A Note for our CEO about the CEO Summit and other items

Fresh Off a Truly Amazing SISO and with a bicycle trip to Portugal in front of me, I wanted to share some thoughts:

We are running well ahead of 2026 CEO Summit Attendance, with 6 registrations transferred to next year!

This week’s event was amazing. We had tremendous support from our traditional cadre of sponsors and delegates, but they were enhanced by 22% first time organizer attendees and several new sponsors from all parts of the ecosystem.

Paul Miller, SISO’s Chair for the next 11.5 months, assembled an amazing conference that delivered on all fronts.  It looked good on the drawing board and it exceeded expectations.  Nothing pleases me more than when I asked a dozen or more attendees after Tuesday, “what was the session you valued most”, and legitimately I received a dozen or different “favorites”. My favorite session has changed about 5 times already as I review the conference.

The Omni Barton Creek and the City of Austin were both excellent. The hotel/resort has undergone a transformation since we were last there moving it from very good to very great. 

David Audrain was a very deserving recipient of the Krakoff Award. A couple folks told me “He kept us afloat during COVID” and for that alone he deserves Two Krakoff's! 

Now in the theme of, “Celebrate the Good and then Get Back to Work:

The new Safety and Security SIG will have its first meeting in April. Details soon.

The rumblings out of Washington has been unsettling. Particularly for an industry to craves certainty, good or bad.  As a first step, head to https://www.exhibitionsconferencesalliance.org/eca-advocacy-network/eca-advocacy-network-action-center the ECA’s website, and under the Take Action section, be sure to inform your congressman of your stance regarding import tariffs.  While I know that’s probably more a feel good action than a remedy, it’s a start. Know that SISO (along with the other Exhibition Industry Collective Associations) are monitoring every move carefully and we’ll keep you posted and encourage activity and when we have some activity we deem appropriate as a collective we’ll inform you immediately. 

SISO will be participating in three events these next few months:

• Fastest 50 Orlando April 29-May 2—this also includes a walk-through of Coverings, a show managed by SISO member Jen Hoff, CEO of Taffy Events. SISO member Trade Show Executive owns Fastest 50.
• ECEF May 28 in Washington DC—this event is owned and operated by SISO member Sam Lippman and Lippman Connects. SISO is co-presenting a Session on May 27th with mdg.  Thursday May 29th is Legislative Action Day—not to be missed.
• SISO is presenting SISO generated content at European Events Week an event owned and operated by UFI.    This one is in Thessaloniki if that’s an incentive. 

If you want to join me for any of these please contact me.  Vincent@siso.org 

At the request of some members we will be resuming some monthly calls for different constituent groups of SISO. Details soon. 

The website has been in a process of continuing evolution and will continue in that vein. We will be putting the Exhibition and Conferences Alliance (the unified advocacy voice for business events) weekly update on the SISO.org site starting next week. Something tells me it’ll become required reading. 

Correction—it’s a bicycle trip in Portugal.  A bicycle trip to Portugal would be a bit challenging!

Best,

Vinnie