Maine-Stay Conference Case Study | Sutherland Weston

Maine-Stay was created to address a need we saw across Maine’s tourism industry. Many businesses operate with small teams and limited time for professional development. Over three years, it grew into a statewide gathering for marketing professionals and business leaders, with our team leading everything from strategy and programming to promotion and on-site production.

Creating Maine-Stay: From Industry Need to Statewide Conference

Challenges Faced

We launched Maine-Stay without an established attendee base. While we had strong relationships with tourism partners across the state, we still needed to show busy business owners and marketers why two days away from work would be worthwhile.

We also needed a program that could serve businesses with different resources, experience, and marketing needs. As interest expanded beyond tourism, the challenge became broadening the conference without losing sight of the audience it was created to serve.

Objective

• Make marketing professional development accessible to Maine tourism businesses and, later, the wider business community.
• Combine practical education with opportunities to ask questions and exchange ideas.
• Build attendance through industry relationships and coordinated outreach.
• Create value for attendees, speakers, and sponsors that would encourage them to return.
• Give local marketing students access to a professional conference through sponsored admission.

The Strategy

We let feedback help shape who belonged in the room. After the first year, attendees, sponsors, and speakers encouraged us to include the businesses serving the tourism industry. In year two, we expanded our audience to include insurance companies, financial institutions, lawyers, convenience stores, and other affiliated businesses.

By year three, requests from the broader business community led us to open Maine-Stay to marketing professionals and leaders from businesses of all sizes across the state. We retained a tourism track so that the broader program continued to serve our original audience. The two-day conference took place on a Wednesday and Thursday at Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center. Plenary sessions, breakouts, and roundtables gave attendees different ways to learn and participate. Our popular Ask an Expert luncheon let people choose a table by topic and spend lunch talking with a subject-matter expert about questions relevant to their own businesses.

We also built time for people to get to know one another. A private speaker and sponsor dinner took place at an off-site venue the evening before the conference. A cocktail reception between the first and second days brought attendees, speakers, and sponsors together. With sponsorship support, marketing students from surrounding universities attended at no charge.

Our team recruited speakers and sponsors, managed registration and hotel coordination, produced videos and graphics, and handled facilitation and on-site logistics. To build attendance, we worked through regional tourism associations and partner relationships, supported by email outreach, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Making Room for the Unexpected

During the first conference, the Governor of Maine was in the building for another event and decided to stop by. We had no advance notice. Our staff held attendees in the plenary room rather than sending them into breakouts, removed a morning rest break, and worked with our on-site audiovisual partners to accommodate her remarks. We also managed security arrangements and explained the schedule change from the stage. Attendees welcomed the opportunity, and our team adjusted the program in real time.