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After the first of five Main Stage presentations, Convening Leaders attendees will spill out onto George R. Brown Convention Center’s front yard — Discovery Green — for the event’s opening reception, Jan. 12.
PCMA’s Convening Leaders 2025, held Jan. 12-15 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, will offer participants an education program that encourages curiosity and emphasizes collaboration — especially among mid-career and senior-level event professionals and “anyone who is striving to improve the outcomes of their events and elevate their career,” said Carrie Johnson, DES, PCMA’s senior director of education.
The goal, she said, is “not just to educate them, but make them feel seen. It’s to get them to engage and network and form connections with each other that they can continue beyond the event.”
The program is broken down into three content pillars that will be hyper relevant to event organizers. More ways have been introduced to tag content across audience type (e.g., seniority, sector, and role), session type, and topic to further personalize attendees’ experience. Those pillars are:
- Explore AI and emerging tech, data-backed event design, and enhanced security and privacy
- Engage Immersive experiences, holistic attendee wellbeing, and inclusive event design
- Evolve Adaptive event models, sustainable event practices, and cultivating a culture of safety
While expert speakers will lead sessions, many formats require participation from attendees who will experiment with the material presented during the session.
“We want Convening Leaders to be a comfortable environment to practice those ideas,” Johnson said. “Someone said it really well: ‘We don’t want talking heads. We want heads talking.’”
Participants will be doing the talking in the second part of a Tuesday PCMA Business School session led by Columbia Law School professor Alex Carter. Attendees will roleplay in three possible scenarios as Carter and executive communications coach Anne Marie Nest guide them through the techniques learned in Carter’s first session.
That level of engagement, along with more executive-level sessions, were among the key requests that arose in feedback from the 2024 event in San Diego, Johnson said.
The team also tapped a volunteer group of event professionals who helped PCMA select from submitted session ideas and participated in calls with speakers to provide further feedback on the content. Roughly a quarter of this year’s sessions came out of that process, Johnson said.
As expected, AI and other tech solutions were high on the list of what planners wanted featured in the program.
So, PCMA is introducing the Tech District this year, which takes the place of the Tech Playground and will exist within the larger experiential area called The District. The Tech District will offer three kinds of tech-focused sessions:
- Spark Event AI sessions show how to use AI tools like Spark, created by PCMA and Gevme, for event strategy, planning, and post-event analysis.
- Finding Your Event Tech Soulmate is a “Dating Game”–style event in which an event professional will put three tech providers to the test, evaluating their solutions against real-world challenges.
- Turbo Tech Talks use the PechaKucha method — 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each — addressing specific challenges that event professionals face and the different tech tools available to solve them.
At a Spark Competition, a panel of expert judges will determine a winner, who will receive a registration to CL 26, based on creativity, originality, and how well they utilized gen AI to develop, refine, and present their ideas.
And in a Convening Leaders first — at least in recent memory — the Main Stage program will kick off on Sunday before the opening reception on Discovery Green just outside the convention center. Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, best-selling author, and co-host of the Pivot podcast, will open the program.
Also new for this edition: Participants will have several opportunities to get CPR, First Aid, and AED certified, which requires some pre-event homework — be sure to check ConveningLeaders.org to register, find the full agenda, and sample personal agendas.
An evening networking reception will be held on the field of Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, on Jan. 14. On the menu: ballpark-inspired cuisine and special musical guest Gwen Stefani. (Ty Welch/Unsplash)
Convening Leaders Digital Experience
For this year’s Convening Leaders digital experience, PCMA plans to give participants “a lens into spaces they have not seen before by attending virtually,” said Xernona Martin, PCMA vice president, events & experiences.
“We want to show them the full scope of Convening Leaders,” she said. “The digital experience that we are truly trying to build out will make them feel like they were there and that they didn’t miss a thing.”
A host will guide digital participants in a behind-the-scenes tour of the Main Stage to witness how PCMA’s AV partner, Clarity Experiences, delivers what attendees see during the presentations, Martin said. Digital attendees will be shown the secrets of the creation of The District and the Tech District as well. The plan is to stream from those areas in addition to the Connect Booth to see what’s happening with the Foundation and the Community teams at the helm. Attendees can participate in giveaways, promotions, trivia games, and polling so they can share their thoughts on their experience. “We plan to have real interactions with them,” Martin said.
And they will be able to experience the education program. PCMA will stream multiple concurrent sessions that digital participants can choose from each day, plus the Main Stage presentations. All attendees will be able to watch the sessions they missed on demand for 60 days after the event.
The digital experience is free to PCMA and CEMA members, and it will be bundled with a PCMA membership for non-members who join PCMA when they register.
Curt Wagner is digital editor of Convene.