Kim & Danielle at the ISES EventWorld Welcome Party at Gilley’s
Photo Courtesy of CatchTheMoment.com
by Kim Choy, August 2 – 4, 2012 – Fairmont Dallas –
We’ve all been told, “Everything’s bigger in Texas!” and ISES Eventworld 2012 in Dallas, Texas sure proved that!
ISES Eventworld 2012 celebrated their 25th Anniversary Texas Big! The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders did a fantastic job of opening up the Opening General Session. They performed a number of dance routines to songs like “Thunderstruck” by ACDC and others!
Cheryl Ceccetto of Sequoia Productions – an event production team that produces stunning events for Canada’s Walk of Fame, Entertainment Weekly & Children’s Hospital of LA – opened ISES Eventworld 2012 by telling the over 400 attendees to “Forget the Past & Stack the Present”. Cheryl spoke on how to keep your events fresh, innovative and unique!
Immediately after this General Meeting Club ISES opened! Club ISES took over an entire ballroom and transformed it into their own networking and social lounge. It was a private lounge for ISES Eventworld 2012 attendees to kick back, relax, enjoy a drink, and socialize and network with each other!
The entrance to Club ISES
That same night, we attended the Welcome Event at Gilley’s Dallas. Gilley’s is such a huge event centre in downtown Dallas, that we didn’t even get to see all the spaces they have to offer for events!
We were welcomed to Gilley’s by 2 longhorn bulls and a roping cowboy!
The Welcome Event was hosted in the South Side Music Hall at Gilley’s which can hold 1500 people with a stage, dance floor, space for a mechanical bull, it’s own green rooms and bathrooms! CatchTheMoment had 2 green screen photo ops for guests to experience! The first photo in this post is by them, and the second one is below.
3D photo from Catch The Moment – the details are blurry because the photo couldn’t be scanned with the 3D applicator attached to it! But it does look less blurry and more 3D in real life!
ISES Eventworld 2012 and Gilley’s went all out for this party, there was a band that could play anything from country music, 80’s, classic rock and even some Black Eyed Peas! In the center of the room was a pen filled with armadillo’s – yes, armadillo’s! Later in the night, there were armadillo races, line dancing, amazing food and tours of the event venue.
Clockwise from top left – the band, the cowboy roper, armadillos, line dancing
Gilley’s was exclusively open for ISES Eventworld that night, so we were able to take a self guided tour of the rest of the space. I could totally see myself planning an event in either of the rooms there – The Loft, The Lonestar Room, The Brazos room and by far my favourite, The Jack Daniels Saloon are the rooms available that can be easily transformed to house any type of event with any theme!
Some of the seminars we went to:
Seminar: Food to Thought Provoke
Host: Kate Kovalick-Patay, Creative Coverings
Paula R. Fenner, Aldolphus
Filomena Felix, Rentals Unlimited
Kevin Dana, CORT
This was such a great seminar that offered to many great and fresh ideas! My hand was so sore from trying to take notes so fast!
Seminar: Marketing Your Business from the Inside Out
Gian Blundo, Decor It
Gian owns Decor It, a decor company in Australia. He spoke about how to market your business. In order to market your business properly, you must be aware, know your client and what matters to them and you must always be evolving your business. Gian showed the following quote by Jim Rohn on his slide, ordinary does not sell events!
One of the quotes Gian used in his slide show
Seminar: Everything’s Going Digital – When Did My Marketing Message Pixelate and How Do I Make it Clear and Concise?
Rhonda Coughigian
Rhonda gave us so many great tips on how to market your company through Facebook and other social networking tools!
Seminar: Events by Design: From Inspiration to Completion
Sasha Souza
We always love seeing our friend, Sasha at various conferences! As always, she was a pleasure to listen to and see the new events she’s created!
Seminar: Before the Door: How to Turn Event Attendees into Rabid Fans
Michah Davis, Michael Gilvars, Tamara Mendelsohn & Sam Stanton
This seminar was all about modern day technology and how to engage your guests while at the event! The coolest thing was that they had a live twitter feed posted in the conference space with everyone’s tweets with #eventworld in it. Seeing your company logo up on the screen made you want to tweet more often and also helped ISES Eventworld trend on Twitter.
Seminar: Ask the PROS and avoid the CONS – Site Selection and Venue Experts Spill Secrets
Adam Sloyer, Sequence
Renatte Tellex, Venue Operations
Justine Treventi, Site Solutions Worldwide
Megan Warzeniak, KSL Resorts
This seminar reminded event professionals what to look for and the right questions to ask when visiting a possible site for an event. In order to start to look for a meeting, conference or event space you first must know the group you’re planning for and ask all the right questions.
ISES Eventworld ended with a Gala and the Spirit Awards. A three course meal was served during the awards, songdivision played throughout dinner and even made up a song for ISES!
Danielle & Kim at the ISES Esprit Awards Gala
Clockwise from Top Left – The backdrop that would later reveal a lounge area and dessert, one of the many centerpieces, the main course and songdivision, the band for the night!
After the awards, songdivision opened up the dance floor and the draped wall disappeared to reveal a 12 foot over-sized greeter by Champagne Creative Group, 2 walking tables with a mousse dessert, a cookie and milk bar, and an adult sno-cone station!
Left – Walking Table with assorted mousse desserts
Right – the 12ft tall greeter
We had so much fun at this conference and a great experience in Dallas!
Kim looks likes right at home with that guitar 🙂