One look at the box and Cheryl Fish immediately recognized that the “wow” factor had reasserted itself in 2004’s sales meetings. Events vice-president at the MGM Mirage in Las Vegas, Fish knows the past few years have seen shallow meeting budgets – since mid-2001 purse strings have been clutched tight – and corporate planners have been ready to cut out all those eye-popping elements that make meetings so memorable but also add cost. And then Fish saw the in-room amenity one business had ordered for its meeting attendees. It was just a box, but, says Fish, “it was sleek, sensual. Black and white stripes on the outside, and when you opened it up, it was lined with pink! There were two martini glasses and a bottle of vodka. There was so much glamour there.” Definitely, this is exactly the kind of trinket that had been vigorously cut from meeting budgets last year, but now, says Fish, “the wow is back. Companies want glitz. They want to make their meetings special again.”

For a couple of years, “glitz” was a dirty word and “wow” was just another element to cut out of meeting design to keep costs low. But, listen up, this is late 2004, the recession ended months ago, corporate profits are through the roof, and today “people definitely want wow and glitz in their meetings,” says Jessica Schlick, events director for meetings planning firm Public-I in Birmingham, MI. “And companies are spending to deliver this.”

It’s about time, too, says Jim Brown, a professor of sales at William Paterson University in New Jersey. “The last couple of years have been depressing for sales executives. They haven’t earned good money. They need a push to remind them that the economy is moving forward. They need some wow to get themselves going.”

Glitz and wow aren’t superficialities, not anymore. In fact, Michael J. Dimond, a marketing executive with The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs says that this has all become “essential.” He elaborates that wow isn’t just about shock value, indeed it’s something much more critical. For today’s meetings to work, says Dimond, “there has to be an emotional take-away,” and glitz is the fast track to providing that take-away.

Understand, however, this isn’t 1999, and that means organizations remain cautious and they definitely are reluctant to embrace gaudy, over-the-top spends. Restraint still rules – but at the same time, companies now are hunting for resorts, locations and activities that provide memorable, one-of-a-kind meetings, and if that means budgets have to be bigger, so be it. “Companies are willing to spend to create special experiences,” says Lynn Stadler, director of new business development at Maritz, the Fenton, MO, meeting-planning company. Bluntly put: When there’s an ROI – when there are indeed reasons to celebrate successes – companies are once again popping open the champagne and welcoming sales teams to meetings to remember. “But it’s not the way it had been a few years ago,” says Stadler. Glitz, she says, “is returning, but in different ways. Companies now want to give meeting participants a memorable experience.”

Nowadays companies are asking for events that engage participants on multiple levels and that fill their eyes with sights and their ears with sounds that will linger and, ideally, that will also reinforce important organizational messages. Is that harder than the 1999-2000 meetings playbook that featured ever more rare (and costly!) foods, beverage and entertainment – and which assumed these delicacies alone would motivate sales teams? Absolutely – today’s glitzy meetings are tougher to orchestrate because, for one thing, wild spending is out and, secondly, organizations are looking for more subtle and clever ways to deliver the goods.

Like what? The big reality in late 2004: new locations and new activities are claiming top-of-mind attention from meeting planners who are scrambling to meet the demands of a glitz-starved audience. Want tips on how to serve up meetings that meet the glitz test of late ’04? Read on for hot spots and more.

Batter Up

A continuing reality is that groups still prefer to stay close to home, and exotic definitely isn’t in when it comes to location, unless that exotic packs all the comfort of home turf. That’s an impossible combination? Not in Cooperstown, NY – a tiny upstate town 225 miles north of New York City that’s claiming an increasing meetings business, says Bob Faller, meetings director at The Otesaga Resort, whose hotel is a ball-toss away from the Baseball Hall of Fame. And that’s what brings in groups to the Otesaga, which puts on many events right in the Hall. “You can hear Babe Ruth whispering,” says Faller, who sweetens the deal by bringing in Hall of Famers for talks at dinner or cocktail receptions. “We just booked events with Ozzie Smith [St. Louis Cardinals] and with Dave Winfield [NY Yankees],” says Faller, who adds that, in many cases, Hall of Famers will join meeting participants in a softball game. “People love playing ball in Cooperstown with a baseball star,” says Faller.

All this is sounding very pricey? Not necessarily, says Faller, who indicates that Hall of Famers are priced at $10,000 to $25,000, and that includes a talk at dinner, probably breakfast the next morning, and a round of golf or a softball game. Renting the Hall of Fame, too, is lower cost than many planners think: “The first hour is $2,500 plus $1,000 for each additional hour,” says Faller. Most companies spend a few more dollars to provide every participant with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat individually autographed by the Hall of Famer – and other baseball stars who have recently participated in Otesaga Resort events including Yogi Berra and Tom Seaver. Does this Cooperstown experience work for participants? “This is hallowed ground,” says Faller. “Everybody who comes here immediately understands that.”

