marketing for the Vancouver Convention Centre, says, “We thought it would be a slow and steady ramp-up back to business but it’s been a rocket. That’s exciting to see but challenging to manage, it’s a bit of a balancing act, there are many factors that are coming into play, it makes planning a little bit trickier.” Director of sales and marketing for the Niagara Falls Convention Centre, Mark Crawford, says, “2022 is shaping up to be a good year. Events that were delayed in 2021 are ending up in ‘22 or ’23. We have been quite busy with a great cross section of events. There is an eagerness by associations to get back to doing things. Their congresses are a primary source of revenue—they are certainly coming back the quickest, they lost so much in the last two years.” When COVID lockdowns hit, many sales teams worked hard at client conversations to get booked business to postpone rather than cancel. For the most part, they were successful in moving dates forward. Caroline Langelier, director of sales at the Quebec City Convention Centre, was adamant that no one on her sales team got laid off. “I asked the team to maintain contact with clients, not selling, just keeping our conversations open. I think that is one of the biggest factors to our success. We were able to move business. During the last wave, people didn’t want to cancel, they wanted to postpone.” The years 2022 and 2023 will be the busiest ever for the Halifax Convention Centre, with 120 bookings, including 26 international events. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre has a busy fall schedule and is looking forward to the international attendees of Sibos—an international fi nancial services conference coming to the city in 2023. During the spring, a majority of centres welcomed back local and regional groups, but summer and fall will see larger national and interna- tional conferences return. Challenges But the return to business brings a new set of challenges for both planners and convention facilities. After a spate of back-to-back international conferences, Luis Ribeiro, general manager at Centre Mont-Royal in Montreal, says, “the biggest challenge right now is just to keep the level of service and our standards up where they belong. You don’t want to compromise on that, so I’ve had to ask my team to wear multiple hats. In the past, one person would Easing into Meetings The fi rst time Kurby Court, president and CEO of Calgary TELUS Convention Centre, went to a conference this year, he remembers being exhausted at the end of the day. “You really need to think about the psychology of an event. When we get back together, the overstimulation can be overwhelming.” After two full years of isolation, your brain is trying to process body language, screens, meeting people face-to-face and looking over shoul- ders to see who is present. “I think planners need to retrain delegates how to attend conferences. Remember people have to com- mute, get coff ee, park, all those things that we haven’t had to deal with, it makes sense to build in some time to get back to normal, as people are going to be late. We need to ease back into how to meet.” 60 | Ignitemag.ca | Fall 2022
