#19: Meetings & Conventions in MILWAUKEE with Visit Milwaukee CEO, Peggy Williams-Smith & Wisconsin Center District CEO, Mary Brooks

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Thank you for tuning in to the General Session podcast.
I'm your host, Mario Artist with the great I'm in
Rima and today we have a pleasure of having a
two powerhouse guests shaping our city of Milwaukee. Today we
have the president and CEO of Visit Milwaukee, Peggy william Smith,
and the President and CEO of the Wisconsin Center District,
Marty Brooks. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You for having us, Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Thank you for taking some time out. And I know
you guys are busy on the schedule, and we just
wanted to highlight Milwaukee because it's a beautiful city and
we're as planners. We plan a lot of events throughout
the country and throughout the city, and I wanted to
highlight Milwaukee and the new Center here.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Anytime we have the opportunity to share our love for
the city in the Center, we love to do it.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Awesome. We do have some events coming out that I'm
looking forward to to sharing information with, so I'm excited
to get the tour.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, we have this relatively new location, so I thank
you for also having us in our house here and
we wanted to kind of dig into a little bit
of the city for our planner listeners so they can
see what we have to offer and hopefully bring some
service and some events over here now that we can
house these big national events and city widse. You want
to talk a little bit about vis Milwaukee.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Sure, So our job is to market, brand, and sell
the city of Milwaukee and the Barge Center, as well
as the rest of the Wisconsin Center district that we're
sitting in. So my team I just got back from IMEX,
which I'm sure a lot of your listeners were at
four days of intense trade show booth activations as well

(01:48):
as appointments, talking about all that Milwaukee has to offer.
And you know what I really think sets us apart
from other cities.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Besides what Marty's.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Going to talk about with the four hundred and fifty
six million dollar expansion, it's just how much our city
has changed over the last five years or so. The
skyline has changed, the way that people talk about Milwaukee
has changed. We have so many more things to offer
that really set us apart from other destinations of our size.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yes, yes, no, that's awesome. Mean with visit Milwaukee, how
does Visit Milwaukee work with local vendors like the Center
in a track to attract larger conferences and big events
to bring them here.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, we work hand in hand with Marty and his team.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So I just got back, like I said, from IMAX,
Megan Setman, who's their vice president of sales, was out
there with us doing appointments, talking about the expansion as
well as everything that we have to offer within this complex.
We're a partnership organization, so outside of our relationship with
the Baird Center, we have over nine hundred and fifty partners.

(02:53):
That gives us an opportunity to really learn about those
businesses as well as those businesses to really invest their
time with us so that we're it's a mutually beneficial relationship,
so that we can then provide the right resources for
a planner when they come into this city because we
know so much about each of.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Our partners on the phone, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do you have them divided up into different groups, so
like if you like over eight hundred or over too.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, we do have them divided up into groups they
self identify. So for example, obviously one of our most
robust categories would be restaurants or venues, event venues or
av providers or production providers, but we can you can
do all of that on our website as a planner
and go in and take a look and see. But
we also send out leads to all of those different

(03:45):
types of partners depending on what the meeting planner needs.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Do you also help out with like transportation and we
do off site locations or like VIP receptions and so.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Absolutely absolutely when we do a site tour, we give
the planner the opportunity to tell us what they're looking for.
And most of our site tours are a day and
a half to two days long, and the meeting planners
get exhausted. I always feel bad when I see the
schedule because it's like nine to ten.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Bam.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
We have to do a little longer here at the
Bard Center now that it's double the size. And we
learn that during the construction phase because we would start out.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
And then Marty would be waiting and he'd be.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Waiting, and he'd be waiting because it's a lot bigger
now for us to tour it. But yeah, that's what
we know. We spend a lot of time with our customers.
They can use our website. We have a portal they
can learn all about the city and every one of
our partners before they even get here and tell us where.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
They want to go.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Well, in that note, it's Marty, what are some of
their unique features that birth conference center sets for a
part for the other venues and in the region.