Even better for 2004, business tie-ins are quick and powerful – where better to debut an in-house Hall of Fame of sales superstars than in Cooperstown, NY? Do the event in upstate New York and everybody gets the message that this is an organization for the very best talent, the performers who set the records that last.

A big take-away: Celebrities and sports stars pack a punch in 2004, and when there’s a tie-in to business purposes, a meeting planner hits a home run.

Toro! Toro!

Picture your boss dangling above a snorting, angry bull. Now picture your boss and his boss on a seesaw above a pit where that same bull is getting madder and madder. “We created that for a recent group,” says Antonio Vera, director of sales for Hilton’s Los Cabos Resort in Mexico. Vera’s crew went out to the nearby desert, arranged boulders into a pit, built the seesaw, inserted the bull, and of course everybody applauded as two of the company’s highest-level executives climbed aboard the seesaw and took turns dipping near the bull. “The bull was getting very mad,” says Vera – and of course the more the bull snorted and charged, the louder were the cheers from the meeting attendees who had gathered to watch and cheer (and nobody knows if they were cheering on a favored executive or the bull).

Wasn’t this dangerous? Probably less than you might fear. “It was a young bull,” says Vera and, sure, nobody wants to go one-on-one against even a baby bull, but the seesaw was artfully constructed, too, and in the end, just as it was scripted, nobody was hurt. But that, definitely, was a night to remember. “The group finished with a barbeque under the stars in the desert,” says Vera. Tequila and cerveza poured freely, and who wouldn’t be talking about this night months later?

“We are getting more requests for special nights,” says Vera, who adds that companies increasingly want something new, something fresh, something that works its way into the memories of participants. “Budgets are bigger. Companies want to throw parties,” says Vera.

One conclusion: Take risks, get a little outrageous (such as dangling a boss’s rear near a bull) and this is glitz that sends a message in 2004. Who doesn’t want to work for a boss who will risk it all in the line of duty?

Note, too, that close-in foreign sites – Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, Bermuda – are again winning attention from planners who, for the past three years, have largely scorned locations abroad. In mid-2004 a simple way to add glitz to any meeting is just to announce it’s not in the U.S. and, right there, groups know they are in for a special meeting.

What’s Cooking?

Hands-on interactivity is fast emerging as a 2004 glitzy tactic. For instance, cooking competitions suddenly are extremely popular at the Lansdowne Resort in Virginia outside Washington, DC. “This is a different kind of team building, and customers are excited by it,” says Hal Powell, the resort’s director of sales and marketing. Even better as far as high-powered sales teams go, the cooking can be structured as a competition where small groups work together to create the best egg rolls, the tastiest pork chops, the sweetest crème brulees. “The participants create their own meal; they love it,” says Powell.

It works like this: A large group is divided up into many teams of four or five. Each team is paired with a kitchen professional who offers tips and tricks but, usually, leaves the actual cooking up to the meeting participants. Then each group is given an identical basket of ingredients – say, mushrooms, chops, cabbage, asparagus, flour, butter, fennel – and off they go. The cooking is a timed competition and, at a company’s discretion, the flames can be turned up by adding in an element of judging (where, say, senior executives award points to each dish).

“Sales groups really get into this,” says Powell and, definitely, many participants are new to the kitchen, but with a professional chef there to offer tips, “cooking isn’t rocket science,” as celebrity chef Emeril Legasse tells his TV audience. Follow the instructions, use common sense, and stay alert (Are the chops burning? Is the heat too high?), and good meals result.

“More customers are asking us to put on more cool events,” says Powell, and while many groups have a “been there, done that” attitude towards classic team-building activities such as ropes courses, the “Iron Chef”-style culinary Super Bowl Lansdowne provides is comparatively new on the meetings circuit and participants are getting into it, says Powell.

A take-away: Let meeting participants do something (cooking is a case in point), let them compete, and this is a recipe for 2004 wow.

Hey Dude

“People come here because of the uniqueness,” says Pat Sage, general manager of the 320 Ranch, a Montana-style dude ranch (in high season, Sage employs 10 wranglers to help keep city slickers atop their horses) that is zeroing in on the meetings business when companies want a place under the big sky to think big thoughts. “Here you can have your meeting” – says Sage, who indicates an optimum size group is up to 200 attendees – “and in your free time, you can experience the Montana outdoors.” A trout steam – “with 15,000 trout per mile,” says Sage – runs through the hotel’s property, and fly-fishing lessons are offered. Hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, mountain biking, even golf are at hand. Yellowstone National Park is 36 miles away. “At our ranch you are away from the ordinary,” says Sage, and that’s exactly why more business groups are booking into the 320 Ranch. Sage says a typical meeting runs three nights and, in most cases, meeting organizers are careful to build in enough leisure time for participants to sample a selection of the 320 Ranch’s activities. This is one resort where participants just won’t tolerate spending all day in meetings, and coming off several years where 12-hour meeting days were the norm, companies are finding that a tactic for adding a hint of glitz to any meeting is to build in hours for participants to explore the local recreational activities.

