I had the extreme honour of performing for the opening session of the Manitoba branch of Meeting Planners International (MPI).
It was held at the beautiful Winnipeg Convention Centre’s VIP Salon and catered by their masterful chef and banquet staff. As any of you, who have been following my travel blog, already know I have performed at thousands of corporate events in hundreds of convention centre’s throughout the world and I still rate the WCC as one of the top because of their service!
MPI, the meeting and event industry’s most vibrant global community, helps its members thrive by providing human connections to knowledge and ideas, relationships, and marketplaces. MPI membership is comprised of more than 23,000 members belonging to 71 chapters and clubs worldwide. There are approximately 61 members in the Manitoba Chapter.
MPI’s are the movers and shakers of the Corporate Event, Convention and Trade Show industry. So to be asked to perform for them is no small matter. The theme of the opening session was Magic and Mixology. Steve Morin of he Manitoba Liquor Commission was on hand to teach how to make 3 wonderful cocktails, which the audience all got to sample.
As I have always customized my show to the event so I also performed several illusions involving the liquors he mixed. The one that received the largest applause was when I took his one ounce shot and poured it into a larger 2 ounce glass and the alcohol magically doubled. However, the applause grew when I took the 2 ounces and made it 4 ounces and finished by yet again doubling it to 8 ounces. Well at least 8 people were very happy!
Winnipeg is on the cusp of major revitalization with the building of a new International Airport, The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Football Stadium, $200 million dollar zoo revitalization, as well as CentrePort, the transportation and trade project being built near Winnipeg’s new airport. It has been named one of the top 100 infrastructure projects in North America. The Winnipeg Convention Centre is meeting the challenge by expanding starting this fall, adding an amazing 250,000 square feet.
And it doesn’t hurt that the Winnipeg Jets NHL team is back in Winnipeg!
With all this expansion Winnipeg is certainly the destination choice of many new conferences and the Manitoba MPI’s and hopefully me, will have our hands filled with all the new conferences coming to the Province.
Brian Glow