Speaker 5 (04:57):
Thank you for that question, because I love talking about
what we've done here. We spent a lot of time
before we actually got the commitment to move forward with
the project, learning what other convention centers had, working hand
in glove with Peggy and her team, identifying what our
peer cities had, what kind of space, what kind of offerings.
Things that we could control, the number of hotel rooms

(05:17):
we have no control over, but the experience and the
support of a convention is what we control. And what
we realized we needed was we needed another ballroom. Just
having one ballroom made it very difficult for anyone to
sell the property because once that was taken by one event,
it really limited anybody else's interest in doing anything else
in the convention center at the time. So we knew

(05:38):
we had to do another ballroom. We knew we had
to have more exhibition space, we knew we needed to
have more meeting rooms, and that's just what Brick and
mortar as far as the basics. We then looked at
this and really looked at how do people attend conventions now?
Because the convention attendee business is so different today than
it was twenty thirty years ago. People bring and I

(05:58):
don't know how you get to this numb but the
average attendee to a convention brings three point five personal
use devices with them. I don't know where the point
five comes from, but I know I carry two cell
phones and at least one laptop.

Speaker 6 (06:10):
You don't know my iPad, So you need a lot more.

Speaker 5 (06:13):
You need a robust Wi Fi network, which you didn't
have twenty years ago.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
You need to have a.

Speaker 5 (06:18):
Very robust cell service coverage, which you didn't need twenty
years ago. And what as you see the space that
we're sitting in today, People used to go to conventions
to go to the general session, attend the workshops, go
to the exhibition floor, and an event planner viewed their
job very similar to what I equate as a casino.

(06:38):
The casino wants you in that in their doors, and
they don't want you to leave until it's time, until
it's time to literally go to bed. And the convention
planners wanted people to stay in the confines of the
general session the exhibition floor. And while that's still a
very important part of why people go to conventions, but
they also go to conventions to rekindle associations and networks

(06:59):
with people that they do business with, do business with
people outside of the convention that they're there for, but
for their own association. So having space, which we in
the event business called prefunction space was critical. That we
have a lot of pre function space, which is for
the non event planner, is the space outside of the
meeting room or exhibition hall where you can sit, talk,

(07:20):
plug in, which is another important component. You need to
have a lot of plugs because with all of these
three point five devices, you also have to be able
to charge them. I used to hate when cell phones
first came out. You would see people sitting there was
an airport, a hotel lobby along the floor, plugging into
the outlets used for vacuums, and it just looks so
unprofessional in a facility where our job is to bring

(07:44):
people in. So you'll notice as you go through the
facility we have power everywhere. Virtually all of the furniture
we purchased has power built into it. There are tables
alongside where you're sitting that have power plugs in the
floor into the table, so multiple users can use them
at one time. An area I'll show you later, and
this was also part of the design is called the
Collaborative staircase, and it's an open.

Speaker 6 (08:03):
Staircase power throughout.

Speaker 5 (08:05):
Where people can go and you can either sit one
on one if you want to talk to somebody, or
you can sit alone with headphones on and check your
office with emails, whatever you want to do. So that
was an important component. And one more and I'll stop
monopolizing the in looking at attendees' needs. You see behind
us we have a grabbing an Amazon grab and go

(08:28):
food service. It doesn't make economic sense for us to
provide a food service operation twenty four to seven. Yet
there are people in working in the building, be they
staff for meeting people late night, early morning. So having
something like this, we're not going to get rich off
of this. We didn't put this food service option operation
in to make money. We made it to provide a

(08:48):
service to our event attendees. It's to add to the experience.
We have a lot of facilities. I don't want to
take claim to this, but we'll take a rest and
whether it's a family restroom, whatever, and then put aside
and make that an all gender restroom. From experiences I've
encountered in my career, having dedicated all gender restrooms are

(09:09):
extremely important and there are events that that's critically important
to to their attendees. All of our restrooms signage is magnetic,
so depending upon the composition of the event attendee that
Peggy and her team brings in, we can change all
of the restrooms to either all male, all female, all
all gender, and it gives us the opportunity to provide

(09:31):
a service that people who are coming to the convention
feel comfortable.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
We also have two other features.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
That I have to include, and that is we have
two sensory rooms in the north building, which is what
we call the expansion, and we are working on the
plans to add one into the South building. And we
found that there are occasions where people of all ages, races,
genders get overloaded emotionally and they need a place where

(09:59):
they can in a safe, calm environment, and we have
two of those. Now we'll have a third where this
is there are sensory rooms. We worked with an organization
that's one of the preeminent sensory experts called Culture City,
and they guided us on what to put on the walls,
how to furnish it. And then the other thing we
have is very respectful nursing mother's rooms that allow for

