I've blogged about my experiences with the exceptionally hospitable people of the Duesseldorf Congress Centre and the city during the press tour of our European Meetings & Events Conference, but  when it comes to telling the story of why this year was so successful and different no one can say it better than our delegates.  And they are saying it.  Survey results indicate 98% of delegates were satisfied with this year's conference and we saw significant gains in content satisfaction, moving above 92%.

But let's face it, numbers are numbers and the delegates themselves and images from the experiences tell the story more sincerely.  So here are some excerpts I'd like to share that our team has recently received.

    "I have not attended this meeting in 5 years and wasn’t sure what to expect but I was blown away with the top notch education, the quality of the participants and the wonderful networking events we were hosted to over the 3 days. I thoroughly enjoyed the education content and the great conversations that generated as a result, both in the sessions and outside them." - Claire Smith, VP Vancouver Convention Center

    "I would like to take the opportunity to thank the EMEC organization team. I have really enjoyed and already executed many changes in my center as result of the EMEC conference. I caught the message that we need to run more green meeting if we want to support sustainabililty." - Susana Carricando, CMM, MDIC

    "Thank you for a very interesting EMEC! I enjoyed participating and got a similar reaction from most of the connections I made. I enjoyed the opening session, the flash point and the individual sessions. Most of it is reflected in the survey I completed. Thank you also for the sponsorship opportunity. We were honored to sponsor one of the sessions..." - Alda Egurrola-Wienke, Regional Director Elite Meetings International

    "After all the hype of EMEC, my MPI friends and peers just said 'you have to go.'  Thanks to the MPI foundation I did, and I got to experience first hand what EMEC was.  Honestly I can say it was a fantastic, enjoyable and fun event.  The educational content, the learning environment were all of high quality, the networking second to none.  And you felt at home with your MPI peers and friends.  And thanks again to the MPI Foundation that made it feasible for me to be there, I will certainly make the effort to go again, and I would recommend it anyone." - Charles Perkin, Events Manager, CIRIA

    "[The Solution Room] best session of the conference, bar none. Inspiring peer-to-peer solution findings" - Miguel Neves, CDMP with Synaxis Meetings & Events.

I think I honestly speak for all of Team MPI that these are the kinds of remarks that make our day or month or even our year.  Knowing that the hard work put in for years and months is delivering what our members actually need is incredibly fulfilling. So we offer a thanks to all the sponsors, investors, speakers, collaborators and the delegates that made EMEC 2011 all it could be.  We're truly looking forward to delivering more in the future at all of our live events.

If you weren't able to attend EMEC and would like to dig in to the experiences, I recommend you first take a look at the video below from the Solution Room that moderator and MPI Board member Ruud Janssen created.  Then take a look at our flickr photo stream, our twitter transcript and members can log on and listen and watch EMEC education sessions.