The public profile of LGBT+ people in the meetings industry has grown by leaps and bounds in just the past decade and a half, advancing from what some early adopters describe as the “secret handshake” days to a consolidation into the LGBT Meeting Professionals Association (LGBT MPA).

Meetings Today's Tyler Davidson sits down with Trippus Event Solutions' Martin Klofver at IMEX America to talk about his eminently easy to use end-to-end meetings and event solution and meetings tech trends.

Meetings Today Chief Content Director Tyler Davidson discusses LGBT+ issues in the meetings industry with Charles Chan Massey, a 30-year meetings industry veteran and advocate who remembers the "secret handshake" days. Now LGBT+ meeting professionals have their own association.

The Gateway Arch, the signature architectural masterpiece of St. Louis and the icon of the Westward Expansion of the United States, is even more emblematic as a symbol of the city’s resurgence. Fresh off the $380 million CityArchRiver project that made massive improvements to the Gateway Arch National Park surrounding the Arch, the re-do added a wealth of impressive event options and remedied a critical design flaw that cut off pedestrian access to the park from downtown by a busy six-lane highway.

Call it a tale of two countries. In Canada, U.S.-based meeting planners and organizations can tap a variety of Canadian government programs and select companies to help them expedite the cross-border customs process for shipping materials to their north of the border events. In Mexico, though, the process is more convoluted, so tapping into the experience of planners who have been there and done that is advice well taken.

While planning a meeting, incentive, conference or convention is tough enough when you’re conducting it in your home country, bringing it across the border presents a whole host of additional problems when it comes to getting your materials through customs and safely at your event.

Shrinking budgets and long hours lead the list of event planning challenges/worries, according to a new survey conducted by Event Manager Blog Editor Julius Solaris and released during his "Event Trends for 2019” educational session at IMEX America in Las Vegas. During the presentation Solaris also highlighted a number of event planning trends to watch for in the year ahead and some practical advice for meeting planners.

Three major meetings industry associations—MPI, IAEE and SITE—have banded together as the Global MICE Collaborative to provide resources for emerging destinations that want to tap into the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) market.