's so
many times when you're planningfood and beverage, and when
you're planning these awesomebreaks, you know, if you have
100 attendees, you might beplanning for 125, or 150,
because you might have a heavyeating group. Because
everything's pre-portioned, Ifind that once you grab your

(17:04):
break, that's it. You grab yourone thing, and you leave and
that's it, you're not making ahuge plate of you know, 17
pieces of apples. So somethingto think about in the budgeting
process, when you go to that,you might be able to find a
little bit of cost savingsthere, which was not
anticipated. At the same time,they are pre packaged, so you

(17:24):
might be spending money on thepackaging of it. So just
something to think about.

There was actually a conversation in one
of the later sessions about thisthat I attended, where they were
talking about the amount ofwaste that we're now looking to
create by all of this packaging.
Obviously, we're in a pandemicversus the environment. And now
you have those things kind ofgoing on hand in hand. I will
say today's snack was served ina cardboard box and yesterday's
snack, there was like abiodegradable tray that it was

(17:51):
in but it did have a plasticlid.

Yes.

So the conversation was on those kind
of things like how can we makeit maybe more environmentally
friendly, less plastic? Youknow, just something to keep in
mind for those of us andhopefully we all are, but those
of us that are minded on theenvironment.

Yeah.
And that's I didn't even thinkabout that. That's important. We
led a session on Wednesday inregards to leading virtual teams
and the challenges we're facingin this new virtual environment,
which is, I think, verysuccessfully received by our
audience. And so we'll find outwhen we get the surveys.

Shout out to any listeners that are on that were
in that.

Yes, thank you for coming.

We enjoyed you guys.

We did, we enjoyed ourselves. We
had a good time with that. Andso we did leave that session,
maybe we might do an episode andkind of give some tips on
leading virtual teams in theepisode too.

So Wednesday night, I attended the MPI
Presidents' dinner, very similarto the to the conference, we had
the buses to pick us up takingus socially distanced on the
buses. We were at the HiltonAnatole, so everything there was
the same quality as far ascleanliness hand sanitizing
stations, plexi glass up infront of bartenders with food

(19:08):
stations, etc. At that one,there were like four or five
food stations. And at each one,it was pre-portioned, or there
was somebody that was servingfrom behind the Plexi. And at
this particular event, itnormally is a much larger
attended event. So they did ascaled down version of the
program announcing that nextyear when we come back, they're

(19:28):
going to give out some of theawards that they normally would
have for this year at that one,but wanted to recognize some
people in the room. They didsomething kind of cool and
interesting. They had two stagesset up so on one on one stage
was the CEO of MPI Global, PaulVan Deventer. And on the other
stage was a secondary host whois the CFO of MPI, Darren

(19:50):
Temple. So the two of them wereon two different stages, and it
was kind of a back and forthvolley of it, which they did to
keep people spaced out becausethey had times where Paul might
be talking on the stage and calla few people up there on the
stage. And then that stage wouldgo dark. And they would go to
another stage that would haveother people.

I like that.

A little bit more in the audio visual cost.
If you're looking to dosomething like this.

How is it as an attendee like
experiencing?

It was very well done. So they were there, there
was a screen in between the twostages, then the two stages, and
then smaller screens outside. Soit was on the long side of the
wall. Everybody's sitting thereand casual seating. The seating
at this was kind of varyingheights, some lounge furniture,
highboys in the back, that kindof thing. So very casual. So
you're sitting there, you'reable to see the whole thing. It

(20:38):
was videoed in IMAX so you'reable to see on the on the
monitors as well.

Did you take any pictures of that?

I believe I might have. I might have.

I have to see that. That looks --
that sounds really cool. I likethat. And when we keep saying
socially distancedtransportation, we're talking
about 50 person plus passengerbuses, but only filling it up
halfway-

Or less.

-or they might have trolleys... or
less yeah. So just something tothink about when we're saying
that.

