Painless New Schedule for APS

EVENT: American Pain Society (APS) Scientific Meeting 2007 MEETING (MAY 2 -5):

The 2007 annual meeting remained constant in attendance and exhibitors, but APS shifted exhibit hours away from a longstanding schedule. Traditionally, the exhibition hall remained open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for up to six hours each day.

CHALLENGE: The society hoped to give exhibitors more dedicated exhibit time while minimizing their time out of the office. A substantial segment of attendees have tended to leave on Friday night, with even those staying on to Saturday steering clear of the exhibit hall. APS hoped exhibitors would be pleased by the new schedule to maximize their floor time and provide more quality exhibit hours.

INITIATIVE: For the first time, APS changed exhibit hours and decreased the number of exhibiting days from three days to two days. Even without Saturday, the exhibitors didn't lose time.

 "This worked better for exhibitors as they had less days, but almost the same number of hours with attendees," said Patrick Filippelli, national sales manager.

Well-received by exhibitors, the new schedule worked well for attendees, too. Traffic exceeded expectations in the exhibit hall.

SPECIAL REPORT: Portland, Me.

Portland, the largest city in Maine, is situated on a peninsula and known for its revitalized "Old Port" shopping and dining district, all located in a neighborhood of historic Victorian architecture. Although Portland does not yet offer a traditional convention center, it does offer large group venues in the Cumberland County Civic Center, the Portland Exposition Building and the Portland Company Complex, a large multi-building warehouse located along the Portland waterfront. Most meetings take place in the city's hotels, with the 239-room Holiday Inn by the Bay and the 202-room Eastland Park Hotel located within a few blocks of each other. Three hotels slated for construction in the Portland waterfront area should open by 2010.

College Sticks With New Orleans

EVENT: American College of Cardiology i2 Summit and Exposition. 2007 MEETING (March 24-27):

New Orleans has been a favorite venue for the ACC Annual Scientific Session for years, and College leadership wanted to recommit to the city as the site for the 2007 meeting.

CHALLENGES: "The College leadership when making this decision in December 2005 was aware that there was a risk involved," said Sue Sears Hamilton, senior director of the Annual Scientific Session and i2 Summit."It was not known at that time if all components would be in place to support meetings of this size, but it was strongly felt that there was no other decision that could be made."

INITIATIVES: Throughout the many months of planning, ACC staff worked diligently with the convention bureau, the Morial Convention Center, city hotels, and authorities to ensure that the necessary infrastructure would be in place for the meeting. This collaboration included unique face-to-face meetings with senior airline officials to share information on how important airlift into the city was to the success of citywide meetings. During the months after registration opened, ACC shared data with the airlines to keep them up to speed on registration trends, and airlines added additional planes where they could. Despite a strong international showing, total attendance was down compared to last year, a decrease which Hamilton attributed to "a drop in exhibitor booth personnel, general attendance trends across the industry, and the fact that the airlift was not fully at 100 percent" at the time of the meeting. n