While on a FAM trip to Orlando to participate in The Ritz-Carlton Luxury Meetings Forum, Contributing Editor Ruth A. Hill (Yeah, she gets all the rough assignments!) was served up one of the latest trends in the world of meetings and events: culinary theater.
With celebrity chefs such as Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, and more recently, Rachael Ray, being beamed into our living rooms through popular TV shows and appearances, eating good has become the latest staple of Americans, spawning an industry unto itself.
This cuisine craze is translating into the travel industry, with specialized itineraries luring travelers, and hotels and resorts battling to add top chefs to their kitchens. The menu is becoming much more complex, however, in that boasting a premier food and beverage offering is only the appetizer in a multi-course food “experience” now being plated at high-end facilities.
Singing chefs, dancing servers, spectacular decor…your banquet events may never be the same—or at least your attendees’ expectations of them, that is.
Check out Ruth’s featured story, Play with Your Food!, to get your seat at the table.
To take matters even further, this trend toward sensory-overload dining programs has even morphed into sensory depravation in the form of “Dark Dining,” which has guests blindfolded before digging into their meal.
While the sense of sight is taken off the plate, so to speak, these dining programs often incorporate elements that appeal to the other senses, such as musical performances and scents.
Besides the culinary theater piece, we’ve cooked up some more food for thought in this issue of Meetings South, with a couple meaty technology-focused articles and a piece on the current state of the independent planner segment.
Our technology offering features a story from freelancer Judy Colbert about some relatively easy ways to improve your efficiency through some relatively inexpensive software programs, and meetings industry tech guru Corbin Ball provides a comprehensive listing of the most important meetings tech happenings over the past 20 years. I personally learned more than I thought my brain could handle while editing the piece.
Our Independent Party feature, written by News Editor Katie Morell, gathered feedback from some of the top industry “indies,” who offered their observations on current trends from corporate America affecting this growing segment.
Finally, turn to the news section to discover some highlights of MPI’s Professional Education Conference-North America, which served as a showcase both for the revitalized city of New Orleans and the association’s new president and CEO, Bruce M. MacMillan, who emphasized the need for MPI adapt to a global environment and further its outreach to college students considering a career in meeting planning.
As always, make sure to send us an e-mail, to editor@meetingsmedia.com, with any observations or tips you want to share with fellow planners, as we’re all only as strong as our ideas and collective knowledge.