On my trip out to the Hilton, Anatole, and it
was maybe a 15 minute ride orso. I was on an entire bus by
myself.

What?
Ballin! And I went to dinnerwith the Caesars crew and we
went to a wine locationrestaurant in Grapevine. I
cannot remember where it was.
But we had a great time it wasin an outdoor patio area. And
look. And we we had whatch youmessed me up, Patrick.

I'm so sorry, everybody. I just was using a
hand sanitizer that was given tous in a vendor gift bag. Not one
from the conference, but thehand sanitizer... smells
horrible.

His face though, when he said that?
Like negative. But-Back to you Stacey.
Oh, back to me. So we went todinner and it was in a covered
patio and all the windows wereopen windows. So you had that
movement of air and you havelarger tables for larger groups
and all that. So that was nice.
Again, it's a restaurant. So itwas just really nice

(22:09):
reconnecting with my contacts.
Shout out to Pete -- PETEY PETE-- with Caesars, he is the
Regional Director for theproperties in the Atlantic City
area. And he is absolutelyawesome. Patrick and I have both
done events at the Harrah's inAtlantic City and have nothing
horrible to say, using whatPatrick says, not a sponsor yet.

(22:33):
So that was the end of day two.
So day three, we led anothersession, Budgeting for Hybrid
Events at 830 in the morning anddid it again, virtually. And
it's pretty much the same thing.
That session was in a largerballroom, it was a ballroom that
probably could have been set upfor 500 plus people. And they

(22:54):
had it set up for a max of 216.
Again, the 72 inch rounds withfour people per round. And we
probably had about what 150 ish?

Around 150.
Correct.

So again, shout out to any of our
new listeners that attended thatsession. Thank you for coming
through it was a great session.
And we had fun up there. And Ithink there was a lot of
engagement, a lot of questions,just talking about the new world
of events, because we know we'regoing to be looking at a lot
more hybrid events.

And one thing to consider in that setup that we
had in that room, because it wasa very deep room, we typically
probably would have been in amuch smaller breakout room than
that even to hold 150-200people, but they had to have
additional screens halfway backin the room, because it was so
large, but you're having to dothings like that to spread

(23:44):
people out. So there'sadditional audio, there's
additional video components inthere. So just a thought.

So general session, everything's
the same, I think we forgot tomention something that was
really cool. And that is ourlunch and what they did for the
lunch. I know we keep saying it,but they really do stress the
importance of distancing. So avery large room for the size of
the group that we have. But theday before they had these
stations and we were able tostill have a paella station, a

(24:12):
chicken mole, a kind of fajitastation. I know I'm saying this
wrong. We had different foodstations that were chef-attended
and, again, covered inplexiglass, they would create
the meal for you and hand it toyou outside of the Plexiglas
there's no reaching over thefood. There's no talking over
the food. Everyone's covered andmasked up but it was nice

(24:34):
because you were still able toget that food and beverage
experience, even though wedidn't have the open buffets.
What I did like about this day,what I did like is we actually
had what they had called abagged lunch. And I know you're
probably immediately thinkingbagged lunch and you liked it?
But this bag lunch really justshows the amount of creativity

(24:57):
that could go into it. We don'thave to sacrifice the quality of
our food and go to sandwichesand bags of chips and apple
slices or you know a cookie. Wehad grilled chicken with
macaroni and cheese and the cornsuccotash in kind of like this
aluminum container with as'mores brownie that was boxed

(25:18):
in this like cow looking box.

It was an absolutely huge brownie. The
s'more brownie.

