Our sister magazine Special Events has just put up a great new resources online: The Special Events Sourcebook. It has listings for pretty much every special event service I could think of, from event producers to floral designers to insurance providers to security consultants. I also like that it’s searchable by category and by company name.

According to this article in the LA Times, the Beverly Hilton has signed a one-year pact with the the Unite Here union–which the union should like, since its goal has been to get all the contracts to expire simultaneously in 2006. That would give it the potential to call a nationwide strike, which of course increases its bargaining power exponentially. While smaller hotels in LA have already given way, as have hotels in Boston, New York, and Chicago, the major chains in Los Angeles have been holding out. Until now. Stay tuned…

I find this one hard to believe, but Stephanie Downs at ConferZone reports that the day her presentation was scheduled at the WebEx User Conference in San Francisco, organizers had to cancel because “a protestor with guns was outside the event and was consequently arrested Monday night.”

I never thought of WebEx as being particularly controversial–definitely not something to inspire this kind of yahoo behavior. Wonder what his gig was all about? As for Stephanie, well, she sounds pretty calm about it, and even jokes, “Maybe next year they could rent a private island to avoid problems in the future. I am sure the other attendees would be all for it…what do you think?”

Save the date: The Green Meeting Industry Council is putting on a “Greening the Hospitality Industry Conference” on October 5-7, 2005, in Metro Washington D.C. This is important stuff: You can save money and–dare I say it?–the world (or at least a piece of it), one meeting at a time by learning the latest green meeting practices for meeting and event planners, hotel properties, convention and conference venues, and suppliers to the meeting and event industry. It sounds like a good mix of presentations and workshops, along with a tradeshow that will showcase some of the latest environmentally responsible meeting products and services.

I don’t know if you’ve been reading the New Yorker magazine series on global warming (sorry, can’t find a link to the articles), but the evidence is pretty clear that we need to change business as usual to green business, and meetings are a part of the story. Some good background reading from Association Meetings:

Taking on Waste
How to Curb Waste
Green Meeting Checklist

There also are a bunch of resources on the GMIC Web site.

I spent way too much time with environmental scientists in my former life as an environmental magazine editor not to take the situation of our planet very, very seriously. I hope you do, too. This is something we all need to learn more about and, more importantly, do something about.

OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

Just yesterday I posted about how hotel offers like the one outlined in this article can get an ethical planner’s dander up. Then today I get a press release from a hotel chain that’s offering $10,000 or the use of a Jaguar for a year to planners who drop a lot of dough at select hotels. From the press release:

Each hotel will award the meeting planner who spends the most on rooms and catering with the use of a brand-new Jaguar X-type for one year or $10,000 – meeting planner’s choice. The meetings cannot already be booked at any of these properties and must occur June 1 – Sept. 30, 2005, at one of these five [X-chain] hotels. In order to be eligible, meeting planners must book and consume a minimum of $50,000 in meetings revenue, which includes group rooms and function food and beverage. A total of five Jaguars or cash prizes will be awarded after Sept. 30, 2005; one for the top meeting planner at each hotel.

Really, how could anyone justify taking this perk? I guess you could take the cash on your organization’s behalf and put it toward future meetings, but the Jag? That’s just blatant bribery, IMHO. But I’ll repeat what I said yesterday–they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work.

Sorry to be so quiet yesterday–I was en route to the official happiest place on the planet, and couldn’t stop smiling long enough to turn on the laptop! I’m in Orlando for Disney’s big anniversay press event, and there’s something like 5,000 media people here from TV, radio, newspapers, and of course, trade magazines. It’s pretty wild. More later, when I get some free time this afternoon, but a tip of the day is that if you see someone with Disney staff (called cast members) wearing plaid vests, it’s probably a celebrity. We spotted at least one last night. Gotta run for now…