Your group has been everywhere? Up the glitz factor in ’04 by finding a gem of a location that is off the beaten path, add interactive activities (fly fishing and horseback riding, for instance) and this is a meeting that will gallop its way into participants’ memories.

Never Too Far

Going the extra mile is becoming a necessity for the hotels that intend to compete for top-grade meetings, and a case in point is the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa in Bonita Springs, FL. This is a property that prides itself on always asking business meeting customers one key question: “What will it take for us to accomplish your goals?” says associate sales director Darin Henry, who indicates that his resort does a brisk meetings business for groups as large as 1,400.

“We do what we have to do to give clients the meetings they want,” says Henry, who points to a recent for-instance: a large manufacturer of motorized water sports equipment booked the whole resort (“At least monthly we have a group that buys the resort,” says Henry) and they wanted to put their water craft on display in the lobby. One problem: much of the equipment wouldn’t fit through the hotel’s doorways. “We widened doors to accommodate the client,” says Henry, who admits the hotel spent $30,000 refitting entries to make them boat-friendly. “This is how you satisfy key customers,” he says.

More glitz came about via extensive displays of new models of watercraft on a private island – and the Hyatt team says it had to work closely with state and federal environmental agencies, the Coast Guard, local marine police, and still more agencies to make sure the elaborate displays and extensive hands-on demos of new gear fell within all applicable laws. But the client had come to Florida precisely to exhibit its watercraft, and that meant doing whatever had to be done to insure that the equipment could be seen in its best light, thereby wowing attendees, says Henry.

“When groups come here, we know why they come and understand what we need to do to give them a successful event,” says Henry, and in those few words, he captures why a comparatively pricey Florida resort nonetheless wins a bounty of business. Give customers the glitz they want and they’ll keep coming back.

Think New

Glitz is in the DNA of the sprawling, 500-acre Grande Lakes Resort complex in Orlando, a pairing of a 1,000-room J.W. Marriott with a 584-room Ritz Carlton in a package that aims to capture a huge share of the upscale Orlando meetings market. A proof of the glitz factor at work at Grande Lakes is the tasting meal served to site-inspection teams who stop in for a look. “Typically we offer six courses paired with six wines,” says director of sales and marketing Jim Quinn. He rattles off some of the wines poured: Dom Perignon, Far Niente Chardonnay, Opus One. “For us, luxury starts right at that beginning,” Quinn says.

Opened in March 2003, in its first year of operation Grande Lakes has six times sold out the resort for meetings, says Quinn, who adds that when organizations book into his properties, they come with an eye on quality. “We are seeing upgraded menus, for instance. Fresh lobster. Prime meats. Good wines poured.”

He also says that a stream of name entertainers have performed at meetings: “Aerosmith, Bill Cosby, and Huey Lewis and the News have been here in recent months,” says Quinn.

He admits that, at opening, nobody knew for an absolute fact that the meetings marketplace was ready to absorb a high-end destination in Orlando, but “we have been doing very well with meetings, and companies have been coming here with significant budgets.”

Isn’t being new a detriment to landing meetings business? Ordinarily it’s a doubled-edged sword, where some groups genuinely crave fresh locations, but most groups are hesitant to book into unproven hotels that often open with service and quality question marks. But Quinn says that hasn’t happened in Grande Lakes – “We’ve been busy all along,” he says.

One tangible proof that glitz indeed is back, at least at Grande Lakes: “We are occasionally seeing groups come in for a day and schedule only a one-hour meeting,” says Quinn. That means the rest of the time is for leisure – for golf, spa, and water sports. With an agenda like that, glitz unquestionably is on the upswing.

Pulling It Together: Making the Location Matter

Oklahoma City-based Express Personnel, a leading staffing company, prides itself on putting on meetings filled with glitz and wows – but at the same time, says event marketing manager Teresa Burris, the company closely watches the budget. Even so, its meeting last February, attended by 800+, scored high on both glitz and memorability, mainly because Express Personnel put the San Antonio location to work. In this particular case, the hotel – usually a crucial factor in determining a meeting’s wow factor – mattered less, because Express Personnel made sure it used San Antonio to the max. “We centered the event around the Alamo. Our theme was Heroes Rising,” says Burris, who indicates that the company wowed attendees by featuring a 3/4-scale replica of the Alamo (rented at a low cost, incidentally, because the model already existed), multiple appearances by a John Wayne impersonator (an actor who gained some fame in a Coors Light commercial), and, distinctively, a mini-movie shot by Express Personnel for the opening night which featured company executives in starring roles. The key message: Now’s the time for personal heroism exemplified by increased sales. Of course that’s a message in just about any sales meeting – but, says Burris, it gains poignancy and emotional impact when it’s heard in the city of the Alamo. A bottom-line lesson learned: Maximize glitz, say the planners, by choosing a town shrewdly and building an appropriate theme around the essence of the city. That way, a coherent, glitzy message can be delivered, but often cost-effectively, because the city becomes a free message-enhancer.