Reviewing the Chicago Midwinter Meeting with the Chicago Dental Society
By Kevin Henry, Editor
I recently did an interview with the president of Chicago Dental Society, Dr. Michael Stablein, regarding the 2010 Chicago Midwinter Meeting. I wanted to get his thoughts on the new venue, new timeline, and the overall feeling after the conference. Our interview is below.
Q: Looking back, what's the overall feeling from the CDS about this year's Midwinter Meeting?
A: We’re feeling very upbeat. Our attendance was just over 31,000, a slight edge over the 2009 attendance figures. Feedback was also very positive from our exhibitors.
In 2009, we saw that the meeting could weather a difficult economic climate. But tough times have continued to deepen over the past year, so we weren’t entirely certain how that would affect the meeting. I think moving to a three-day format, which is more economical for everyone, definitely helped.
Q: What were some of the comments you heard about the change in the number of days?
A: I’ve heard nothing but good things. Our exhibitors were definitely enthusiastic about the change — after all, a few years ago the Dental Trade Alliance advocated for all tradeshows to start limiting days. For our out-of-town dentists and dental team members, it meant shorter stays and thus lower travel costs.
Q: What were some of the comments you heard about the change in venue?
A: Again, I heard extremely positive feedback all around. People liked that everything was under one roof, so there was no more schlepping from one building to another. I heard a lot of positive comments from people who really liked the bright, airy space, which was a refreshing change from our previous location.
Q: What were some of the things that went right and wrong this year?
A: I definitely think CDS did a great job promoting the change in format and venue. We had been at our previous location for nearly 15 years, and with so many repeat attendees, we knew it would be a dramatic change for everyone.
Although we allow guests to register several months in advance of the meeting, we still had a lot of people register on site this year, and lines got long and some folks became crabby. We’re looking at ways to alleviate that problem next year, possibly by allowing online registration up until the start of the meeting.
Q: Did attendance meet expectations?
A: Certainly! Again, in this economic climate it’s hard to know what to expect, but we are holding stable and are very happy about it.
Q: Did floor traffic meet expectations?
A: In my opinion, yes, and I did hear from a lot of exhibitors that it was their best meeting in months. But we are surveying our exhibitors right now to see how the meeting was for them.
Q: What did you learn this year that will make Midwinter 2011 an even better experience?
A: Now that we have a year under our belt in our new building, with a new format, we can further refine programs and services to meet the need of our attendees. In the coming months, we’ll be taking a look at everything — our registration process, courses and exhibit floor hours, for example — to see what can be tweaked to improve our meeting.
We’re also interested in the evolving role social media networks have on our meeting. We launched our Twitter and Facebook accounts after last year’s meeting. Since then, we’ve really worked to grow our presence and engage members, attendees, and exhibitors about the meeting. We saw a huge growth in social media participation before and during the meeting, and we’re excited to see what impact that may have on the meeting next year.