Nearly 1,800 meeting professionals attended MPI’s signature education event, the World Education Congress (WEC), this week, counting both in-person and digital participants.

Paul Van Deventer, president and CEO of MPI, announced at a press conference on Wednesday that 1,229 industry professionals attended the 25th edition of WEC in person at CAESARS FORUM in Las Vegas—the first large-scale meeting industry event this year. Another 568 professionals attended digitally.

While a WEC pre-pandemic would attract closer to 2,500 in-person attendees, MPI developed a hybrid all-live format for WEC Grapevine last November, with about 700 attending in person, and refined the experience for this year’s event.

Van Deventer said duty of care remained a top priority even as gathering restrictions—in particular those in Nevada and Clark County (home to Las Vegas)—were reduced and, in some cases, eliminated.

“We learned a lot from what we did in Grapevine to be able to safely host 700 people,” he said. “We have evolved as the science has advanced and the vaccinations have rolled out.”

The state and Clark County began allowing businesses to operate at full capacity, with no COVID-19 restrictions, on June 1, but MPI continued a duty of care program that included a daily health/temperature check before each attendee entered the conference center.

Attendees who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and who are not immunocompromised were not required to wear a mask indoors, while those who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised, as well as those who are more comfortable wearing a mask, were encouraged to do so.

WEC marked several other industry firsts:

·      First large-scale event at CAESARS FORUM

·      First large-scale industry event held at Allegiant Stadium (Opening Night Celebration)

·      First large-scale event held at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas (President’s Dinner honoring Terri Breining)

·      First large-scale event held at the Venetian Pool Deck (Rendezvous Closing Night Celebration benefiting the MPI Foundation)

Next year’s WEC will take place in San Francisco, June 21-23, where MPI will celebrate its 50th anniversary. WEC was planned for St. Louis in 2023, but due to construction delays at the convention center, MPI will push that destination to 2024 while seeking bids for the 2023, 2025 and 2026 conferences.

Van Deventer said the organization’s European education event, the European Meetings & Events Conference (EMEC), that took place on Monday, included 163 attendees, who then were able to tap into the WEC Digital Experience. With the pandemic and travel restrictions, most European (and Canadian) MPI members are still not able to travel. The pandemic forced the rescheduling of this year’s in-person EMEC, with plans to return to Brighton, England, in late February.