February 19, 2026 Chapter Educational Luncheon
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AI is rapidly advancing and making a significant impact on businesses and society. Despite this potential, the events industry has been slow to embrace AI due to various challenges, such as the sheer number of available AI tools, limited staff, and the demanding nature of the profession. It’s time to go from theory to action. This learning lab will demonstrate the best-in-class tools (many at low or no cost) specifically tailored to empower event professionals to enhance all aspects of their event organization, data analysis, contracting, conference planning, marketing, and more. Attendees will work with sample event data and documents, facilitating immediate hands-on learning. The final exercise will be a team-based competition, a collaborative challenge to test the various tools.
Learner Outcomes:
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Gain practical knowledge and hands-on experience with publicly available AI tools, including event-specific toolsets enabling you to seamlessly integrate AI into your event planning, operations, marketing, and analytics.
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Equip yourself with actionable insights and skills to build better queries, optimize your prompts, and achieve better results to increase the value of AI tools.
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Put theory into practice through a moderated exercise and collaborate with your fellow event professionals to brainstorm ideas for practical AI applications in critical areas of event planning and execution.
Qualifies for one clock hour towards CEM recertification.
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026
Time: 11:15 am – 1:30 pm
Location:
Park Tavern
Piedmont Room
500 Tenth Street Northeast
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Schedule:
- 11:15 am - Registration & Networking
- 11:30 pm - Program & Lunch
- 1:30 pm - Adjournment
Registration & Fees ($5 will be added for onsite registrations):
- Member: $55
- Guest: $65
- Student: $25
About the Speaker
Rich Vallaster is the Dir. of Marketing & the Trade Show Wonk at A2Z Events. Rich has worked on some of the biggest and most well-known tradeshows and conferences. He is the Chair of the CEIR Research Council, CEM commission and actively teaches in the CEM program. Rich's expertise has been recognized in leading publications, including the NYTimes, Associations Now, Trade Show Exec, Skift Meetings, Meetings Today, Convene, and TSNN. He is a regular speaker at events such as ASAE, and Expo! Expo!, PCMA, and others, engaging with associations and event organizers.
Visit https://richvallaster.com
Speaker Sponsor
