While women swooned with Patrick Swayze in the movie Dirty Dancing and men cringed at the thought of improprieties with Glenn Close in the motion picture Fatal Attraction, meeting planners in California were introduced to a handy new resource with the launch of California Meeting. During the next 20 years, California Meeting would grow into an institution offering destination coverage, advice, ideas, and information on the latest trends for planners throughout North America through the periodicals Meetings West, Meetings South, Meetings East, and Meetings MidAmerica, and online, first at www.meetingsweb.com, which morphed into meetings411.com, and finally settled in as today’s www.meetingstoday.com.
1991
It was a year of change the world over. In 1991 the first U.S. war in Iraq was fought; the face of the AIDS epidemic was forever changed when basketball superstar Ervin “Magic” Johnson announced he had tested positive for HIV; Germany experienced its first year of unification following the fall of the Berlin Wall; and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) was dissolved and Boris Yeltsin was elected as the Russian president. That same year, change was afoot at the offices of California Meeting, when longtime publisher Stamats Communications purchased the magazine, renaming it Meetings California.
1995
In 1995, Americans were shocked by the bombing of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Deadheads mourned the passing of ’60s icon Jerry Garcia and the nation was transfixed by the O.J. Simpson trial, broadcast live on television for nearly the entire year. Meanwhile, Stamats began covering the meetings industry outside the Juice’s home state, renaming the publication Meetings California & The West.
1997
Science turned surreal in 1997 with the announcement of Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal. That same year, Austin Powers expanded on the definition of the “international man of mystery,” while our little magazine continued to expand its coverage of the Western U.S., changing its name to Meetings in the West.
1998
While “Monicagate” controlled the nation’s headlines and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased Major League Baseball’s single-season homerun record, veteran astronaut and former U.S. Senator John Glenn became the oldest space cowboy when he wrangled a trip into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery at age 77. Back on Earth, the team here at Stamats expanded its own reach, with the launch of Meetings South, covering the meetings and convention industry in the Southern U.S., the Caribbean and the Islands.
2000
After fears of a “Y2K” meltdown proved vastly overblown, the stock market continued to chug upward, the U.S. presidential election turned ugly, and Meetings in the West changed its name to simply Meetings West (Journalism 101: eliminate all unnecessary verbiage). That same year, the Eastern U.S. welcomed its own specialized regional coverage with the launch of Meetings East magazine. For the first time, sister publications under the Meetings Media umbrella covered the entire U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean meetings industries.
2002
In many ways, 2002 was a rough year. With the country still reeling from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, corporate scandals from Enron to WorldCom and beyond shook investor confidence and led to the passage of Congress’ Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which had a significant impact on corporate and pharmaceutical meeting planners. It wasn’t all bad though; that same year Meetings Media revamped and re-launched its website, www.meetingstoday.com.
2004
In the midst of another confusing presidential election and same-sex marriages in San Francisco and Massachusetts, a nation mourned the passing of former President Ronald Reagan and tuned into the final television episodes of Friends and Sex and the City. Ahh, but not all innocence was lost, as Meetings Media offered up targeted coverage for planners who host meetings in America’s heartland with the inaugural issue of Meetings MidAmerica.
2007
Now in its 20th year of operation, Meetings West and its sister publications are marking the milestone with a complete redesign of each magazine, while also offering further targeted resources for meeting planners throughout North America. In particular, Meetings Media is launching its Meetings Market Academy + Exhibition component this year, a 17-city series of one-day meeting planner educational programs and trade shows hosted by several of the industry’s top educators.
