Prevue November-December 2017 - 22

Previous: Susan B. Anthony Museum & House (photo credit: Calin Lawrence)
Right (clockwise from top): Sea Urchins iLight art installation (photo credit: Choi+Shine Architects);
The Willaston Restaurant at The Silo Hotel; Tai chi in the San Antonio Botanical Gardens

bark longhouse dwelling or break into teams for a traditional
Iroquois game that is similar to baseball and dodgeball combined.
Back in the city, ArtisanWorks, housed in a 40,000-sf
art-festooned factory with eclectic event spaces (more like
neighborhoods), in-house artists and more than 500,000 art pieces,
recently unveiled its Casablanca Room, themed after the classic film
"Casablanca." More than a few gin-inspired cocktail receptions will
likely happen in this joint. ArtisanWorks art also adorns the Hyatt
Regency Rochester, which recently received a top-to-bottom
renovation that better connects the property to the essence of the
city. Highlights include a design refresh of the Grand Ballroom,
now featuring floor-to-ceiling windows with views of Main Street,
completely redesigned public spaces, diversity in dining-the 7,500sf Morton's The Steakhouse to global street food-and a bookable
rooftop terrace.
Another interesting space is the historic Alliance Building's
new 7,000-sf Ballroom on Main, which will retain its dramatic
architecture while managed by the Hilton Garden Inn Rochester
Downtown. The space and hotel are adjacent to the Rochester
Riverside Convention Center and countless attractions and historic
sites; a guided architectural heritage tour with the Landmark
Society of Western New York, one of
the oldest preservation organizations in
the country, can help with this last one.

SINGAPORE

TEXAS
A dizzying array of developments has been unfolding in San
Antonio in recent years. The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention
Center unveiled a $325 million expansion and the largest ballroom
in the state, boosting the center's meeting space to 1.6 millionsf, and solidifying its position along the beautified historic River
Walk-within walking distance to the Alamo, La Villita Historic
Arts Village, Pearl Brewery, museums, local restaurants and
thousands of hotel rooms-as a top
destination for meetings and incentives
groups. San Antonio's five missions, built by
Franciscan missionaries and Coahuiltecan
Native Americans, were given UNESCO
World Heritage status. Groups of up to
130 can dine in the Alamo's hall, one of
San Antonio's first firehouses, and the South Gardens and Calvary
Courtyard, accented by tall oaks, Texas pecan trees and canons
used in the historic Battle of the Alamo, can hold 300 attendees.
Tyler Orwig, director of sales for Visit San Antonio, says wine and
dine at the Alamo, but keep moving; there's more to see. "After
you've seen the Alamo, the Pearl is the next stop."
The sustainable complex is also big on preserving culinary,
conservation and cultural traditions. The Nature Conservancy
and Culinary Institute of America are on-site, offering
unique experiences to groups, not to mention the mixed bag of
shopportunities and repurposed event venues. And as if all of this
wasn't enough to raise an eyebrow or two, the Alamodome just
received major upgrades, the Lone Star Brewery, positioned as
"The Pearl of the South Side," will soon undergo a $300 million
redevelopment and another Pearl-like development, Essex Modern
City (EMC), will soon sprout up in the city's Denver Heights
neighborhood with vertical farming, self-driving vehicles and rockclimbing walls in the plaza.
Next year marks San Antonio's 300th anniversary and loads
of celebratory programming therein, but currently, a wellnessfocused expansion at the San Antonio Botanical Garden is
stealing the show. Groups will now enter through a live oak-lined
avenue that leads to a state-of-the-art culinary playground for
architecting wellness experiences that includes a 34-bed Culinary

"We are a spirited city
fueled by passion."

Stirring the imagination through
transformational experiences has long
been the mainspring of Singapore's approach to meetings, and
a recent rebranding explains why. Singapore - Passion Made
Possible is a deep dive into "how we came to be what we are,"
explains Kershing Goh, regional director with the Singapore
Tourism Board (STB). The campaign hit the US market this past
October with a series of emotionally charged films that explore the
origins and influence of cultural personas called "passion tribes"
on Singapore's cultural identity and the groups that visit. "We are
a spirited city fueled by passion," Goh says, adding that planners
can collaborate with some of the nearly 100 locals featured in the
videos, which ultimately highlight the city-state's alchemy
of diversity.
The rebranding marks the shift from an investment-driven
economy to one with a focus on innovation and comes at a
time when the "festivalization" of events, or the merging of local
experiences, education, entertainment and meetings, is catapulting
planners into new territory and new possibilities. Festivalization is also
changing how events are programmed, and the STB has partnered
with Maritz Global Events to explore this new frontier. Maritz will use
their Experience Design Labs technology to develop meeting planner
personas based on a number of passion points and then work with
the STB to develop a virtual reality program that is useful to planners.
Speaking of innovation, this year's iLight Marina Bay
Festival along the Marina Bay waterfront celebrated advances

22 | prevuemeetings.com

in sustainability and biomimicry, or nature-inspired innovation.
Twenty sustainable light art installations transported attendees
sea-to-space, including the hand-crocheted marvel "The
Urchins," designed to mimic the elegant movements of sea
urchins. Sustainability-themed hubs also offered everything from
workshops and sustainable fare to upcycled goods. One of the
more innovative sustainability experiences to be had year-round
can be found at Operation Dagger, an innovative speakeasy
where "closed loop" cocktails, or zero-waste cocktails whose
byproducts are circled back into other F&B offerings in creative
ways, are served. Here, house-made meads and house-infused
spirits are just the beginning.
http://www.prevuemeetings.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Prevue November-December 2017