(10:23):
the woman to either breastfeed or pompe sheet. But it's
not in a communal restroom. It's a room that has
been equipped with the guidance of experts in that field,
so we can provide the proper environment for the woman
doing that.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
So great, I think those are real nice touches, and
I know that those kinds are outside all the states,
all the cities that are trying to, you know, bid
income to mois cancer will really take under consideration.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
I'm looking forward to seeing all those spaces. What inspired
the creation of birth center and how does a reflect
the bulben needs in the modern events planning.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
We had When the Self building was built in nineteen
ninety eight, it was always anticipated that there would come
a time where we'd need expansion, and virtually after that
building opened in ninety eight, they started looking at what
do other markets have, what do they need? The expectation
was at some point they're going to have to expand.
It became a matter of at what point does it

(11:24):
make sense to invest in an expansion, And for twenty
years there were different studies done looking at what the
competitive markets had and with Peggy's assistant to visit Milwaukee
a number of lobbyists that she had under a contract,
as did we, we realized in nineteen late eighteen, early
twenty nineteen that now was the time to expand. We

(11:46):
were losing as much, if not more business as we
were booking, because, as I said previously, once that ballroom
was booked, once our meeting rooms were booked, we were
really out of pocket to any major event, and it
made it very difficult to fill the calendar. And you
hate telling any client no, and we were telling noah lot.
And that really is what the impetus was to move

(12:07):
forward with the expansion. Yes, we can attract bigger conventions,
bigger conventions, Maggie, but the real opportunity is more conventions
overlapping were simultaneous. We are an economic driver to the
region and the state. We need to bring events here
that attract people who will stay in our hotels, eat

(12:30):
in the restaurants, go to the bars, fly in, use
uber go to retail, and just by example, a big
convention prior to the expansion might take place over four days,
but it takes a week to load in and two
days to load out, so we're tied up for thirteen days.

Speaker 6 (12:46):
Good for the.

Speaker 5 (12:47):
Convention center, but the hotel and restaurant impact is really
four days. By having all of these duplicative facilities, we
can have the events going on simultaneously, or ones loading
in the others occurring while another one's loading out. So
it's we're hoping instead of being busy four days out
of twelve or thirteen, to be busy thirteen days out

(13:07):
of thirteen.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
I remember those days. I remember that loading and setting
up and tearing down and all of that when I
did that. So with that being said, Peggy, what are
some of the biggest challenges Milwaukee faces and competing with
other cities for major conventions and how are you addressing them?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Well, I think we've just addressed the biggest one, which
was the expansion of the Beard Center. That was the
biggest hurdle for us to overcome. I started with the
organization in late twenty nineteen and just in pulling lost
business reports it was exactly how Marty had described.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
We had five days of move in, maybe it.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Was four days of convention, two days of move out,
and you had to really play this game of tetris
in order to be able to make groups work. Now,
obviously that we have the expansion, our hotel package is
something that we need to look at. We've got, you know,
two great anchor hotels in the Hilton and the Hyatt.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
At seven hundred and twenty nine and four hundred and.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Eighty one rooms, but we're missing a large Marriotte product.
We have Marriott products throughout the city and they're great,
the West and the Marriotte, the spring Hill, all amazing
hotels the residents of the Courtyard, but we don't have
a big Marriotte convention hotel. And we're still missing that
high end convention hotel. So, you know, as we look

(14:37):
to the future, that's something we need to look at
and that you know, but the stories that we're able
to tell because of how different we are than we
were back five years ago, ten years ago. We were
featured in Top Chef Season twenty one, Top Chef Wisconsin
this past year, where ten episodes were filmed here in

(14:58):
Milwaukee highlight lighting the over one hundred and seventy independently
owned and operated restaurants that are here in.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Downtown Milwaukee nine. That sets us apart.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
When you walk through the streets, you don't see a
lot of huge chains, and even the ones that are
chains really act as part of our restaurant community. So
we're really fortunate. When we have meeting planners come in,
they're just blown away. They're blown away by the access
to fresh water. They don't understand that we have fourteen
hundred acres of beachfront, one hundred and fifty miles of trails.

