Ziegler Winery in Malone
Photo courtesy Destination Lake Winnebago
Health care withstanding, it’s hard to fathom an industry hit harder by COVID-19 than hospitality, including meetings and conventions. Fortunately, large-scale meetings, conventions, conferences and expos are rebounding nationwide.
That said, national trends among event planners include contending with rising costs, heightened attention to safety and security, labor challenges and more, according to Corporate Event News. Northeast Wisconsin isn’t immune to challenges, but prevailing themes include a significant return to in-person meetings and conferences, as well as more personalized experiences at them.
People are hungry to reconvene face‑to‑face, says Beth Ulatowski, vice president of sales & services with Discover Green Bay.
“People are ‘Zoomed out,’” she says. “We’re back to 2019 numbers this year, as people want to meet in person.”
Personal connection is key
What has changed is that those meetings need to have a purpose that resonates with attendees.
“People can listen to a national speaker via a podcast, but if they’re going to be in person they want to make a connection and have the opportunity to network,” says Alison Hutchinson, senior group manager at the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau.
She says the idea of going to a convention has changed significantly in the past four years, with attendees wanting more out of their conferences and meetings. Meeting planners seek out venues with sufficient space to accommodate roundtable discussions, breakouts and other options to customize the event experience to their attendees.
“We know that during the pandemic, people were multitasking when they were on [virtual meetings]. One of the challenges planners have now is how to capture people’s attention; people can’t just be lectured at,” Hutchinson says.
Event planners for large-scale meetings and conventions are also seeking experiential opportunities in which attendees can participate. These are increasingly important complements to a large-scale meeting or conference’s formal agenda of presentations, workshops and breakout sessions.
“They definitely want a mix, and the Green Bay Packers are a big hit for us with [Lambeau Field] and the Hall of Fame right here,” Ulatowski says. “But they also want to do things like making herbal cookies or another hands-on experience.”
The Fond du Lac area draws many smaller-scale corporate and association meetings, with the area’s medium-size venues being a “sweet spot” for groups of 150 to 200 attendees, says Craig Molitor, president of Destination Lake Winnebago Region. They’re drawn to the area for what Molitor describes as more curated meetings, including more downtown activities, interesting venues and team-building activities.
For example, attendees may have an immersive experience downtown that includes staying at the Hotel Retlaw, shopping at one of several woman-run businesses along Main Street, dining at the Cellar District — a converted Lutheran church — or several other walkable restaurants and taking in the arts at the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts. And it’s all within walking distance, making a seamless shift from more formal conference activities to team-building time.
“It’s walkable, it’s safe and it’s clean, and people want that,” Molitor says. “People like local because they like the experience.”
Curated experiences
The Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau receives many requests from meeting planners for team-building activities that range from axe throwing to giving back opportunities such as donating blood in the Community Blood Center’s mobile station. Others have requested space to do yoga, breath work or meditation as a team. That dovetails nicely with another ask meeting planners are making across the United States: for more literal breathing room.
“The busier their itinerary, the more they may need space to get away,” Ulatowski says. “That might mean taking advantage of a hotel property’s green space or taking a little walk.”
Other meeting planners seek the opportunities for attendees to have a chance to “roam” versus sitting for hours on end. Their agendas typically allow a break between sessions to allow for more than a bathroom run. In fact, health is increasingly on the radar both during the day and nighttime. Ulatowski says many event planners create a specialty mocktail for after-hours enjoyment in place of two-hour-long happy hours.
Industry trends also show an increased focus on security and risk management. All three communities credit their venues with providing excellent security and say their low crime rates make them very attractive to event planners.
Meeting planners nationally and closer to home are also seeking to curate experiences that include the unique and unusual. In Appleton, Harry Houdini intrigues many visitors, for example.
“One of our most popular tourism assets is a family-owned goat farm, LaClare Creamery, and we have even hosted the meeting of the executive committee of the Meeting Professionals International board, and these are meeting professionals who plan meetings,” Molitor says. “They met there all day overlooking the [production area].”
Not far down the highway are some other popular meeting or post-meeting destinations: Ziegler Winery and the Ledgerock Distillery, family-owned businesses that have stories to tell.
“Both have unique stories, and meeting planners love that,” Molitor says. “They help to fulfill the crafted, curated, bespoke meeting planning that’s happening today.”
Future outlook
All of this needs to be accomplished with cost in mind. Event planners often have tighter budgets than in the past while simultaneously finding that costs of accommodations, venues, food and other event must-haves have risen. Ulatowski says they aren’t feeling the extreme pinch they did during the height of the labor shortage with event setup and teardown personnel and servers, for example, but there are still vacancies. And when it comes to food and beverage, costs are up.
“Food and beverage prices have increased, just like at the grocery store, and people will notice the room rates have increased at hotels,” Hutchinson says. “They do get the benefit of a discounted rate provided to groups, but it is still a bit of a hotelier’s market with hoteliers setting the pace because demand is so high.”
The industry’s sales cycle has a long lead time; Molitor says his is anywhere from one to five years. Ulatowski typically works with groups three years prior to hosting their events. Hutchinson is just now seeing the end of the “shuffle of the pandemic,” with several groups that canceled in 2020 and 2021 finally executing their new dates.
“The last two years were crazy with everyone working to meet their [contractual] obligations and pile on everyone else already booked,” says Hutchinson, who is now marketing to event planners for 2026 and 2027 meetings and conventions.
Fortunately, all three of the organizations are plugged into opportunities to pitch their communities as destinations for meeting planners’ next conferences and meetings. They believe the scales will continue to tip to their advantage, be it that food and beverage costs are still lower in Northeast Wisconsin than national averages, parking is largely free, conference facilities are beautiful and spacious, and there are plenty of local attractions to complement any group’s meeting or conference experience.
“They need to save money on their conventions, and one way to do that is to bring it to a smaller destination,” Hutchinson says. “I like to appeal to smaller conventions and groups not looking for a tier-one city like Chicago or New York.”
Seeing is believing, Hutchinson says.
“Once I get a conference planner here, they love it,” she says. “It is the element of surprise, and it’s a very happy and pleased surprise.”