Oh no, that brownie had weight to
it. Oh my gosh, it was that wehad coleslaw. We had grilled
pineapples. And because again,they're not putting out water or
iced tea at the tables, youwould grab one of those like
Lipton sweet teas or unsweetenedteas, whatever it is, bottled,
you would grab your bottle ofwater. So you still had that

(25:46):
experience with the food evendoing a bagged lunch. And again
when I talk about saving money,because it's a bags lunch, as
delicious as that food is and Isaid it to Patrick, I would have
absolutely gotten more mac andcheese and absolutely gotten
more chicken. But I didn'tbecause it's a bagged lunch and
I was content. And you know, Iguess that's great for

(26:07):
everybody's waistlines as we dothese events, and we kept it
moving. So that was awesome. Interms of the nighttime, I'm
going to save our online virtualexperience. I think that should
be our paprika, because it wasso cool.

Okay.

Okay, so we did the virtual hybrid
event, and that, as you can hearit's paprika story. But we did
that. And again, another highlyattended event. And it was the
same hybrid Budgeting for HybridEvents we did for our virtual
audience. That was an hour andwe had about 140-150 people
attend that as well. So that wasawesome. So thank you all for

(26:46):
attending the session virtually.

And that one was done through Zoom. We had a
moderator in the room with us,who basically introduced us,
welcomed us, monitored the chatfor us as speakers. We stood on
one side of the room and we hada special guest speaker with us
in our session.

Oh shout out to Pawntra! Pawntra
was our guest with this session,and Pawntra was amazing. Thank
you Pawntra for being part of usour piri piri blend. Go ahead.

Absolutely. Piri piri blend. So there were three
of us that we spaced out.
Originally, I believe they setthese rooms up basically for one
person in front of a computer,because there was a green
screen, a computer on a table.
We said okay, we need a littlebit more space. So we moved the
table off a little bit, move thecamera back. So we were able to
get a wider shot of the three ofus. So then we were able to take

(27:32):
our mask off. The one downside Iwill say, again, because of how
they had this laid out, and I'msure that their intention was to
have one person per room... wehad that one laptop. So what we
were able to see was ourselvespresenting or us sharing the
screen, on top of what we wouldhave shared, we couldn't see our

(27:53):
notes or our next slide. So weneeded another monitor-

Yeah.

-in there in order to do this properly. And
really, it would have helped ifwe had maybe two monitors one on
each side of the laptop, becausewe would have been able to see
our presentation, our notes andnext slide on another screen,
and then on the third screen, wecould have seen the chat and
images of some of the people.

Yeah.

The way that we did it, we were able to see what
we were presenting. But overlaidon top of that we had the chat
kind of small. So you would seeus every once in a while like
leaning into the computer,squinting our eyes trying to r
ad it. And our session is typicaly very interactive. But it
id help that we had the moderaor.

And the chat was very interactive,
so we're constantly looking atit too. And it's going to be
part of the MPI Sessions, rightthat they host online? So you'll
be able to see that if you signup for any of the online
sessions later on. It's going tobe part of the library. But
yeah, so that one was rough. Andin their defense, everyone right
now has slashed budgets, and sodoes MPI. So they did tell us

(28:58):
beforehand that they were veryopen with us. And they said,
you're going to be working offof a laptop, and you're going to
be working off of possibly thelaptop camera, which we didn't
they were able to get a camerain the rooms to kinda get a
better quality going there. Sothat was nice. But yeah, that
was a bit of a challenge. But weabsolutely worked through that.
And that was good.

Awesome.

And then last night, that was
Rendezvous.

Yes.

So Rendezvous took place at The
Glass Cactus. And you'reprobably wondering, it's
Rendezvous, there's bars,there's drinking, there's lots
of dancing. All these things didhappen, it was true, but I will
say whereas with Rendezvous inthe past you would get something
like I would say maybe a 70%turnout because people want to

(29:42):
go to these events. Even with500 people here, it definitely
wasn't 500 people in that spacethat would have had 1000 plus
people in there.

I would say it was probably closer to 200
maybe.

Right.

And even so normally it's a paid event. This
one was free for all it'sattendees to go to.

Yep.

