Anyone in the trend-bending events industry will tell you it’s almost impossible to learn all you need about the business in a traditional classroom. Fortunately for William F. Harrah College of Hospitality students, the Las Vegas meetings, expositions, events, and conventions (MEEC) community consistently gets involved with classes, providing site tours, and serving as classroom speakers.

But a new Hospitality events management course imagined an even more comprehensive learning experience – one in which industry partners served as the teachers and event spaces served as the classroom. 

The course was the brainchild of College of Hospitality dean Stowe Shoemaker.

“There’s no better way to learn conventions and events than to be learning with people who are actually working in the industry,” says Shoemaker. “So I thought, why not break a course into sections and have industry experts work with faculty to actually teach each section?”

Shoemaker began putting the course together with doctoral student Jaimi Garlington. After meeting with a series MEEC experts, the pair identified eight guest speakers who would cover separate segments of the industry throughout the semester. And in fall 2020, the Essentials of Events Execution was born. 

Garlington then worked with co-teacher and part-time instructor Inna Soifer to organize the course as a boots-on-the-ground learning experience where students would tie textbook concepts to real-life scenarios. 

“Each class, the students get to hear from a guest speaker who talks about how they go about their jobs and how they deal with challenges,” said Garlington. “We wanted to inject practical, critical-thinking elements into the course.”

The students harness those critical thinking skills by working a milestone related to their final project: conceptualizing, creating a budget for, and pitching their own event. Students envisioned projects ranging from a full-moon cultural celebration to a Halloween bash catering to locals.

“Las Vegas’ main attraction, the Strip, is often avoided by locals,” says senior Bailee Joubert, whose group worked on the Halloween event. “So we wanted to create an event that would entice them to celebrate one of the most popular holidays in their own city.”

Garlington says the class projects were uber creative and, in many cases, ready for market. The student’s ultimate success was in no doubt related to course time with their MEEC expert guest speakers – a dynamic that lifted the barrier between student and executive. 

“They [students] were able to get their hands dirty and ask experts for help in real time,” says Garlington. “The power distance is gone.”

Another major perk of having students in the trenches with MEEC experts is that students got the opportunity to find aspects of the industry they like best.

“I have always been most interested in the special events side of MEEC,” Joubert says, “but hearing from various industry experts showed me that there are many more types of jobs than I ever imagined.”

Among the A-list of guest speakers was Don Ross, longtime vice president of meeting operations for Caesars Entertainment. Before providing a complete front-of-house/back-of-house tour of the Caesars Forum convention center, Ross and his team gave students an insider tutorial on the ins and outs of exhibitions and trade shows business. Throughout his talk, Ross kept coming back to one critical point – the customer.

Other semester topics included: stakeholder management; destination management companies and service contractors; venue sourcing and site selection; event sponsorship; business ethics and trends in the MEEC, etc. In addition to Caesars Forum, students visited events executives at such other iconic event locations as T-Mobile Arena and Allegiant Stadium.