FOR PEOPLE WITH SOMETHING TO TEACH

You’ve been in the trenches. You’ve made calls that worked and a few that didn’t. Somewhere along the way, you figured out something worth passing on.

Maybe it’s a framework for getting more done on a smaller budget. Maybe it’s how your team put AI to work without breaking your process. Maybe it’s how you proved an event was worth it to client.
It doesn’t have to come from events, but it must work for the planners and marketers at the Northwest Event Show.

If this resonates, we want to hear from you.

March 17 and 18, 2027

Who is in the room

Independent and corporate planners. Executive assistants. Association planners. Marketers who build brand moments. HR leads who buy team experiences.

They’re not here to kill an hour. On Thursday, they’re back at a desk with a problem you might have already solved.

Who you are

Planners borrow good ideas from everywhere. If your lesson travels, it belongs on this stage. Maybe you’re:

• A negotiation coach who can walk a planner through a hotel contract without flinching.
• A charge nurse who knows how to triage when five things break at once.
• An HR leader with a burnout framework that holds up during the worst week of the year.

If a planner could put it to work Thursday morning, you’re who we want on stage.

Two stages. One shared floor.

Education happens on two stages right on the show floor. Each one is built for a full room and the conversations that follow you off the stage. We place selected sessions where they fit the program best.

Stage 1

Sessions for the problems planners, executive assistants, marketers, and HR leads need to solve together.

Stage 2

Practical sessions with something a planner can use back at the office Thursday morning.

Topic ideas

Start with what you’d tell a planner over coffee. Here’s what we hope to see:

• More with less. Smaller teams, tighter budgets, and the one thing you learned the hard way and overcame it.
• Tools that hold up. The AI or tech you put to work, and what you stopped paying for.
• Proving it was worth it. How you showed your client or your leadership what an event delivered.
• Event marketing. Tying a launch or activation to signups, pipeline, or sales.
• Sustainability you can measure. Food waste, reuse, and what the numbers showed.
• Wellbeing. Burnout on your team, and the steps you took to turn it around.
• Experience design. The moments guests still talk about, and how you built them.
• Inclusion and access. Accessibility, neurodiversity, and working with the communities your event serves.
• Leading and growing. The skills that help a planner lead, including the executive assistant who just got handed the offsite.
• The real-world stuff. A first-time city, a vendor you didn’t know to vet, the safety question nobody asks until something happens.

What you walk away with

A room of planners and marketers who came to learn, not to be sold to. A reason for the industry to know you and the next planner to call you first. And a chance to show what you figured out, in front of the people who’ll put it to use.

Before you apply

No sales pitches. Submit only if a planner leaves with advice they’ll use. If you want to sell, we’d love to see you at a booth instead.

Name the moment you figured something out. Tell us who it’s for: planner, executive assistant, marketer, or HR lead. Interaction is required.

Presentations run offline, and so does the room. You’ll still have AV, just no internet. That’s on purpose. Human connection is one of our core themes, and conversation comes easier when everyone is present.

A note on cost: there’s no honorarium, and you’ll cover your own travel and hotel. If you’re selected, your registration is on us.

Still with us? Then you’re who we’re looking for. Two days on the floor, a room that came to learn, and planners who’ll know exactly who to call when your problem lands on their desk.

Submissions due November 15, 2026, 11:59 PM PST. NWES will not accept late submissions.

Recording & Content Rights: Selected sessions may be recorded, photographed, captured, or otherwise repurposed by NWES for educational, promotional, and archival purposes. By submitting a proposal, participants acknowledge and consent to this use.

Helpful Tips and Important Information

• Speaker Agreement Terms and Conditions