Mission Critical, the exciting, new virtual meeting series, continues to innovate as it reimagines the stage for meeting and events with top hospitality and business names in a post-COVID-19 business landscape.
February 2, 2021, New York, NY – New York, New York is a wonderful town and Mission Critical will be reimagining a new event landscape and more, as well as the ingenuity to the meetings and events industry, on Thursday, February 11 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. From brand-new event sites, Broadway, revitalized hotels, and restaurants and more, Mission Critical presents an hour-long “what’s new and reimagined” to meeting and event planners in an exciting and engaging way. Grubhub will treat 1,000 lucky participants to lunch from local markets in their continued efforts to support the hospitality industry.
February 11th - Episode #4
Mission Critical is looking globally with this next episode at the fantastic ways that cities, companies, restaurants, entertainment and more have reimagined themselves and will come out of the Covid crisis more exciting and better than ever. With a backdrop of New York City, their Episode #4 will provide a unique voice for the New York hotels, venues, and restaurants. Mission Critical takes a special inside look at the changes and innovations coming to New York. Working closely with a range names and personalities to give ever visitor to the city the best experience possible, F red Dixon, President, NYC & Co., will join the episode as one of the many voices letting the corporate world know that New York should still be at the top of their lists. The event will showcase a wide range in its reimagining theme – from the rebirth of Joanne Trattoria on the Upper West Side [notably co-owned by Lady Gaga and her parents, Joe & Cynthia Germanotta], to a Master Session on virtual presentations by professional emcee, Eva Saha, to showcasing the upstart Zoom & Bloom [whose CEO Rebecca Merritt is also production designer for TLC’s Dragnificent!] To drive the reimagining point home, the grand finale is uniting the stars of Broadway mega-hits Hamilton, Chicago, Aladdin and Wicked for an unforgettable live stream experience at Feinstein’s/54 Below. Register at https://savethemeetings.org/
In the telecast by Mission Critical, they will also be exploring the recovery efforts up north with Destination Canada, introducing Reiimagine a new hospitality brand, and from Sydney Australia John Maclean the true meaning of reimagine from his catastrophic injury to his new outlook a true inspiration for us all.
“This episode is one of the most incredible we’ve ever done. New York, unique in so many ways has got an extra special place for our team because it’s also home for several of us. My goal for this episode was to take all the electricity and energy you feel just walking down the street and transmit it to our viewers to show that New York City, continues to innovate and will be more alive and buzzing than ever. After all, making it here, making it anywhere is in our DNA!” Joseph Lara, the Founder of the parent, TKE group, exclaimed. A native New Yorker, Lara brings that passion and creativity so critical in co-producing a show like Mission Critical.
Mission Critical was conceived as an exciting alternative to the many talk-heavy webinars that cropped up in the wake of the pandemic. It was also the outgrowth of what Lara and the other producers learned creating The Knowledge Exchange in 2015, a live, informative, and entertaining trade show for event planners and supplier to gather in unique ways. Fast forward to 2021, and even as new challenges have arisen in the industry, the Mission Critical series, and its behind-the-scenes team of hospitality and event experts, have found themselves uniquely positioned to help respond to the changing meetings and events environment. In less than a year, more than 50,000 global executives and counting have experienced Mission Critical either live or on-demand. The meteoric ascent of Mission Critical has been the hallmark of this virtual meeting series since its inception in May of 2020.
“When the team from American Guest, John and Richard Williams, Bob Kelly from KPG Creative, and I all came together to create Mission Critical, our goal was to put something into the market that was action and visuals rather then words. In the year since the pandemic began, executives have become burned-out on talking heads, been over-surveyed, over-polled and under-engaged. It is one big reason why executives are still tuning to Mission Critical in record numbers even almost a year later. We hold their attention with little drop-off for the full 60+ minute episodes.” Lara added.
The team chalks up their following to their strategy of continually innovating and pushing the envelope. “We fine-tuned Mission Critical because we see each episode through the eyes of our audience. We understand their issues because we are planners too.” said John Williams, President of American Guest a nationwide concierge DMC and Mission Critical Co-Producer. “Experiences partnering with Grubhub to treat over 1,000 viewers to lunch during the show while supporting 1,000 local hospitality businesses is something that resonated to us and our fellow planners. Showing that it can go to a hotel or venue with the right precautions, launching engagement elements, like our virtual gift bag or exhibit hall, or creating a whole new event series like Meets© by Mission Critical that enables people to meet and connect like never before, we view it as a huge part of our job to also be futurists and forecasters for our industry,” he added.
Mission Critical February 2021 Attendees
Executive and planners at organizations across the nation and from around the world who have already registered for the current episode. A few of them include: The CDC, Viacom, NASA, IBM, The NAACP, Microsoft, Hollister, LVMH, L’Oreal, Verizon, Pfizer, Nasdaq\, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, McCann Worldgroup, S&P Global, Novartis, SAP, The NBA, The American Medical Association, and Ivy League Universities including Harvard and Yale.
The TKE GROUP is one of the fastest growing set of invitation-only, hospitality trade brands for the meetings and events industry. They are also the co-creators of the #SaveTheMeetings.org campaign crafted to reignite and lead the way for the Meetings and Events industry post Covid 19.