You know, everybody's at a different
comfort level. For instance,Stacey was not sure about going
and I have been to this venuebefore. And I said to Stacey,
well, there's an outdoor area.
So we at least know thatthere's, you know, we can walk
in if we're uncomfortable, wecan leave. So we went because we
felt like we wanted to sharethis experience with you guys.
So we went in, found an area.
Stacey, I'll let you talk aboutit.

Yeah.
And actually security looked atme because I walked in. And when
I got there, there was still agroup of people trying to check
in. And my face just, if youknow me, you know that I can't
hide anything on my face. Andthat's including with a mask
over it. And so he could kind ofsee my uncomfort. And he's like,
What's wrong? And it said,There's a lot of people, I don't
know, if I'm even comfortable.
Where's the trolley? I mightjust go back home. And he goes,

(30:42):
No, no, just wait. When you getpast it, you'll see. So I did
hang back a bit so that everyoneelse could check in. And then I
checked in. And once you gotinto this space, you saw how
open it was. So they hadcocktail tables and high tops,
again, set up with plexiglass,two seats on either side with
just like a small hole at thebottom as if you were a bank

(31:04):
teller doing a transaction. Soyou were sitting at each side
talking to people through theglass, which there is difficulty
in that, hearing somebody threwa glass with music behind you.
But we walked out because I didnot feel comfortable sitting
inside I'll keep it real witheveryone shout out to
Petey-Pete, he got there early.
And he was able to secure alounge area outside right by the

(31:24):
water and it was very empty outthere. So we were able to sit in
a lounge area three of us andjust be very distant from
everybody else. And he had theinside scoop that there was
going to be a fireworks show.
And we were able to be front andcenter to the fireworks. So we

(31:45):
were in heaven. We were superhappy about that. And we got
table service. And I thinkthat's hilarious. And when we
say table service, I simplymean, they were walking around
asking if you wanted wine.

The team that would have been there typically
that would just be there to helpclean up take glasses, and we're
actually coming over saying hey,can we grab you something else,
which I don't think in a normalthey would have been doing. They
would have just been clearing.
But it was very much cateredlike that.

Yeah.
So they're trying to reduce thelines and bar and the movement.
And they did a great job.
Because typically you'd becrowded at a bar waiting and you
never saw that you never eversaw that.

No, there's never line.

Right.
And Peter, Pete was like, I feelI haven't experienced table
service in so long, I have noidea what this is. I was like,
You're such a fool. But we wereable to sit outside, fresh air.

A few times in the dance floor area, the DJ, I
did hear come across and do thereminders about keeping distance
on the dance floor, there weresigns up on the dance floor,
reminding people to have fun,but dance at a six foot
distance. And also there wereconstant reminders for people to
make sure you're putting on yourmask.

Mask up. Yeah, the same volunteers
that are walking around withtheir church fans were walking
around during the events withtheir church fans telling you to
mask up and what they did on thedance floors, they created huge
floor decals that showed youwhere to stand for dancing. And
that's what they did. Ipersonally am a dancer, but this
year, I did not because again, Iwas not comfortable. But you can

(33:11):
see on the dance floor again,how empty it was that everyone
was distancing. And that'sreally nice. Maybe this is
negative, I'm just gonna say it.
And Patrick, tell me if it'swrong if we need to take it out,
but unfortunately, there isdrinking involved. And one of
the things you would see at anormal MPI is people would over
drink, and there would be thosethat were intoxicated, right?

(33:31):
And that's where the safety,especially during this time
comes into play, which is why Iwas not comfortable. I just
didn't want to be around someonewho would get drunk and invade
my bubble, or you know, wouldnot be safe. And everyone was
super responsible, you didn'tsee that you didn't see anyone
get intoxicated, everyone had agood time. And everyone was just

(33:52):
really, really safe and whatthey were doing, because I think
that a lot of people on thetrolley, and a lot of people are
heard say, I'm just coming in,see what it is. And I'm gonna
leave if I don't feelcomfortable. So everyone had
their guard up. So because ofthat, it just felt, it was nice
being in public and being socialand still being super safe. Do

(34:12):
you agree with me on that?

