In event planning, change is the only constant.
Over the years, the industry has experienced significant shifts—not just in how events are organized, but in what it really means to bring people together.
In this episode, our CEO, Brian Kellerman, and Executive VP, Gary McCreary, who bring nearly six decades of combined experience in hospitality, food and beverage management, and event planning, dive into how the pandemic has reshaped the events industry and how creativity and hospitality are key to creating memorable experiences.
About the Expert: Gary McCreary
Gary McCreary, cmp fellow, cpce, csep, is the Executive VP of GoGather where he helps the GoGather team drive operational efficiencies and enhance the client experience.
Gary has received numerous awards and accolades, including 10 Gala Awards and 31 Gala Award Nominations from Special Events Magazine. He is also the recipient of Six ONE Awards from the National Association of Catering & Events and was named the 2009 Caterer of the Year by the National Association of Catering & Events (Las Vegas Chapter). Additionally, Gary has been featured on the Food Network Program "Behind the Bash."
Transcript
Brian Kellerman: We've been in this business for a long time. We've seen change and evolution, not only within the industry but within, obviously, the places where we work and certainly the people that are attending programs. Again, we talked about our history. A lot of our attendees maybe weren't even around when we first started working together on this stuff.
Gary McCreary: Completely.
Brian Kellerman: Which is kind of amazing to think of. How have you seen events even let's say, post-pandemic, sort of evolve and change? Are there differences in the way that planners, let's say, are approaching their job, and what are the challenges that they face, or what are the things that maybe are holding them back from being as hospitable as they thought?
Gary McCreary: Well, I think what the pandemic did is it proved, I think, to corporate America, that meetings are very, very important. What the pandemic also did statistically, is that we have a generation that were isolated.
Brian Kellerman: Mhm.
Gary McCreary: That maybe those abilities to connect with people, they're not as exercised as previous generations, and that's going to be a real issue. And how do you overcome that? You bring people together. You put them into a safe environment, that creates connections, I think meetings are going to be more important than ever.
But what I noticed, at least in my previous positions, was that coming out of the pandemic, planners were just inundated. There was just, there's so much going on, so much on their plate, and that was kind of a real hardship. And that's where, you know, that's where hospitality can vanish because hospitality is magic. But hospitality takes time.
Brian Kellerman: Yeah, that's a great point. I think it's so important that we recognize our ability to affect people's lives and the experiences that they're having. I talk to people often about the idea that being an event planner, and being involved in this industry is an amazing opportunity to see your work come to fruition and see it affect people, right?
And not that other jobs aren't very, very important, but perhaps, I might be involved in an industry or a corporation where my job is to process data or spreadsheets and that sort of thing. And I never really kind of get to see the true effect.
Gary McCreary: Well, one thing I always said about the Venetian is literally, the Venetian was probably the largest university in the world. We had more students come through there than anyone. And if you think about it, a big meetings hotel or meetings complex or wherever it is, what's its real core function?
Food and beverage, yes. Parties, yes. But I would submit that the majority of the time that people are there, they're in general sessions and breakouts. And what are the purposes of those? Those are to convey and teach. And I think that's one of the biggest things that when you're going into this, that's what you need to think about. Or a super core component of it.
Brian Kellerman: Yeah.
Gary McCreary: It's not just about the parties and all of that are sort of the lubricant that helps and gets people into a mode of where they're connecting. But the core of it is, it's passing along important information that the company needs to cascade out to their workforce.
Brian Kellerman: Right, yeah. Excellent. And mixing in all of those different elements, like you've said, right? The core is to inform, is to educate, and inspire.
Gary McCreary: To inspire. You know, there's that whole thing of like, well, how do you motivate someone? Well, you really can't motivate anyone. You need to flip that, and it's like you need to inspire people because that's how you get people to move forward or to adopt.
Brian Kellerman: And creating as you've mentioned, those connections, even with others is very inspiring.
Gary McCreary: I think the other thing that I noticed a lot, is that networking time is very important now where it seems to be like the big buzzword that's out there. And it's not just a buzzword just because it's the buzzword. It's a buzzword because there's a critical need and what that speaks to is connection.
Brian Kellerman: Yeah, absolutely. I think we've seen a lot of that and love designing and building in those opportunities for people to have sort of natural interactions, right?
And their ability to share that experience, but not only hear from their organization or those experts, let's say, that are teaching us that, are giving us that insightfulness, but see the real world example of that through our peers.
Right? The ability to network and get together with your peers is absolutely crucial. And so in doing that, does that, though, become sort of a function of budget? When we talk about hospitality, we talk about networking, and we talk about some of the more creative aspects. Do you see planners or do you see that being a challenge on smaller events or lower budget?
How do you sort of, is creativity a function of budget, do you feel like, or is hospitality a function of budget?
Gary McCreary: Well, hospitality should never be a function of budget. Never. If you're cutting hospitality for budget, then I would say you're doing the wrong thing. Bottom line. It has to be part of that. But creativity in itself does not necessarily have to be tied to budget at all.
But I'll say budget helps, you know. Absolutely. But for that to be the main motivator, no, but what you would have to do is kind of probably step more out on a creative limb than normally. Another thing is all of the tried and true breakouts go to the general session, which I think are important because that's the big show in a way.
That's where you've got everybody together, but maybe part of it is looking at your breakouts. Do you do six, seven, or eight classrooms of 80? Screen, projector, talking head, that kind of thing? Maybe instead you look at doing smaller little pods that are in non-traditional meeting spaces.
Maybe it's less tech, maybe it's more interactive, more activities, that type of thing that you look at doing instead so that you're not as tech-heavy.
Gary McCreary: With AI, with everything else that's coming in, we're becoming very tech-heavy, which of course, all that does is exacerbate those earlier issues we talked about of creating true connections with people. And I think that's one thing to consider when you're looking at this.
Brian Kellerman: Absolutely. Yeah. I like what you're saying as far as creativity not being a function of budget.
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