(15:30):
We're truly an outdoor recreation haven in addition to being
a meetings and convention you know, juggernaut. Now that we
have this, and you know, anytime you have something new
and shiny, it helps to put you back on everyone's list.
And having three hundred thousand square feet of exhibit space
has allowed us or opened the door for us to

(15:51):
attend conventions and trade shows that we weren't able to
prior to the expansion. So that has opened us up
to a whole new set of customers, even customers who
typically don't need that much space.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Because we weren't in those rooms before.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Okay, No, that's awesome, And I'm proud of what we've
done with Milwaukee downtown. And I've gone to a lot
of other cities, and we have a beautiful river, and
we have a beautiful waterfront, like you mentioned, that's accessible.
There's some water funds. You can't even look at it,
like there's waters there which you can't go on the
beach or anything. You can't really enjoy it. But we've
done a great job with that stuff and we have

(16:27):
we've really presented ourselves really well. And with the hotels too,
Like I think, I one hundred percent agree with you
with I think we need a bigger like a box
hotel or bigger hotel with maybe like a thousand rooms
or so that can house it. And I feel like
that's an opportunity, right.

Speaker 6 (16:42):
We need to make sure you're getting support for that.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
We would have to make some phone calls and see
what we can do about that, but it is important.
I truly think that having a larger we do. I remember,
you know when the other conference was here, that we
utilized almost every single one of the little hotels and
the major hotels here downtown. I know that we had
rooms all the oied by the airports because of the

(17:10):
you know, being all filled.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
But yes, and our big city wides do.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
And I will tell you that it's a testament to
the team of both their the Wisconsin Center district and
visit Milwaukee, because our team has to do a lot
of work to get a citywide convention in most cities.
In our biggest competitors take Columbus, for example, convention center,
thousand room hotel, seven hundred and fifty room hotel, both

(17:38):
connected to the convention center, so they can do simultaneous
groups in their north and south buildings at the same time.
So you know, if we have two groups of seven
to fifty, which would be two city wides, we have
to use two hotels in the south end and two
or three on the north end because of the size
of the hotels we have right now. So our team

(17:59):
spends a lot of time and meeting planners. We have
to have such an amazing city and such an amazing center,
but it makes them want to sign so many hotel contracts.

Speaker 5 (18:10):
Something just going back to your talking about we have
the River and we have the Michigan something that both
of those had strong influence in aside from the wonderful
amenities you let me speak about, Carmen, is that the
great lakes, like Michigan as well as the other four
was a tremendous influence to the architectural team over the

(18:32):
design of the property. A lot of glass so you
can see outside, uh, the impact of the lakes. You
can see architecturally in our carpeting, and a lot of
the art in the ceiling of our of the baired ballroom.
The water feature that we have right behind us, so
fresh water is a major component of what we've tried
to capture in the design and interiors of this building,

(18:54):
reflecting something that we're very fortunate to have, which is
like Michigan as part of our community.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
It's great resource too, and it's enormous, enormous. Like the layout,
I love I can't wait till you to walk through
the layout. I love how it's structured. Having the exhibit
space I think it's on the middle. I thought that
was really good and also as a planner to not
have to have the word like have your exhibits at
the bottom. We're at some dungeon down in the basins

(19:19):
of nat Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
And the natural light yes, I mean, we just had Connect,
which is, I'm sure as all of your listeners know,
is one of the major trade shows for meeting planners
to attend, and we were just at IMEX and the
Connect planners were all there, and they once again just reiterated,
first of all, how much they loved working with us,

(19:41):
and how above and beyond both teams went to make
sure that it was a flawless event. So remember that planners,
when who are listening right now, we go above and beyond.
But they were also the exhibit show floor having that
natural light come in. You know, as Marty said, back
in the old days, you didn't want people to know
what was happening outside because you didn't want them to
be out there. That's not the way meeting planners or

(20:04):
attendees think anymore. So to have the foresight to put
that natural light into that exhibit hall has been a
game changer when we're selling the space has.

Speaker 6 (20:13):
Been I must jump in.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
One of the mantras that we had in designing and
constructing the facility was to do as best we possibly
could to address every and any reason a meeting planner
may say we can't come to your building.