Absolutely.
Absolutely. And one other thingabout that venue, The Glass
Cactus, earlier, Stacey and I,we did not attend as a hosted
buyer. So we weren't involvedwith that. But that same space
was the space that they used forhosted buyer.

Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

Those bank tellers style, plexiglass
dividers that you mentioned,were there because of hosted
buyer. So one of the thingsabout hosted buyer that I have
heard, and again, I'm justrepeating a secondary thing. I
was not there. I can't tell you.
The one complaint that I didhear about hosted buyer and how
this had to happen with peoplewearing their mask. And this

(34:52):
plexiglass divider is thatpeople were having very hard
time hearing each other. Soyou're trying to talk about a
property through your mask andinto the Plexiglass that the
people on the other side, werehaving a hard time hearing, and
it was in a restaurant area. Sothe sound was bouncing from what
I've heard. So the one complaintthat I have heard at the entire

(35:12):
conference was on the hostedbuyer about that. How we get
around that I don't know, I'mjust sharing that with our
listeners, something to thinkabout. If you're thinking to
yourself about us having ourhosted buyer event and you were
thinking about the plexiglassand people wearing their mask.
Keep in mind, there's somethingabout people being able to hear
each other

Sound amplification, and we've seen it
use at the conference.

Yes. And actually, that's where I was
going with this, Stacey so.

Yeah.

And we're going to be very nice here, Stacey.
One very -- what's the word Ican use here? -- creative thing
that Stacey and I saw, there wasan attendee walking around, who
had a face mask on and then aface shield. And then they came
up with this very creativesolution to hear them. And their
creative solution was to wear amicrophone with a little

(36:06):
speaker, like a tour guide mightwear in Europe. A very
interesting, creative thing. Oneof the funny things I found is
that I could hear theconversation wherever it was
happening across the place. But-I can't!
-maybe that sound amplifier,maybe something like that might
work in the hosted buyersituation.

In a hosted buyer situation, that
totally makes sense. It's thosetour guide amplification systems
that we see in museums, but yes.

Something to think about.

Yeah.
Last night, too, I was invitedto another Caesars event, where
it was, um, they called it PlantSome Sunshine. And it was a
really awesome event, where theysaid, you know, everyone's
struggling with COVID. Andusually they do a nice dinner or
reception cocktails, some kindof party element. And they
decided this year, we wanted togive back and they did it for
seniors in the Las Vegas area.

(37:00):
They're having -- seniors in anassisted living facility, they
obviously are having a hard timeright now not seeing their
family even down to the homeattendance that they would have.
They're not having that a lot ofthem suffer from dementia. So
wearing face masks, they're notable to recognize people. So
they're doing creative thingslike wearing pictures of
themselves on their uniform, sothat they can kind of jog their

(37:23):
memory and, they're depressed.
Much like any other age group,they're suffering. So what they
did was we created these customplant pots and painted them to
kind of give them to theseseniors just let them know that
someone's out there thinking ofthem. So that was really nice.
So that was the end of that day.
And now we're here. It isFriday, November...

November, the sixth.

November sixth. Sheesh. Today's closing
reception was again, sponsoredby Caesars so we're constantly
mentioning them Caesars had agreat part in this conference.
And they did a plated lunch forus, which was really creative. I
had the glass domes that theytook off of each plate so
everything was covered andpreset and it was awesome. I

(38:08):
cannot remember the musical actbecause I'm not a You Got Talent
guy. But apparently he someopera guy that Simon told him to
go learn an Italian song andcome back in an hour and sing
it. And that was just likething, which was pretty crazy.
And I will say he did an operaversion of Aerosmith that I had

(38:28):
no idea could exist in Italian.
So good for you, bruh. That wasnice. That was that in tonight
is the closing reception. Sothat is a very detailed recap of
WEC. And we kind of just wantedto share that with you because I
know it's an experience thatlots of people wanted, but they
were either unable to come, notcomfortable with coming, their

(38:51):
companies and they have thefunds to pay for them to attend.
And for us, like Patrick said atthe very beginning, it was
important for us to attend,because we wanted to see how the
meetings and event industrywould come back. And we wanted
to see if we could do it safely.
And we can.

