Event Currents

You don’t want to mess with Porsche.

When charged with planning a splashy event for one of the leading and most respected car companies in the world, Kate Stockton, vice president of sales and marketing for Philadelphia-based Roberts Event Group, knew there wasn’t any room for error.

So she chose a destination she was confident would impress her client and at the same time deliver excellent results: Hershey, Pa.

“We did an event for Porsche at the Hershey Lodge,” she says. “It was a Porsche product launch and it was the most central location on the Eastern Seaboard to all of their owners. They had people who came in from New York, Philadelphia, Washington—and Hershey was the most central location for all of these places. It was really great and the lodge had amazing space for it.”

Over the past eight years, Stockton has brought a bevy of groups to Hershey, primarily staying at Hershey Lodge and Hotel Hershey, two resorts she swears by.

“If planners are looking for a location that can support their high-end tastes but also has family fun, Hershey is the perfect location for that because you have the hotel product and Hershey Park,” Stockton says.


Pure Astonishment

After bringing so many clients to Hershey over the years, Stockton says the most common reaction when attendees come to the community for the first time is pure astonishment at all the destination has to offer.

“Everyone is a little surprised at first,” she says. “They think it is just an amusement park and think that Hershey is where the rollercoasters are and where chocolate comes from, and they don’t realize how beautiful it is. “Hotel Hershey is absolutely amazing and the grounds around it are stunning,” she adds. “So people are quite amazed at how lovely and refined it is and how much there is to do not just in the park, but other things as well.”

Stockton says groups bringing families along are a sure fit for Hershey, as well as those with an inkling for something extra.

“To me, the groups that travel with their families and those who want something with sophistication [fit perfectly in Hershey],” she says.

Because Hershey is in the middle of the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, Stockton says the destination has a laidback, relaxed feel to it.

“It is not in the middle of the city,” she says. “It has a lot of the pieces that an urban location has because you have the activities and quality hotels, but if you are taking a meeting somewhere and want to focus on your content, it makes you feel as though it has a retreat feeling to it.”