Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio, was home to the 2019 ASAE Annual Meeting & Exhibition last week, Aug. 10-13. More than 5,400 association professionals and industry partners convened to participate in 110 education sessions, explore 710 expo hall booths and hear powerful keynotes.

The 2019 annual convention for Destinations International, held July 23-25 at America’s Convention Center Complex in downtown St. Louis, was a success by all accounts. This year’s event featured several new elements, including The Exchange—a stage that featured a rotating schedule of 15-minute sessions covering topics such as tech and data, leadership and management, social media and more.

ILEA Live 2019 will bring together event professionals in Minneapolis, Aug. 8-10. The International Live Events Association’s annual educational conference is focused on business strategies, leadership, inspiration and trends.

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research reported that the recent growth of the exhibition industry continued during the first quarter of 2019.

The CEIR Total Index, a measure of exhibition industry performance, posted a decent year-over-year gain of 1.8 percent, even though it under-performed the inflation-adjusted GDP.

Tarsus Group and Association for PRINT Technologies are collectively launching a new event called Brand Print Americas, which will take place in lieu of PRINT 2020. The show is being planned for Sept. 15-17 at Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, and will be co-located with the 2020 edition of Labelexpo Americas, the second-largest Labelexpo event after Labelexpo Europe.

PCMA EduCon 2019 will take place June 25-28 at JW Marriott Los Angeles LA Live. Known among PCMA’s portfolio of events for taking a more focused, practical approach to learning through small-scale, collaborative education sessions, the conference will bring in around 800 attendees (compared to PCMA’s annual Convening Leaders events, which draws 4,500).

American Society of Association Executives enjoyed Salt Lake City so much during its annual conference in 2016, it has selected the destination as its host city for its Great Ideas Conference in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

A flagship event for association professionals around the world, ASAE’s Great Ideas Conference will bring together 500 attendees in a retreat-like setting at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. The first iteration of the event here will take place March 1-3, 2020.

The third annual Xperience Design Project hosted by ASAE took place at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center outside Washington D.C. on April 11-12. Known for being a conference that challenges the status quo of the industry, the two-day event attracted 1,654 attendees from 40 states and eight countries.

Toronto’s Vantage Venues and The Globe and Mail Centre played host to the 38th edition of IACC’s Americas Connect conference April 10-11, which brought in 230 delegates.

The theme of this year’s event was “Radical Innovation —Change Everything!” and as such, the education and networking opportunities took a new form. For example, organizers banned speakers from having PowerPoint slides with more than one word. In his address, Keynote Pablos Holman, a former computer hacker turned inventor, encouraged attendees to be disruptors of the events industry..

Connect (formerly known as Collinson Media & Events) will partner with International Association of Exhibitions and Events to host a Women’s Leadership Forum for the first time this year, to continue in 2020 and 2021.

Known as a leader in the meetings, events, travel and tourism industry, Connect will co-locate the forum with its largest reverse-style trade show event, also named Connect. This year’s event will take place Aug. 26-28 in Louisville, Ky.