Following a topping-out ceremony in mid-July, the newest hospitality addition to the Shreveport-Bossier City area is on track to debut in Q1 2025.

Live! Casino & Hotel Louisiana will be a 545-room hotel, meeting venue, and casino in Bossier City, on the eastern bank of the Red River. Less than two miles from downtown Shreveport, the property will bring the first land-based casino to a region known for having riverboat casinos set dockside near land-based hotels.

Following its initial announcement on November 7 of last year, premium live experiences company Legends has completed the acquisition of live events and venue management company ASM Global.

After 25 years of operating as a non-union hotel-resort and convention center, The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, which encompasses The Venetian and The Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip, has established a tentative agreement with Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 on a new four-year contract covering more than 4,000 employees in the resorts’ food, beverage, housekeeping, bar, lounge, and bell departments.

Corporate event planners are constantly challenged with going above and beyond their last event, especially when it comes to creating more immersive environments designed to deepen attendee engagement and foster brand recognition. In this never-ending quest to generate a more profound “wow” factor at face-to-face events, planners can look to their staging and production partners to create innovative experiential activations and environments via the latest technology.

Entrepreneur, speaker, and internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk, who you probably know as Gary Vee, welcomed 5,000 fans to his conference-meets-festival, VeeCon, for its 2024 iteration. This year, attendees descended on the sprawling, nearly 6 million-square-foot L.A. LIVE entertainment district for the three-day event, which last year took place in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Corporate meeting planners now have a new way to source and book hotels, and better manage the event planning process: Planner+, a new online platform specifically designed to provide enterprise-level meeting and event planners with the support and tools needed to coordinate and manage corporate events.  

In the fast-paced, increasingly complex and competitive business world, making professional connections at meetings and events can often feel overwhelming and impersonal for many attendees and exhibitors. MatchPoint, a new AI-powered matchmaking mobile app, was created to address this challenge by seamlessly connecting attendees and vendors with like-minded professionals to make networking at events more curated, effective, and impactful.

Mid-July saw the debut of the Palmetto Marriott Resort & Spa in Palmetto, Fla., connected by an indoor skybridge to the Bradenton Area Convention Center (BACC) on the northern shore of the Manatee River across from downtown Bradenton.

This summer, event planning companies, hotels, and suppliers blazed hot with talent acquisitions and promotions, attracting experienced industry professionals and young talent alike as they prepare for a robust fall season.

Thousands of union workers, many at meetings-focused hotels, could walk out within weeks—or sooner, as some labor contracts have already expired.

More than 50 hotels in Boston, Honolulu, and San Francisco are facing the possibility of a labor stoppage after more than 10,000 members of labor union Unite Here voted almost unanimously to allow for a strike. Union members’ goal: To secure contracts with better financial terms and working conditions than their previous contracts, which were negotiated in the pre-pandemic era.