UIUC Gies iConverge 2023

Vendor Team:

• Full Service Event Planner- Maggie Farchmin, 618 Events

• Venues- Illini Union and City Center

• Catering- University Catering

• Food Trucks and Restaurants

  • Maize

  • Slow Spark BBQ

  • PastaMania

  • Ko Fusion

  • Hunny Bunny Bakes

• Entertainment- Dueling Pianos

• Florals- Schnucks Urbana

• Candle Rentals- CU Flower House

• Rentals- Alpha Lit Central Illinois

• Chair and Lighting Rentals- Elegant Events

I was totally honored to be hired again for Gies’ iConverge in September. We helped last year (2022) to plan Thursday evening and Friday evening’s social events. This year we were hired to help execute Thursday all day and fully plan Friday’s social event again. They decided not to do a Thursday evening social event but rather include educational breakouts Thursday afternoon. This seemed to fit the student population much better!

As a refresher, Gies’ iConverge is for the online graduate programs which means the average student age is probably 30 years old. Additionally, because it’s fully online, the students live all over the world! It’s a widely international student population. iConverge is one of two times these students come to UIUC campus- the other time being graduation. So it’s a BIG deal to have them all here on campus. We want to show off UIUC and CU. This is likely the first time they are meeting each other and their professors in person and not just over a screen. The energy in the room is always high and buzzing with excitement!

I worked primary with Rachel this year to plan as iConverge became her big event. Rachel and I started meeting monthly in early 2023. The biggest challenge is always finding a venue that holds 500+ people. They booked the Illini Union for Thursday as it works really well for students to start off on campus. Plus the Union has breakout spaces which worked great for this year’s new format. Last year, for Friday’s social event, we had visited City Center but ultimately ended up booking at Carmon’s so I went back to tour City Center for this year. It was available and seemed to work great for what we had in mind for Friday’s event. We secured the space!

I had the idea last year for one evening to be a sort of “Taste of CU” and we revisited that idea for 2023’s event. It was approved so I immediately started contacted all my favorite food trucks and local restaurants. I’ve said this before but CU has so many amazing local eats- for a town this size we take alot of pride in our food.

I quickly realized that the owners and managers of food trucks and restaurants don’t have time to respond to emails and online inquiries because they are so busy with kitchen prep and all the other things it takes to run a business like that! I had to really follow up with people which was time consuming but I completely understand they have higher priorities. Additionally, I started planning and reaching out in early 2023 for an event that is taking place later in 2023. I wondered if it was hard for vendors to think that far out.

Rachel wanted to add some pizzazz to City Center so we rented “GIES” lights from Alpha Lit which added a fun wow factor to the room! We ended up positioning the lights so it was the first thing you saw when entering the event.

Last year we had Dueling Pianos perform and the students LOVED it! They even ended up dancing which we didn’t think they would. Dueling Pianos was a huge hit so we hired them again for this year’s event. These two musicians were so interactive. The way the room was set up the dancing had to happen a ways back from the stage (lesson learned for next year) but it didn’t matter because the musicians still interacted with the students and they still loved it!

We had to focus a lot on flow as we wanted the overall experience to be smooth for the students. With 500 students we wanted to eliminate lines and keep the flow smooth. I told the food trucks to offer a “snack” portion because the idea was for each students to grab food from each truck. Additionally, I wanted a pre-set menu to cut down on food prep time. For some, the students could literally walk up, state their choice of entree from two choices, and walk away. That was so ideal! The BBQ did have to be a bit custom so that the buns wouldn’t get soggy and they were making the tacos on demand for freshness. There were longer lines at those two stations however it was never as bad as I worried.

Additionally, the weather was perfect so students could mingle outside if they didn’t want to be inside. The food trucks and restaurants were set up outside which worked great for flow and space inside City Center.

Thursday we arrived bright and early to help with Union set up. The registration is spread out over several tables in a large area so there’s no bottlenecking. While I helped to organize that, Kylie went over to State Farm Center to set up over there for Friday morning. This is helpful because Friday morning starts really early and there’s no time to set the room beforehand.

The registration on Thursday is a rolling registration which means it opens at 2:30pm but students are arriving until dinner starts at 6pm. Most are traveling from not just all over the USA but from all over the world so flights are getting in at all different times. After they sign in they receive a swag bag with Gies items along with an iConverge name tag lanyard. This includes their name (obviously) and a QR code with all the details needed for the long weekend. The breakout sessions started at 3pm and a new one started every 30 minutes. There were around 5 happening at each time slot so students could pick and choose the topics that interested them. This was the first year they offered educational breakouts on Thursday and we’ll definitely be doing it again in 2024. The students really enjoyed hearing from Gies faculty.

After the breakouts concluded there was a brief networking time before dinner opened. The room was PACKED for the networking session and the volume of the room was so loud with happy and excited chatter. What stuck out the most last year and again this year was the fact the students are just so excited to be together in person since all their classes are virtual (and they live all over the world). They want to talk and catch up and hear what each other are doing in life and in their professional worlds.

Dinner opened and the students were hungry! Another lesson learned for 2024’s event is to have water, coffee, and tea available starting at 2:30pm when registration opens along with light snacks. Traveling makes you hungry, thirsty, and potentially tired!

Once everyone filled their plate from the dinner buffet, we gave them time to enjoy and chat with each other. We were about to start our dinner speaker when we realized the microphones weren’t working. The students couldn’t hear the speaker. Yikes! The Union staff jumped to action and along with help from Gies IT staff that was on site, they set up a new portable speaker system with different microphone that worked! Everyone cheered!

The evening concluded and the students went their separate ways knowing they’d be returning Friday morning bright and early to State Farm Center.

Friday we arrived to City Center in the afternoon to set up for the evening’s social event. City Center set the tables and we rented black chiavari chairs from Elegant Events to add a nicer flare to the space (instead of plastic folding chairs). Kylie had stopped at State Farm Center to pick up the flowers from earlier that morning. We re-purposed them as centerpieces at City Center too.

Alpha Lit delivered the “GIES” letter lights, Hunny Bunny delivered the Illini themed cookies, CU Flower House delivered the candle votives, and Dueling Pianos arrived for set up. This all happened earlier in the day to help alleviate the rush of food vendors arriving closer to the start time.

The event started at 6pm so the food trucks started arriving at 5pm for their prep. It was a bit of a puzzle to arrange the food trucks and two food tents in the City Center’s side parking lot. As I mentioned, the flow of the event was really important to us- especially with 500 students. We didn’t want the food lines to run into each other and cause confusion but the food vendors also all needed to relatively face a similar direction so you weren’t standing behind one or blocking another. We had the food trucks and tents line the perimeter and it worked great!

The students were brought in on shuttles because most don’t have a vehicle. When students arrived we directed them to head inside immediately to grab a drink. This way they didn’t all come to the food vendors right away and cause longer lines. This worked wonderfully because they could see the inside of City Center with all the decor and “GIES” lights, grab a drink and start mingling, or walk through and end up coming outside to the food.

Last year we had Dueling Pianos start immediately at 6pm with a short break for a farewell speech from a Gies staff member. However we learned the volume was too loud for students to chat during dinner so we had them play background music for the first hour and then start the show at 7pm. It was SUCH a great idea to push back their start time. Because the weather was nice, like I mentioned, students could visit outside to avoid the noise if it was too loud or stay inside and dance and enjoy the music.

Overall, iConverge 2023 was a huge success! We loved working with the Gies team again and are excited for 2024’s iConverge as well!