The European Meetings and Events Conference (EMEC), MPI’s signature European education and networking event, will align with IMEX in Frankfurt in 2021.

Originally scheduled for February in Brighton, England, the 25th anniversary edition of EMEC will now co-locate with IMEX Frankfurt in late May and become a hybrid conference, featuring in-person and digital experiences.

EMEC will utilize a hub-and-spoke format with Frankfurt serving as the hub, while the association’s 11 European chapters will provide regional in-person and digital engagement.

The move was predicated by challenges presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and leaders from both MPI and the IMEX Group recognized both the need for change and the opportunity to create a unique educational experience.

The two organizations also announced that EMEC 2022 will return to Brighton, home of the IMEX Group.

“It’s more important than ever for both IMEX and MPI to creatively generate value for our joint communities,” says Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group. “Bringing both events together in one city at one time means we can level up and make the most of our combined knowledge, ideas and resources, showing that our ‘stronger together’ strapline has never meant more.”

IMEX in Frankfurt is scheduled for May 25-27, 2021, and the actual dates for EMEC will be announced after MPI’s World Education Congress (WEC), which is taking place Nov. 3-6, in Grapevine, Texas.

Paul Van Deventer, president and CEO of MPI, says that over the past few months, given the challenges experienced by the pandemic, MPI had been working diligently to assess plans for EMEC.

“We’re really pleased to have found this exciting new way of co-locating EMEC with IMEX in Frankfurt in 2021.”

“As the saying goes, ‘When one door closes, another opens,’ and we feel that our renewed path for EMEC in both 2021 and 2022 provides incredible new opportunities,” he says.

It is expected that some of the experiences from WEC, the first fully live, hybrid industry education event since the pandemic began in March, will be incorporated into EMEC.

EMEC has a strong tradition in progressive meeting and event conceptual design and development, utilizing innovative design and an incubator mentality to rethink and unlearn traditional event planning practices. EMEC 2019 was recognized by Best Event Awards (BEA) with the Best Conference Award, and the MPI Netherlands Chapter received the MPI RISE Award for Innovative Educational Programming.

“EMEC is our testing grounds for all things innovation,” says Annette Gregg, senior vice president of experience at MPI. “At EMEC in The Netherlands, we ‘changed the game,’ then in Sevilla in 2020, we ‘pushed boundaries.’ Looking ahead to 2021, we’re once again upping the ante and doing something that this industry, the world over, has never seen before, bringing the entire European community together, while those unable to attend in person remain geographically apart.”

IMEX in Frankfurt, which had to be canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is the massive meeting and incentive travel exhibition event that in 2019 brought together about 14,000 meeting industry professionals who gathered to focus on business opportunities and networking at Messe Frankfurt.

Members of the IMEX Group will be involved in planning for the 2021 and 2022 EMEC conferences. The IMEX Group’s Suzanne Mulligan, senior community engagement manager, and Richard Allchild, senior sales manager, are co-chairs of the EMEC 2022 Task Force and were tasked with advising MPI on the co-locating of EMEC 2021.

Bauer says that while the IMEX Group had hoped to host EMEC in Brighton in 2021, “we’re really pleased to have found this exciting new way of co-locating EMEC with IMEX in Frankfurt in 2021. Looking way ahead into 2022, I can barely imagine what two years of pent-up planning, demand and excitement will look and feel like when we finally get the chance to show off our hometown properly.”