I will say from what I've heard from people that
were watching on the virtualside. WEC, I believe did a
really good job of integratingthem. They had their own
courses, so they had a separatestring of courses that they were
taking, but we all came togetherfor the general session. And
they did a good job. They hadsome people that were watching
from home, who volunteered tohave their cameras open. So they

(39:34):
would have the virtual people onthe screen from time to time in
the general session. So they dida really good job of being able
to pull it all together. So bigkudos to MPI.

Yeah.
So thank you for attending ourMPI WEC 2020 recap. And we're
gonna go on to paprika.

(40:04):
I can't wait to tell this story.
It's -- Patrick and I have auniversal paprika, we're gonna
go back to our virtual hybridsession.

So we were doing our virtual session Budgeting
for Hybrid Events. That was oursession, again with our good
friend Pawntra, who joined us inthe live segment, agreed to be
tortured a little bit more income with us for the virtual.
And we were in a room with thegreen screen, etc. And we were
literally just getting ready togo. Our host that was in the

(40:36):
room with us, was just gettingthrough our bios and announcing
who we were. And then...

...and then it happened. So what he
does is he goes through ourbios, and he goes through the
rules of the platform andbasically tells everyone does a
professional atmosphere. If youhave any feedback, share it in
the feedback survey. We wanteverybody's mics to be muted as
we start as soon as he says themic should be muted, we hear
something that's like, This isan emergency. Please do not take

(41:03):
elevators and you stairs orescalators to exit the building.
And I'm like, Didn't he just saymute the mic?

I thought we were hacked.

He thought we were hacked. I'm
like, He just said to mute themic, bruh. Like, why is
someone's mic on?

And then we're seeing flashing in the room.

Yeah, I see like strobing lights. Now
what you guys need tounderstand, for me, maybe this
is another paprika for anotherday is that I've been through
too many fires in my life. Andso once it connected that it was
us, when I tell you, this blackgirl was out? I found my purse.
I grabbed a snack, I had myphone.

A snack.

I did though. I was like, Time to go.
I see flashing lights. This isnot a drill. And Jay was our
person that was in the room, ourmoderator, and he's like, Oh, um
so apparently there's a firealarm that's going off. I think
we need to exit the building.
I'm like, let's go. Let's go.
Let's go, we got to get out ofhere. We got to get out of here.

(42:03):
Jay, in all of his glory andshows how dedicated he is,
turns and says, I think I shouldstay with the attendees. And I
looked at him and said, The Zoomattendees that logged on from
home that are safe as we are ina burning building? Get up and
leave. And I'm like, Let's golet's go let's go. So Patrick's

(42:23):
getting ready to leave. And he'swalking out the room. And I'm
like, get your book bag,Patrick. And he's like, uhhhh.
I'm like, Pick up your book bag.
Let's go. So I'm ready to likeleave. And at the time, we left
so quickly that the poorattendees that logged on for a
hybrid session had no idea whatwas going on, because Jay just
stopped talking.

So luckily for me, I had seen a few friends of
mine that were logged on. So Ireached out I actually called
Shannon Jones, a listener of ourshow, shout out to Shannon
Jones, former past president ofMPI Tennessee Chapter and a good
friend of Stacy and I's. So wereached out to her and she said,

(43:04):
Hey, what's going on? Are youguys okay? And I said, Yeah, I
said, You know, just the firealarm. We don't know if it's
real or what's going on. So shesaid, Okay, well, you know, in
the chat, everybody's trying tofigure out what's going on. So
she went in the chat and leteverybody knows happening for
us. And told everybody to stayon standby. And I told her I
would let her know when we weregoing back in. So then we're out

(43:25):
in the parking lot. And...

