After 11 years of existence in several cities in the US, last Thursday Boston welcomed the Bizbash Expo at Fenway Park. I was excited about it as soon as I heard about the event. Indeed Bizbash is a leader in the event industry especially with its magazine that is a compilation of all the latest hottest news and greatest trends. So far Bizbash has held Events in LA, Chicago, New York, Miami attracting each time hundreds of event professionals, but none in Boston. I believe that the Fenway Stadium, home of the amazing Boston Red Sox, was an amazing venue for this first conference.

In addition of the excitation to be part of a Bizbash Event, I was looking forward to the program of the day. Starting at 7:30 and lasting until 5:00pm it covered a wide range of topics in the event industry.

We started with “Don’t let this happen to you: war stories from event veterans” with, among others, Suzanne Lowell from Suzanne B. Lowell Lighting Design with whom I worked for two weddings this summer. This session was really useful with tips to handle every situation even the worst. For instance, if you realize the bride’s dog has just eaten the wedding cake, what do you do?

Then we had the presentation of the Hall of Fame. I was really happy for Larry Green, one of my first acquaintance in the event industry. He is the CEO of Rentals Unlimited, one of the main rental companies in the area. The fun fact about Larry is that his daughter wedding was the first one I worked on during my internship at Unique Weddings by Alexis (cf related blog post).

The second man entering the Hall of Fame was Bryan Rafanelli from Rafanelli Events the famous event planning company. He was also the speaker of the following Keynote which was really great. Beside the breathtaking pictures of the numerous outstanding events Rafanelli Events planned, Bryan Rafanelli was a great speaker himself. One of the fun facts of his presentation was that his entire family was made by lawyers and his conception of  event planning is very analytical, almost like a law case may be, in order to have everything taken care of. It made me smile, I was still wondering how I should use my background to work in this new world! The overview of the company and its work was fascinating. Indeed, the company works not only for pricy weddings and corporate events but also for non-profit organizations, to which I am deeply sensible.

Following this keynote was the “Top 100 Luncheon” celebrating the top 100 events in Boston. During the Lunch we had a keynote from Chad Kaydo, editor in chief for BizBash, about the latest trends of the industry that was really educating.

An other highpoint of the BizBash Expo was the BizBash Award. Indeed, Edna Dratch-Parker, one of the wedding planners I particularly like was nominated as Best Social Event Planner of the Year. And she won the Award! I was enthused for her and as a conclusion of this article here is a picture of me with her and the award!