Speaker 6 (20:30):
You can't do our event.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
And I'll come to Peggy's point about the natural light
in one moment. If an event mandate is we have
to have a million square feet of contiguous exhibition space,
we can't give them that a bared center, we can't.
We have three hundred thousand square feet of exhibition space.
You can use a lot of the prefunction space for
the exhibits, but that's one thing we can't do. But

(20:53):
to Peggy's point, in the exhibition hall, very few, if
any other convention centers have windows in the exhibition space
because it's easier to just do lighting or special effects.
We felt natural light was important and would differentiate us
by the same token. There may be just as many,
if not more, meeting planners that say, I love the
natural light, but my client can't have that in their

(21:15):
event because they have projection or they have special effects.
So what do we do. We designed into the walls.
There are blackout shades built in to every wall that
has natural light in the exhibition space.

Speaker 6 (21:28):
So if you.

Speaker 5 (21:29):
Don't you don't want to natural light, BEP love the space,
there's that charge. So you push a button. In forty
five seconds, everything is blacked out. Nice so it's providing
the amenities that we think people want it because we've
spoken to them.

Speaker 6 (21:42):
We're not shooting blindly.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
But then for those that don't want that, we can
address it by blacking out the space.

Speaker 6 (21:49):
And you'd never know.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Very nice, that's fantastic. You guys have really innovative things here.
I can't wait to do the walking out one of
the features that would you would say that stands us
out that are one of your favorite reachers of the.

Speaker 6 (22:00):
Facility you're talking to.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
I can't give you one because I'm very much the
mother and father of this child.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
So I can tell you that.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
I love the fact that we spent a lot of
time designing and committed financially.

Speaker 6 (22:18):
The back of house for the staff.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
We are only as good as the people that we
have on staff to execute events, and we expect the
best service from all of our staff and all of
our third party vendors that come in. You can't get
that with any continuity. If you don't treat people with respect,
you don't provide them with the tools that they need
to do their job. And we invested in breakrooms and

(22:41):
training rooms and amenities and providing food for people that
we had never done before. And while I can't tell
you definitively that that has resulted in X amount of
more business, I know definitively it affects the attitude of
our staff, how they interact with our guests, and then
how the guests interpret that or take that in their
desire to come back here again. So I think first

(23:04):
and foremost it's what we've done to the staff. But
as you as we walk around, you're going to have
to shut me up because the.

Speaker 6 (23:09):
Water feature, the art that we have.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
There's this abstract three D mobile that goes from the
first to the third floor that's a simulation of being
going above and been below Lake Michigan.

Speaker 6 (23:21):
So nice. There's a lot of real and a fireplace.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
Who thought a fireplace in September Milwaukee would make sense?

Speaker 6 (23:27):
It does, definitely.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
One of the things that I that I noticed immediately
when I walked in was the fireplace. It just went
above this whole thing, and I'm like, oh, it's so calming.
It's an area where you can sit down and you
feel it. I don't know, I'm all about this calm
sense in this space, and I felt very comfortable as
soon as you walked down in and you came in.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I said, Okay, this is home.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
This is home. And that's what a lot of people
when when the a LULA National Convention was here, I
got a lot of good feedback from the convention center,
from the planners itself, and this area was not even
yet built, and they had they'd been wanting to try
to come back and try to do it back over
here in Milwaukee. I'm like, we got to do this.

(24:14):
Come on, what's going on? So it just feels better.
And I think if they decide to come down and
take a look at it, they'll fall in love all
over again like they did the first two times that
they've been here.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
I'm sure they will.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
How do you have anything coming down the chain that's
exciting for one of the big events coming up?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Well, we, I mean, we are so excited.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
We have so many big events coming So, you know,
when we look at the slate, we were very intentional
about making sure we went after some industry events so
that we could showcase this beautiful building off to meeting
planners a real live site tour while they're here. So,
like I said, we just hosted connect, We hosted the

(24:55):
Republican National Convention this year, which put us on every
single broadcast station the world on a regular basis for
an entire week. And then we have we're hosting Expo
Expo that's one of those trade shows that we weren't
allowed to exhibit in until we made the commitment for
the expansion, so that will be here in twenty twenty six.

