Last week, on Wednesday, April 15, the Arizona Tourism Alliance hosted their 5th annual Arizona Tourism Unity Dinner at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. The event was scheduled from 5:30-9 pm and many employees of the Greater Phoenix CVB volunteered to help out at the event, including me, and so I went to the Biltmore around 2 pm with my supervisor, Stephanie, in order to help set up the tables, auction, and registration.
The Unity Dinner is an opportunity for leaders from business, government, and the community to join in celebrating tourism and honor the contributions of extraordinary Arizonans for their leadership and support of the tourism industry. This year, the Dinner honored the following three automotive legends as 2009 Tourism Advocates of the Year:
- Bob Bondurant of the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving
- Craig Jackson of Barrett-Jackson Auction Company, and
- Bryan Sperber of the Phoenix International Raceway
The Unity Dinner was held in the Frank Lloyd Wright Ballroom, which is about 25,000 square feet of meeting space (biggest ballroom in the Biltmore), and the event included a dinner and silent auction. The silent auction was basically a large table that had all kinds of luxurious packages listed and described on paper that everyone at the event was able to sign and bid on, and by the end of the night, the highest offer/bid won. I was helping out mainly with registration so everyone who came in would come to our table and check in to find out what table they were supposed to be joining. There were so many people! There was roughly between 400-500 people at the event and everyone seemed to know each other. Free champagne was flowing all night too so by the end of the night, people were being loud and seemed to really enjoy themselves.
The presentation and dinner went great! The theme was racing cars, since the people that were being honored are huge automotive players, and they had a few racing cars parked outside the ballroom that many car enthusiasts took pictures with and admired. The dinner itself was delicious! They served us a three course meal with salad, steak, and desert and wine was free so I helped myself to a couple glasses of red wine :)
The event ended around 9 pm but everyone I was with from the CVB still wanted to drink and party so we headed to Wrights, a trendy bar in the Biltmore Lounge. It was awesome to hang out and get to know many of the CVB's vice presidents and other executives. We had a few more drinks and we're really enjoying ourselves and the best part of it all was when Steve, our CEO, told us that we were all allowed to come in late for work the next morning in order get some rest from the evening's festivities.
Overall , the AZ unity dinner was very successful and everything went extremely smooth. Even though I helped set up the event and checked people in most of the night, I still enjoyed myself tremendously and I look forward to being at this event next year! For more information about the ATA and its mission, visit http://www.aztourismalliance.org/index.htm
This dinner sounds like a great networking experience. It is a great event and I always hear our VP talking about attending to this dinner and making great conections. It sound like you are getting great opportunities to learn and enjoy what you do.. :)
ReplyDeleteWow this sounds like a great event, lots of networking, and an opportunity to see a variety of aspects come together! Very exciting, especially to bond with your co-workers :)
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