Meeting Newz January / February 2020

[ PCOA DOING IT DIFFERENT PCOA president, Barry Neame, said based on delegate feedback so far the conference was an outstanding success, remarking at the closing session that attendees should all be proud of what they achieved during those three day as an integral part of the business events sector that is worth over AUD38 billion dollars to the Australian economy. The event was opened by a very powerful, ‘Acknowledgement to Country’ by Kari indigenous support foundation whose two Aboriginal songs were thought-provoking said Maxine Tod PCOA’s, director of business partnerships. This year in keeping with the Anything is Possible theme PCOA did things differently and for the first time featured dual tag-team MC’s employing two of the ‘most accomplished and respected’ MC/speaker/facilitators on the Australian conference circuit, Amanda Stevens and Andrew Klein. The pair proved themselves to be not only skilful MC’s but also expert presenters with a deep knowledge of the events industry, says Tod. “The ICC Sydney embraced the theme Anything is Possible, and its audio-visual services team nailed its delivery of the conference. The world-class technology that ICC has invested heavily in, and the thoughtful deployment of technology used, created a brilliant, seamless theatrical experience for PCOA19 attendees.” Tod said that far from a run-of-the-mill program PCOA took an overall riskier approach with several ‘silent session’ workshops that saw attendees wearing headphones and having the ability to switch between two speakers talking simultaneously on the same stage. Andrew Klein facilitated the popular PCOA Think Tank session - ‘Anything is Possible’. This session threw out the PowerPoint and the speaker! The collaborative session was based around the concept of crowdsourcing and relied on ‘user-generated content’ to design a presentation and set of take-outs that everyone could have input into and benefit from. It was an opportunity for discussion around burning industry issues. For the first time a networking lunch for only PCO’s and in-house managers was introduced to the conference program and over 90 attendees were treated to a gourmet lunch while Klein presented ‘Life’s a Pitch’. Event planners also heard from the likes of opening speaker Amna Karra-Hassan who presented The Lived Experience. Her inspirational story told of adversity, hope and achieving the ‘impossible’ as an immigrant, Muslim and woman, who was Australian outside the home and Islamic within it, as is the case with most first-generation immigrant children of all faiths and nationalities. She was followed by Tahira Endean, head of events Site Global who shared her findings on The Future of Incentives – trends and research from SITE Global. One of Australia’s most recognisable media figures, Osher Günsberg, The theme of the 12th annual PCOA conference held at ICC Sydney in early December was Anything is Possible, and by the end of the intense three- day convention there would have been few, if any, doubts that this is true. Amna Karra-Hassan CINZ and Tourism New Zealand Celebrates ten years of attending the PCOA Conference [56] meeting newz [january february] 2020