MPI’s annual North American signature event brings home its third consecutive Eventex Award

DALLAS, Texas, May 12, 2021 — Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the largest meeting and event industry association worldwide, received word on May 10^th that it was awarded a Silver Eventex Award for its signature North American event, World Education Congress (WEC) that took place November 3-6, 2020 in Grapevine, Texas. This marks the third straight year that MPI has achieved this prestigious recognition, after having received Gold in 2018 for WEC18 in Indianapolis, Indiana and Bronze in 2019 for WEC19 in Toronto, Ontario.

Marking its 11^th year of global competition, the 2020 Global Eventex Awards featured 561 entries spread across 37 countries. MPI’s Silver awarding for WEC Grapevine was within the Association Meeting category.

Branded under the theme, “Reunite for Recovery”, WEC Grapevine represented an opportunity for MPI to showcase how events could safely take place during a pandemic through innovative processes and procedures focused heavily on “Duty of Care”, the practice with which all those participating are provided safety accommodations, requirements and guidelines. In addition to those practices, MPI also sought to create the industry’s first-ever fully live hybrid event, blending the in-person and digital experiences. This allowed full inclusivity for anyone to attend regardless of their comfort level and/or ability to travel.

“We are thrilled to be honored once again by Eventex,” Annette Gregg, senior vice president for experience at MPI, said Monday. “WEC Grapevine was a project we are all extremely proud of, showing the industry how to hold a safe, in-person conference with a robust Duty of Care program, while also bringing forward innovative digital practices that offered worldwide inclusivity. It brought hope to our struggling landscape, and a template we’ve freely shared with our community as they move forward with their own in-person events.”

The event hosted more than 600 in-person attendees and was supplemented by nearly 1,200 digital participants. A post event survey revealed that 99% of respondents were satisfied by the onsite Duty of Care, which included nearly 2,000 onsite temperature checks. And through post-event contact tracing, it was concluded that WEC resulted in zero positive COVID-19 cases.

Education was highly applauded by attendees with in-person participants citing 93% overall satisfaction, a net promoter score of 58 and 90% detailing that they acquired new skills. Those who attended digitally – from 17 countries worldwide – had similar sentiments noting 90% overall satisfaction

“WEC Grapevine was a huge success and allowed Grapevine to showcase our city to hundreds of meeting professionals,” Joe Thompson, Grapevine CVB director of sales said. “We were proud to show how Grapevine could both safely and successfully host in-person events again as we ‘reunited for recovery.’”

Most recently, MPI debuted a full-length documentary about WEC Grapevine. Learnings achieved from this ground-breaking event have been applied to MPI’s upcoming WEC Vegas, which takes place June 15-17, 2021 at CAESARS FORUM in Las Vegas, NV.

For more information on WEC Grapevine visit mpi.org/events/wec-grapevine-recap. For details on WEC Vegas, visit mpi.org/wecVegas.

Media Contact: Christa Schelter, communications@mpi.org