(25:18):
In twenty twenty seven, we're hosting Teams, which is the
sporting side of showcasing off the convention center. And then
we just announced that we're hosting ASAE in twenty thirty four.
So that's an amazing, amazing coup for us to get.
It's the first time that we'll ever host it, and

(25:39):
it is the super Bowl of meetings, as I'm sure
all of you and your listeners know, so we're really
excited to bring that to Milwaukee. It doesn't just benefit Milwaukee,
but it benefits the entire region and the state because
these are times that these individuals from some of those
smaller cities may be able to participate when they can't
participate when it's not here in this date. And then

(26:01):
in addition to those industry events, this year, we're hosting
National Guard. We're hosting International Moose. We're hosting the first
and second rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. We
have the US Women's Open at Aaron Hills, so that's
going to drive a lot of tourism to the area.
And we're also hosting the Green Bays hosting the NFL Draft,

(26:22):
so we'll stee a lot of people in Milwaukee for.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
That as well.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I got tired by
just listening to you with all that, But you know
what is so exciting, It really is. It's very exciting
to me because you know, I get energy from things
like this and to see how well and how beautiful
the building has been, and how many people are taking
advantage of it, and how much work you I've done

(26:45):
and develop in both of you.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
I mean, it's it's it's.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
Kind of quiet in here, and you're telling me all
this stuff, and I said, where, Oh my god, it's
so quiet now, But I cannot wait for.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Group's moving in, don't you.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
Mary.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
You're a time where the public space is a little
quiet because the attendees aren't here. But we're loading out
one show and two more shows are loading in.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
And this is great, That's what I mean. It's like,
look at it and that.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
The floor plan looks that you have the size to
be able to house a couple events were there well,
depending on your.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Size, right right, And we do. And you know, we
have been fortunate.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
I mean, we opened the convention Center on May sixteenth,
and we had multiple groups moving in, dual groups.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
That first week of June.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
We had to be have everything cleared out of from
the gala, and then we had an open house for
the public on the eighteenth.

Speaker 6 (27:38):
We had people moving in on that Monday.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Right.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
So one of the early.

Speaker 5 (27:43):
Little squabbles Piggy and I had was about three and
a half years ago. She was going after a group
of the Square Dancers group and there was another group
already committed for that same time period, but we had
gotten the project approved but had not yet confirmed what
the construction schedule was going to be. And I'm telling Peggy,

(28:05):
I can't tell you book this event because I can't
tell you today that we're going to be open.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
Yeah, we'll be He'll be open. He'll be open, and
if you not, we'll figure it out. Peggy, we can't.

Speaker 5 (28:15):
And the Green knows someone we're gonna figure it out, Marty, Well,
figure it out.

Speaker 6 (28:19):
We didn't have to figure it out because the construction
was done.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
We were open, and we accommentated both We're coming at
both events simultaneously.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
And I'm not going to say she was right, and.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Mary, I know that was five years ago.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
It was five years ago. So it was the first group.
I was sitting in my office.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
We had gotten a better offer for a group and
the gentleman, and I was so new, he called me
in my office and he's like, we're hosting this event
in Milwaukee. So I had no choice but to force
Marty's saying to say, you're going to get this convention done.
I mean this convention center done right. So and they
loved it. Both groups did.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
And getting the center done was not because of this group.
It fits the timeline we wanted. But you're asking me
four or five years before we've start, before it's happened,
commit to a weekend. We hadn't broken ground yet.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
It is it's a little nerve wrecking, you know, when
I look at at how seamless the whole process was,
in how Marty and his team managed the renovation. You know,
I'm speaking to my peers who right now are doing
renovations in their cities and they're shutting their convention center down.
They are not staying open while they are doing their

(29:34):
renovations or their expansions. And you know, having done that
on the hotel side myself, I know how devastating that
can be to not have that continuity of service for
the staff, for us to be able to sell, to
be able to come in and see that there's a
building that's still operational. So I think that you know,

(29:56):
we had the best of both worlds during the renovation
here because we were able to keep people employed. We
were able to still stay top of mind as we
were at trade shows because we were still hosting meetings,
And I think that made a huge difference for us
coming into the opening because we've been able to bring
people here and see it.

Speaker 5 (30:16):
It did add to the pressure. It made the expansion project.
It just gave us another variable to work with. But
we were committed to not shut down. We could not
take business that we had committed to and then cancel it.

Speaker 6 (30:29):
It took a lot of coordination.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
We reached out to the event planners as soon as
we had the construction schedule. We had to move some
people's space around with the construction team when they we
entered into the agreements with them to do the expansion.
We had a certain number of dates where we could
tell them, no work, you can't be doing concrete, you
cannot be doing driving piles because these events are taking place.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
And it did cause a lot of.

