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SportsTravel Magazine
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Get in the Mix
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Los Angeles, CA – September 2016 / Newsmaker Alert / In March of 2015, I was in Washington, D.C., for an event organized by the U.S. Travel Association and Destination Marketing Association International. Like the dozens of industry events our company attends every year, it was an opportunity to visit with friends and clients old and new. In the hotel lobby, I saw Jim Wood, who had recently become president and CEO of Meet AC, the destination marketing organization for Atlantic City. I had known Jim for at least a decade—he was the president and CEO of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau when Louisville hosted the TEAMS Conference in 2007.
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Get in the Mix, By Timothy Schneider, Publisher, SportsTravelJim excitedly told me about his plans to diversify the visitor base in Atlantic City by attracting more meetings, conventions and sporting events. A new 100,000-square-foot conference center was being built in Atlantic City, a destination that our company had enjoyed a long relationship with but that I had never visited personally. Jim suggested I visit Atlantic City and give some thought to the possibility of staging the TEAMS Conference there.

The next month, after our Meetings Quest event in Providence, Rhode Island (another city where Jim had once led the convention bureau), I made a stop in Atlantic City to check it out. After seeing the new Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center, which was still under construction, and all that Atlantic City has to offer, I was sold on the destination. Soon thereafter we signed an agreement to stage not only the TEAMS ’16 Conference in Atlantic City, but also Meetings Quest, which will be held in Atlantic City March 14–15, 2017.

I tell this story because it shows the power of the chance encounters that happen all of the time when you attend meetings and events. While we work very hard to create opportunities for productive networking at the events our company organizes, you never know where a brief conversation with someone you see in the hotel lobby may lead. But those chance encounters don’t occur if you’re not in attendance. Call it serendipity or good luck but if you’re not putting yourself in the position for those types of encounters to occur, you may be missing out.

Jim and his team at Meet AC and the Atlantic City Sports Commission have been fantastic to work with as we’ve gone through the process of planning TEAMS ’16. We’ve also been fortunate to have a strong partnership with Caesars Entertainment, the parent company of Harrah’s Atlantic City Resort and Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center, where TEAMS ’16 will be headquartered. These partners have taken on an active role to ensure the success of TEAMS ’16. I recommend them most highly to the community of event organizers looking for a destination and a hotel company that truly understand the needs of meeting and event planners.

Our hope is that you will leave TEAMS ’16 better off for having attended. Whether that’s a result of our robust sports-centric educational programming, the numerous scheduled networking opportunities or a chance encounter, we’re glad that you’re in the mix. For all of the details, please see the TEAMS ’16 Conference Program beginning on page 25.

This current issue of SportsTravel can be viewed in digital format online by clicking here.

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SportsTravel, the sports world’s event magazine, is published by Los Angeles-based Schneider Publishing Company, which also publishes Association News. Founded in 1997, SportsTravel was the first magazine to identify and serve the sports-related travel and event industry. Schneider Publishing organizes the TEAMS Conference & Expo, the world’s largest gathering of sports-event organizers. TEAMS ’16 will be held September 26–29, 2016, in Atlantic City. In addition, Schneider Publishing organizes the Meetings Quest trade-show series for corporate and association meeting planners. The travel markets served by Schneider Publishing generate 106 million hotel room nights annually. For more information, visit SchneiderPublishing.com or call toll-free 877-577-3700 or 310-577-3700 if dialing from outside the United States.
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Media Contact:
Timothy Schneider
310-577-3700
Schneider Publishing Company, Inc.

Association News, Meetings Quest, SportsTravel and TEAMS are registered trademarks of Schneider Publishing.

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Publishing Dates: 09/20/16 – 11/20/16
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