Caesars Entertainment partnered with Event Design Collective (EDCo) to make 1,000 meeting professionals Certified Event Designers by 2022 at no cost to participants.
Caesars said the investment will help deepen its relationships with meetings clientele, understand their objectives and help them innovatively deliver on expectations. The hotel casino giant’s sales and convention services teams are also participating in the certification program.
"It is part of our DNA at Caesars to listen to our customers, understand their individual needs and specific goals, and leverage our facilities and team members to help our customers achieve those goals,” said Michael Massari, chief sales officer of Caesars Entertainment, describing EDCo’s Event Canvas methodology as a game-changing framework to help customers execute world-class meetings and events.
Creating a Common Visual Language Is Key to Successful Event Design
The EventCanvas stimulates the creation of a common visual language that can be used by the event owner and event team, allowing everyone involved to design, articulate and prototype their event story using a visual language.
Caesars kicked off the initiative in February by bringing 21 meeting professionals to Las Vegas to complete EDCo’s Event Design Certificate Program, an immersive three-day design training course followed by six months of coaching on a real-life event. The three levels of the program range from developing a basic event skill set and awareness of stakeholder alignment techniques to mastery of the full process as a facilitator.
Participants learned how to apply design thinking using the EventCanvas methodology, facilitate their team through the process and articulate the way their event creates value strategically. The methodology allows users to approach events in a unique way by analyzing the stakes, design and prototype with their peers. All 21 meeting professionals received their certificate.
Meeting Professionals Must Ride the Wave of Change in Event Design
Event professionals are faced with the need to facilitate change and challenged to understand how to implement that change with their events, according to Ruud Janssen and Roel Frissen, co-creators of the EventCanvas and co-authors with Dennis Luijer of Event Design Handbook.
Janssen and Frissen created the three-stage process to teach teams or work with them directly to apply it to their organization, allowing them to understand how their own events create value and how to measure success through behavior change.
Work from EDCo’s Latest Event Design Certificate Program.
"Through our work and research, we identified the Event Design Certificate Program by Event Design Collective as the global leader and expert in this area,” said Lisa Messina, vice president of sales at Caesars Entertainment. “They’ve had success in Europe, Canada and Asia and are now focused on the development in the U.S.
“With this delivery, meetings will be differentiated, and Caesars Entertainment will be a more valued partner on a long-term basis,” she added.
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An example of the work done at EDCo’s Three-Day Design Training Course.
Many Meeting Professionals to be Certified in Time for the New Caesars FORUM Conference Center
Messina said the timing is perfect for Caesars to partner with EDCo as it prepares to open Caesars FORUM in Las Vegas in 2020. The 550,000-square-foot conference center will feature the two largest pillarless ballroom in the world, she added.
“We are looking forward to engaging and certifying our team and customer base,” Messina said.
Caesars plans to announce dates shortly for sponsorship summits and industry events that will further the partnership initiative with EDCo.
