CHICAGO
PCMA’s Convening Leaders annual meeting set an attendance record for the association, with 3,751 delegates meeting in San Diego for the Jan. 8-11 event, squeaking by 2010’s Las Vegas show to claim the honor—by a razor-thin eight delegates.
Although the association did not release the official numbers during the meeting, statements made by PCMA President and CEO Deborah Sexton during Convening Leaders were bullish, and as it turns out, on the mark if only by eight.
“We have a record number of planners for this meeting,” Sexton said at the meeting’s press conference. “We’re fairly certain we’re going to set a record for total attendees as well.”
The association’s definitive statement on setting a record for the total number of planner attendees was even more spot-on, as the year-over-year number of Professional Planner participants increased 9 percent over 2010, when the previous record was set.
The association’s second-year push for the virtual version of Convening Leaders was also deemed a success, with 300 of the 2012 registrants indicating they were influenced to attend the face-to-face event following their participation in a previous PCMA virtual or hybrid meeting. Of those, 112 responded that they had never attended PCMA’s annual meeting, or had not done so in the past six years.
For this year’s event, PCMA expanded its hybrid broadcast coverage to include four General Sessions, two Masters Sessions, two hour-long segments from the event’s Learning Lounge, nine of its 64 concurrent sessions, the event’s press conference and Town Hall, and daily interviews with conference speakers and industry leaders.
Top hybrid sessions will be rebroadcast for free Jan. 31 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central time. Those who wish to attend can register at www.conveningleaders.org/hybrid.
The PCMA Education Foundation’s Party With a Purpose also set a record by selling more than 1,600 individual tickets for the event, aboard the USS Midway Museum, which benefitted San Diego’s Reality Changers and Network for the Needy, as well as helping fund the foundation’s ongoing efforts.
--Tyler Davidson