...we actually see fire trucks and
everything go by. So now at thispoint, we actually think This is
not good. Something seriousmight be going down. And we're
like, well, let's try to log infrom out here. We did try, for
online attendees, we tried. Butthe host computer was upstairs.

We tried to access it to get back on we
thought Oh, how fun would thisbe if the three of us hopped
back on while we're in theparking lot, and just kind of
started going and talking aboutthings, but we couldn't get into
the meeting because it waslocked and the host had to let
you in. So you're like, Oh, man.

It was so funny.

Luckily, when we got back up, we still had
150-some people.

I mean, honestly, you guys are
awesome.

Shout out to you guys for hanging out for us. It
was about a 1520 minute delay.

Yeah.

And then on top of that, while we -- and this is
what I love about our industry,because people care so much --
this session that we did, we didit in an hour and a half the day
before. We now had to do itvirtually, but in an hour's
time. And so I made theannouncement during our session.
Hey, guys, that's really the endof our time for our session. But
we're going to keep going. Andthen Jay informed everybody that

(44:29):
if you need to log off, you canlog off in the rest of the
session, the recording would beup later. I will tell you, those

They sure did.
people hung on.

And we went more than an hour in total time of
actually speaking. So thosepeople hung on they stuck with
us and they were so interactivein the chat. We had so many
questions. So, so much going on.
So a huge shout out to you guys.
Thank you guys for sticking withus and staying there.

Yeah.
And what's so nice is becausethey were so interactive in the
chat, they were talking to eachother, they were talking to us,
they were making jokes. We stillfelt the energy of everybody.
And we were able to feed off ofthat and hopefully our attendees
were able to feel the energywe're giving back to them. It
was a great experience. And Itruly am thankful to everyone

(45:12):
that attended. And we hope thatwe delivered the information you
needed, or you wanted out ofthat session, and you hope we
learned something to take withyou on your events. But that was
our paprika of how our sessionwas interrupted by a possible
fire. I thought that was funny.

(45:33):
I don't know if there's anythingelse you want to share. If you
had another paprika on your mindor not?

One thing that I will say maybe a paprika mine is
I had my moments of, Hey, am Idoing the right thing by
traveling? You know, I've beenin lockdown this long. I'd had
done one other traveled forpersonal on a plane earlier on.
And that was really weird,closer to the height of things,
but on this one is like home andmy gonna be putting myself in
jeopardy, am I going to beputting my family in jeopardy?

(46:01):
And like Stacey, and I said, youknow, not to sound like martyrs,
but we felt like it was our dutyin hosting this podcast and
being leaders in our industrythat we wanted to see, we wanted
to support, A, and B wanting tosee what was being done here and
report back very honestly, thegood, the bad, the ugly. So we
decided to do it. But I will sayI never felt like there were any

(46:24):
moments that were not thoughtabout. There were never moments
where I felt like totallyunsafe. Or if I did feel like
there were moments where Oh,okay, there are too many people
there. There was another optionfor me to be somewhere else.

Yes.

So I will say that's one huge accomplishment
that was done here. And it wasso nice being back around
people, even though you'remasked and it's awkward, and
it's hard to hear sometimes. Butlike several people were saying,
when they walked in theballroom, and there was a live
band, they were like, Oh, Iforgot what live music was like,
yeah, and now I mean, you forgetall of these things. And Stacey

(47:04):
and I right before this, Staceywas mentioning that she was kind
of tired. And we were jokingabout not being in conference
shape, because we're used togoing to so many conferences.
You guys all know that feelingat home. When you go go, go, go
go and then you get home. Okay,so my wife likes to say that,
whenever I have a conference onthe schedule coming up, she adds
an additional four days, twodays before. And two days after.

