The October 15 to 17 Motivation Show-which is made up of the 24th Incentive Travel & Meeting Executives Show (IT&ME) and the 63rd National Premium/Incentive Show-takes over McCormick Place North in Chicago again this fall. For information, call Hall-Erickson at (800) 752-6312.
For the first time this year, the Society of Incentive & Travel Executives (SITE) will host an intra-industry event to unofficially open the show Monday night. Call SITE at (212) 575-0910.
IT&ME's biggest bash happens, as usual, Wednesday night-the Pizza-Thon at the Hangge-Uppe bar. Destination management company Safaris Inc. and its new owner PGI are the co-sponsors of this year's party, now in its 19th year
Meeting Professionals International and the National Speakers Association recently conducted a survey of meeting planners about their speaker choices.
The three top considerations (excluding price) when choosing a speaker: topic expertise, willingness to customize the presentation, and industry authority.
Those characteristics listed as "not important": that the speaker is an author of books, that the planner knows the speaker personally, and that the speaker has an advanced degree.