Last week’s Springtime in the Park drew a record-breaking 4,518 participants. The event attracted 2,390 buyers and a nearly equal number of exhibitor personnel. For the record. more than two decades ago Meeting News founding editor meetpete was an exhibitor at the inaugural Springtime. Hopefully, I’ve aged as well as the event!

While inarguably the meeting industry’s most ambitious collective initiative to date, adoption of the recommendations of CIC’s Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) has been painfully slow. One hopeful sign is the recent appointments of Christie Hicks and Maura Allen Gast to the APEX Commission. Hicks, senior vice president of global sales for Starwood Hotels, is a highhly-regarded consensus-builder among customer groups; Gast, executive director of the Irving (TX) CVB, is the current chair-elect of Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI). Expect these high-profile appointments to accelerate consensus and buy-in for the APEX program.

Pete was one of 1,050 attendees from 13 countries at the opening of Destination Management Association International’s (DMAI) Annual Convention. Tonight’s general session began with a light’s out production staged by host city Pittsburgh but the evening belonged to keynoter Amanda Gore (www.amandagore.com) whose comic antics and madcap brilliance reaffirmed why there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. What other medium allows you to see the sparkle in somene’s eye?