When meeting planner Kristen Hunter set out to produce this year’s Pharmaceutical Meeting Professionals Summit, she faced several challenges.
First and foremost, the event had outgrown its long-term venue in Philadelphia, so it needed to move. Second, once a new city and property had been chosen, would attendees come?
Hunter worried about the answer to that question. Ultimately, through Peter Cancila, director of sales for Caesars Entertainment, she decided to relocate the ExL Meeting (as it’s known to some) to the Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center, a venue offering more than 125,000 square feet that opened in 2015 inside Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, N.J.
In addition to its two large ballrooms, each boasting 50,000 square feet, the venue features 2,600 total guest rooms and completed a US$56 million renovation of its 500-room Coastal Tower (where ExL attendees stayed) in 2019. This year a renovation of the 400-room Marina Tower is in the works.
But pharmaceutical meeting planners typically stay away from gaming destinations/properties, plus some attendees faced logistical issues in getting to the new location.
The Power of Partnership
“Gaming was definitely an issue when we first started talking,” admits Hunter, senior event director for ExL Events, a division of Questex. “I was thinking on the first site inspection that pharma can’t have a meeting at a casino or resort. But the casino is at the other end of the property and the conference center has its own entrance. It’s so separate and contained, there was no reason for attendees to go through the casino if they didn’t want to do so. That made it appealing.”
Additionally, she notes, “Moving to Atlantic City was a risk because a lot of vendors were flying and the airport there is small, so many were flying to Philadelphia and renting cars, taking an Uber or the like.”
Addressing Hunter’s fear of attendees being unwilling to take the time and incur the cost, to travel further than before, she and Cancila struck a partnership whereby Caesars Entertainment sponsored the conference. The conference attracted about 150 to 200 people, with more than 60 percent of that group being pharmaceutical meeting planners, Hunter says.
“Caesars Entertainment really wanted to partner with us to get the planners to the new conference center, which was gorgeous,” she says. “The planners were amazed—many didn’t know it existed. So the meeting accomplished that goal for Caesars Entertainment, and we’re partnering with the property again next year.”
Cancila says Caesars Entertainment treats meeting planners just like the casino treats its best gaming clients—like VIPs.
Included in the arrangement was a cocktail party the night before the meeting at nearby Nero’s Italian Restaurant, which is owned by Caesars Entertainment and located along the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk.
“The space was beautiful and it gave planners a chance to get to know each other,” Hunter says. “Then we had a reception for everyone the night of the conference. Caesars Entertainment went all out.”
The company sponsored the evening affairs, Cancila says, because “we wanted to create an experience for the attendees and have them see different venues. We wanted the planners to know that within Caesars Entertainment there are many options to hold their event, and it all counts towards the food and beverage minimum.”
The Right Space
For Hunter, the venue worked well in terms of the group’s space needs. ExL has, for several years, placed general sessions, food and the exhibit floor in the same ballroom. Booths are unmanned during educational presentations so that vendors can participate in sessions along with buyers.
“It forces everyone to be in the same space and it promotes networking,” she says. “We limit networking time to breaks, because the focus of the conference is education. We don’t want exhibitors to be at their booths during the sessions—we want everyone there. The setup makes planning challenging because not many places have huge ballrooms.”
The Waterfront Conference Center was the right fit.
“Harrah’s AC is the largest hotel meeting facility from Baltimore to Boston,” Cancila says. “There is a high density of pharmaceutical companies based in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, so we had the perfect destination for ExL to host its 15th annual summit.”
The two ballrooms feature flexibility, too, he notes.
“Each of the ballrooms are divisible into 26 sections, ranging from 900 square feet to 50,000 square feet, and giving us over 300 combinations to offer our groups,” Cancila says. “Also, each ballroom comes with 15,000 square feet of pre-function space with natural light. The meeting venue is also pillarless and features 27-foot ceilings, so whether you need a meeting for 50 people or 5,000, you will have great sight lines.”
Hunter agrees: “The event space is new and modern, the rooms are humungous and divide into so many smaller spaces that you can basically turn it into whatever kind of space you need. The foyer has a view of the water and there’s a large balcony avail-able that would be ideal for a reception in warmer weather.”
The large swaths of space allowed ExL to add a third track to its breakout sessions.
“At previous summits the breakout rooms were less convenient, located either on another floor or they were a walk from the main conference area,” Hunter says. “With the many airwalls at Harrah’s Atlantic City, we were able to have the breakouts right next to the main hall. It worked out great.”
Food and Service
Attendees were dazzled by the food, both in terms of what was dished out and the service provided. Hunter had a say in what was served, but she also ceded some control to Caesars Entertainment.
“We worked with the culinary team, but they took the reins because, as the host sponsor, we wanted to give Harrah’s Atlantic City an opportunity to showcase its property,” she says. “We’d been working with the team there for years and had conducted several site visits. We all got along and it was a healthy, synergistic partner-ship where we trusted them and knew they had our best interests in mind.
“In the morning we had a bacon bar—with chocolate-coated bacon, truffle honey pork belly bites and other bacon varieties—and having that smell in the general session room makes attendees happy. One night we had a reception with an impressively gigantic bowl of paella; I’ve never seen a bowl that big. It was delicious and people loved it.”
From ExL attendees, that’s high praise.
“Since this group attends a plethora of meetings, compliments from them are particularly meaningful,” Hunter says. “We had one attendee write in his evaluation, ‘Best food I’ve ever had at a conference.’”
Fruit salad shakers during an afternoon break “also were a hit and orange cream-stuffed French toast encrusted in [Fruity Pebbles] cereal were a hot breakfast item,” Cancila says.
But Hunter and the attendees were even more pleased by the hands-on service they received.
“The chef was very present on the floor, bringing out the food, making sure it was displayed correctly and engaging with the participants,” she says. “I’ve never been to a conference where the chef was so involved, and I received similar feedback from our audience.”
That level of attention isn’t unique to ExL, Cancila adds.
“Executive Banquet Chef Alfredo Varela is always around; he is very visible in front of house during meal functions to hear guests’ feedback on food and checking in with guests and meeting planners if any tweaks or changes need to be made,” he says.
Explains Varela, “Statistics show that chef and management presence absolutely ‘moves the needle’ when it comes to overall guest satisfaction. I prefer to be hands on as much as possible when working toward the common goal of delivering world-class service and experiences.”
