It is with great excitement that we make this announcement:
MACNA XXVIII will take place in sunny San Diego!
We have been working hard for almost five years now to realize a dream that many of us have had to bring MACNA back to the West Coast. The show has not been in California since 1998 when it was in Long Beach. There has been a team of us working tirelessly to hammer out the details for this immense undertaking. This process began back in 2010 when several of us on the Board began to talk about why MACNA hasn't been on the West Coast in such a long time. A couple of us started looking into what the process involved and how it all worked. We developed a not so great plan based on limited knowledge that we had and we were unsuccessful in our first bid attempt. We immediately decided to try again with a new wealth of knowledge and experience gained from the first try. When the DC club found out that we were their only real competition for 2015, they stepped it up into high gear and developed a plan that was successful for them. Not being content to just give up, we further refined our bid, headed out to Denver, and made the push again. This time there was no way the MASNA Board could say no. And so, MACNA 2016 is ours!
This whole process was done secretly because of the rules that are put upon the bidding clubs. The city hosting MACNA is a closely guarded secret and is not officially announced until the previous year and traditionally that announcement takes place a week or so prior to the actual event. This is to ensure that vendors, sponsors and attendees will commit to attending the current year's event instead of saying "Oh I'll just wait until next year". We will enjoy the same protections for our event. There are several guidelines that we have been working under and we feel that we have developed a terrific plan for the best MACNA ever. We will be hosting the event September 9 - 11, 2016 at the Town & Country Resort. There are several reasons for choosing this venue with the two main reasons being the room rate that we were able to get at $134/night and the fact that the Great Hall at the T&C is the largest ballroom space outside of the Convention Center in San Diego. And believe me, we will be using every square inch of it and then some. We are pretty excited about what we will have going for this special event.
When the time comes, we will be looking for volunteers to help with this tremendous undertaking. Our first order of business going forward will be a team of us going out to MACNA in DC next week to staff our booth and sign up more sponsors and exhibitors. We will also have registration available on the MACNA 2016 website starting on September 4th. Keep your eyes open here for opportunities to help out as we begin to ramp up toward next September. There will be a little something for everyone. So tell your friends and spread the word...MACNA San Diego is on its way! Check out the MACNA 2016 website:
http://macnaconference.org/2016/
And be sure to download our app at the App Store and Android Marketplace on September 2nd! Just search for "MACNA 2016".