Speaker 5 (30:54):
Interesting conversations with the construction people and our staff, but
we knew it was going to be a challenged but
we were committed to staying open and we did.

Speaker 6 (31:03):
We didn't lose any business because of it.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
And I think to Peggy's point, by being open and
being able to show perspective clients how we were operating
and what we were building, gave them the confidence that,
you know, we can't believe they're really doing this, but
they're doing it, so let's trust them.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah we did. I mean, yeah, so it was it was.
The whole experience has been seamless.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
That's great.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
And we all still like each other.

Speaker 4 (31:28):
And I was gonna I was going to say teamwork,
and that's really important between the two, you know, I
think communication and talking with each other and making sure
that everyone is going to be satis. I'm like you,
I'm like, I'm so positive when it comes to things
and people look at me and ask me, didn't tell

(31:48):
me the same thing?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I go, how do you know?

Speaker 4 (31:50):
I just know, just just just keep going, do it,
don't give up, let's do let's do this, let's do that.
And they're like, oh, Carmen, But.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Are times my endless optimism does get me in a
little bit of trouble.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
But yes, for the most part, it's good. It's good.

Speaker 6 (32:05):
Sometimes it gets some interesting responses from me.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Oh, but at the end, you guys work together, lucky
and the right. It's it's amazing the work that you're doing,
both of you are doing here and I can't wait
till some of these events I maybe kind of take
a walk and look at those that I can attend for.

(32:28):
But it's been a pleasure and so interesting to be
able to interview you both. I love Peggy your personality,
I love how you know, your outgoing and of course Marty.

Speaker 6 (32:42):
Always I'm always the no you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
But it's yeah, we appreciate you taking the time out.
We love the job that you guys are doing. I'm
a fan of Milwaukee and as a planner, I'm proud
of you know, calling Waukee and I always kind of
tell our planners and planner listeners to bring your events.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Over to bring your events over here.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Before it was like the size, Now we have the size.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Climate We're a climate haven. And you know we are
so affordable. Yeah, we are affordable. We are There's no
better hospitality in the entire country than you get here
in Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
And you mentioned the food and I'm proud of our
foody scene. I think going to other places, I'm like
where our food scene is increased.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Not only just outside of the Barge Center, but inside
the Barage Center as well.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Connect I will tell you more. So we had.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Connect and they said it was some of the best
food they had ever tasted. I've been to Connect in
many other cities and our team did such a fabulous
job with Leevy.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
It was fantastic.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
And they, you know, beyond everything else that Marty described,
they are also have a They also have a very
strong commitment to sustainability and there is no food waste.
They use this thing called what.

Speaker 5 (34:03):
We're It's called an orca and it naturally decomposes all
food wastes so it can be put in the disposal system.
But it serves as uh nutrients for a plant and
uh life, Oh wow, it's nothing goes to the landfill.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, I mean it was amazing And it was the
first time they were able to roll this out to
a convention, and it was the first time CONNECT was
able to use it.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
So being able to be.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
On that cutting edge of sustainability right here in Milwaukee
was pretty pretty incredible as well.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, no, I was. I was excited about Connect. I
couldn't make it to Connect. Also disappointed because I would
go to other cities when it's here Milwaukee out.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
It's a good time.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
We had our opening reception, we had a drone show.
It was fantastic, It really was. I couldn't have been
more proud of the tea teams, how they operated, how
they executed, and how fabulous it was. And I think
that did lend itself to why we're able to secure
some of these other large industry events into the future.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
And Connect has a lot of planners too, so hopefully.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Over one thousand.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
It was their highest number ever of planners was at
the twenty twenty four Connect So no pressure on us
to deliver.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
So those that are listening, are listening, planners, please follow,
We'll have all the information listed on our website as
well as when we post it on the body of
the podcast. But absolutely to our listener, our planner listeners,
bring your events over to Milwaukee, whatever the size is,
just let us get a shot. They have a really
great website that has you can submit your RFPs. Go

(35:45):
to their website, submit to our FPE's and then the
Center also has a great website for exhibitors and the
floor plans and it makes it easy, like you know,
as a planner, I'm going to stalk the website.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
At Center dot com, at Center dot com.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
At center dot com, okay and check out that and
submit your RFPs. And yes, thank you again, thank you
for your time. I'm excited to do the walk tour,
the tour of the space.

Speaker 6 (36:07):
Let's get going, wrap it up.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
M

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