(47:27):
Cuz the two days before I'mchecked out mentally because I'm
packing and going through mymental checklist about what's
going on or what I'm about todo. And then two days after I
come home and I normally -- I gohard at conferences, I go go go
go go. I don't like to missanything. I might be out at an
industry event and be at thelast event at the last hour. But
I always make it back for thatgeneral session in the morning.

You sure do.

I might be out till a little too late. Maybe
2am. Maybe later, but but I willbe there at 730. But this time
yeah, you're right.

It was nice. General sessions were
moved to like 11 or 12. It wasso nice. Oh my gosh, please MPI,
somebody from MPI listen to thisand know that we love that.

Let's stop with the 7am general sessions.

Can we please is not necessary.

IMEX Group, can you hear me?

Staceyann Van Horne-Dor (48:14):
Putting that out there. But yeah, no, I
totally agree with that. And,you know, I think we talked
about this before. I am anintrovert. And so I will say
being at this conference, myfirst time back and being in
this situation, it washeightened for me because I my
introverted extrovert, but Inoticed that it was hard for me
to get into the extrovert mode.
I mean, I said to Patrick, oneof the first dates, we went up

(48:36):
serious registration, or I said,Oh, I'm gonna make myself a cup
of tea, and I went to makemyself a cup of tea. And I
turned around and Patrick wasn'tthere. And when I tell you, I
was like a child in supermarketthat lost their mother? I went
into full panic mode, becauseI'm horrible with names and then
forget it, you can't seeanyone's faces. So I didn't know
who was who. And I think Patrickfound me walking in a circle
looking for him or standingagainst the wall. And so it took

(48:58):
me a while to get back into the,it's okay to talk to people and
mingle and even now, I'm singingto Patrick, we have the closing
event and I mentally try and getmyself in the mindset of having
to be around people and minglingagain, because I'm mentally
drained. I'm physically andmentally drained. But mentally,
it's hard. And we are doing thebest to be very safe, and we are

(49:20):
taking so many precautions inour end. I walk around with a...
what is this? A 10 ounce bottleof GermX, that I'm constantly
using, Patrick is startingpodcasts in his room with his
mask on like a fool. But, youknow, and I'm not saying that,
you know, there's a little partof me that's like, should I,

(49:41):
when I get home immediately setup a COVID test just to make
sure that I'm keeping my familysafe. And I also know that MPI
went through steps that Iwouldn't have even thought of to
make sure they kept us safe. Soit was a great learning
experience and we are gratefuland I think that's the show I
don't have anything else.

Yeah, I think that's it and I think this might
be one of our longer episodes.
This is an extended specialversion for you guys. About WEC
please write us atwellseasonededucation@gmail.com
with any questions-

It'll be in the show notes.

-any thoughts about this podcast or maybe
future topics that you guys wantus to cover. We love to hear
from you. Huge shout out to mygood friend Fallon for writing
the show. We love you dearly andthank you for your thoughts on
what we've been doing. We lovefeedback. Please let us know
what you guys think in yourfeelings on the show. And
Gilbert Villard, huge shout outto you big fan of the show as

(50:39):
well and Gilbert we're gonnahave to have you on this show
one of these days pretty soon.

That's an episode.

Maybe talk about Stacey and I and time about
meeting each other becauseGilbert was the third wheel on
that date. So we'll have to uh,to talk about that.

Man.
Allmost killed a child.

Gilbert almost killed a child. And there's the
cliffhanger.

True story.

Alright guys, that's it for today. We love you
guys all be safe be kind and welook forward to the next one.

Peace out Cub Scouts.

OUT.

BYE! Episode produced by Patrick
Brochu and Staceyann VanHorne-Doria. Sound editing by
Rocci Doria and song by Dr.
Delight.

(51:32):
Patrick, are you just gonna moveyour mouth and not talk? What
are you talking about?

What are you talking about?

Oh my god.

Don't pretend like you know me.

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