The HEROES theme was prominent on the registration site.

When I arrived at the pre-con and the hotel used our event logo (not just our company logo) and had comic book words (“Pow!” “Bam!” “Boom!”) on the cookies, I knew we were in for a great partnership with Lansdowne.

I loved turning MarkLogicians into superheroes through fun cut-out signage onsite, and it was a great way to promote our hashtag as well.

We brought in an artist to our evening events to create custom superhero caricatures of our attendees.

Worthy of a fabulous entrance, our MC, Adrian Carr, senior vice president of worldwide sales, arrived on stage for our annual Sales Kickoff, complete with a MarkLogicized Batman symbol (via a custom gobo on the ceiling as well as on screen), a Bat cape, and themed music.

Pre-event, we shared the HEROES theme with our presenters, encouraging them to tie the theme into their presentations and have fun building dynamic presentations—and they did a great job!

We encouraged our vendors to get creative with the theme, and they were excited about the teamwork and collaboration. The keynote backdrop was a static piece with our “Metropolis” cityscape. We set the room wide so it had a more intimate feel. Riverview Systems Group, Inc. (our production company) even used Superhero logos to “spike” the stage instead of white tape.

Onsite, our internal sponsors could be found in the “Bat Cave,” the support center with resources for our sales team.

We designed these pillars (four different heroes on the front) to flank the entrance doors to the keynote ballroom.

In conjunction with the Sales Kickoff event, the marketing team launched its amazing new website. And to promote it internally, we leveraged the mobile app by creating a comic-themed web banner.

Every year we encourage our participants to come dressed for the awards gala theme. On a good year, we get 25 percent participation. This year we had over 50 percent of our guests come dressed in character. These ladies were one of my favorite groups.

Would you like the Captain America chicken or the Aquaman seafood option? The hotel brought a creative flair to the dinner menu and also created cocktails and mocktails that fit the theme.

The pastry chef put a bat-symbol on the dessert plate at the Awards dinner and made 250 hero-decorated sugar cookies for our centerpieces.

At our awards dinner on the final night, our President’s Club winners were awarded a custom cape in lieu of the standard crystal award. We leveraged our hired heroes to help them don their new apparel and pose for fun photos with our SVP of Worldwide Sales.

Everyone left the kickoff excited and motivated for the year ahead. There’s nothing quite like coming off a well-executed event. And nothing more motivating as I begin planning the next one. I know I’ve done all right when my CEO thanks me and says, “How’re you going to top this next year?” Challenge accepted! (Pictured: the author, Wendy Laugesen, left, with her planning colleague Andie Putnam)

My two main hotel contacts even showed up in Clark Kent–style outfits to surprise me the night of the party.