Did you miss the June 16th deadline to apply to speak at Catersource + The Special Event 2024? Don’t worry—there's still more time! We are extending the call for speakers deadline to Friday, June 30, 2023 at 11:59 pm CST.
Take a moment and submit your great idea and topic for Catersource + The Special Event 2024, being held February 12-15, 2024 in Austin, TX. It's going to be a wild conference loaded with fresh and impactful content and we want to hear from you now so we can build our best program yet!
Where & When: February 12-15 in Austin, TX at the Austin Convention Center. We are partnering once again with Catersource Conference & Tradeshow, with a combined tradeshow floor that will bring over 5,000 professionals and 300 suppliers together to provide an unmatched opportunity to source, network, and learn in one-sensory stimulating environment. You can immerse yourself in a spectacular event that encompasses everything catering- and event-related. The alliance of these powerful, established brands will bring unique industry all-stars from both worlds—all under one roof for four momentous days.
Our Audience: Our audience is in the business of helping people celebrate the most important milestones in their lives. They are on and off-premise, executing private parties to multiple day festivals, hiring food trucks, and ensuring a safe and successful day for all. Those in the event industry are some of the hardest working people in business today. Our audience is comprised of top-level professionals who have been in the industry a long time, but also may bring new hires, and/or recently promoted planners, managers, and salespeople. Attendees may be representing a small company in a big town, a big company in a small town or a $500 million company in a densely populated metro area. But they are all at The Special Event Show for the same reason: to be wowed with new products, new education, new ideas—and network, too.
How to Apply: Click here to fill out your submission, and to get all other details as well as some ideas to get you thinking about the kind of session you'd like to present.
The Education: Over 120+ sessions will span the length of the conference, within tracks such as:
- Culinary (culinary techniques, F&B trends, demos, industry concerns such as food waste)
- Event Trends & Production (events, wedding trends, destination events, more)
- Business & Professional Development (best business practices, business growth, C-Level operational strategies)
- Trends & Design (related to colors, floral, lighting, venues)
- Off-Premise Catering (drop off, corporate catering, events)
- On-Premise Catering (colleges & universities, hotels, casinos, stadiums, wedding & event venue catering)
- Sales & Marketing (client-facing ideas and strategies)
- Health & Safety
- Sustainability
New this year! 30-minute Fast Chats—no powerpoint, no traditional presentations–have been added to the schedule. One topic, raise a discussion with your audience, get some answers or solve a problem!
The best food & beverage, the hottest decor, the most beautiful venues, the best events, making a sale, marketing your company, retaining and rewarding your employees, building a new revenue-generating sector—all explained to our audience in a way that doesn't pander or promote, but educates. Please try to stick to your top three ideas/proposals only.
Note: if reading this makes you feel as if your proposal might be a better fit for The Special Event, click here to be taken to that Call for Sessions page. Sessions will be vetted by both staffs, however.
Your Deadline: The deadline for speaker/session submissions is June 30, 2023 at 11:59 pm CST.
