Some time back I applied to be a 'hosted buyer' at Melbourne's 2008 AsiaPacific Incentives & Meetings Expo. I did it last year and found it to be a worthwhile, if exhausting experience, so thought I'd go again. The organisers called me last week to check on my application, and were curious because the CC website doesn't really show case this part of the business.
Whilst I feel like I've always been involved in co-ordinating events, I now see we haven't showcased this side of things very well.
The experience of an event, as a speaker or performer, as an attendee, or as an organiser, has the capacity to be transformational - and I guess that's both the magic and the challenge.
So whilst I've been saying for ages that I'm a meeting facilitator, and the past two large conferences I organised were really just big meetings, I suspect I may have been selling myself short.
It's a competitive industry though - so I'm not about to shift focus entirely, but I think it's fair to say "Yep, I organise events too" After all, it is just another form of show business. So I'm off to AIME next week to learn new tricks.
