On July 25, 2002, 10 months after the attacks on America, the placement of the day’s biggest news story—the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui—was seem-ingly challenged by a smaller item summarizing a recent poll. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, 52 percent of Americans agreed with the following state-ment: “The effects of Sept. 11 are fading and are not something I think and worry about regularly.” One hopes very few meeting planners were consulted in the poll.

“All you need is one bad incident and your business is done,” said Duane Fredrickson, who speaks and consults nationally on violence prevention along with his wife, Carol Fredrickson, cur-rent president of the National Speakers Association-Minnesota chapter. Their Minneapolis-based business, Violence Free, went “absolutely berzerk” following Sept. 11, said Duane, but has moderated since, a dip the former cop hopes is not due to relax-ation. “In the world today,” he said, “meeting planners have to make security just as important as whether the food is hot.”

Shortly after Sept. 11, security was a very hot topic, with the meetings industry scrambling to organize how-to seminars on ensuring event safety while simultaneously saying “we’re pre-pared.” If the messages seemed mixed, observers were in much too supportive a mood to care.

One year later, the clearing of the dust reveals a local meetings industry that has indeed battened the hatches. Convention centers from Minneapolis to St. Paul to Duluth have locked down loading areas, installed hundreds of additional cameras and trained employ-ees to keep their eyes open and their superiors informed. Whether meeting planners are completely prepared is harder to say.

“It’s like a non-issue,” said Minneapolis event consultant Cheryl Kranz. “Security really has not been a topic of discussion on a local level. It isn’t surfacing as ‘Do you have a security plan?’” Denise Woods, president of the Minnesota chapter of Meeting Professionals International, said that while the issue has been well-covered nationally, no seminars have been conducted local-ly. Indeed, planners say interest in emergency nitty-gritty has not been overwhelming. The reasons may be as complex as the blame for Sept. 11 itself—and some are actually reassuring.

Not New York
Though Minnesota leaders, from the Department of Public Safety to meeting facility managers, take security here seriously, they are also relieved to say this is not New York. Or even Las Vegas, New Orleans or Chicago. And it shows—where perspective is always revealed—in the pocketbook. Minnesota received a $5.6 million grant this spring from the federal Department of Justice’s Office of Domestic Preparedness. Not a paltry sum, it would seem, except when compared with the $9.8 million given to New York City by the DOJ in April just for the purchase of a specialized emergency helicopter.

It must also be said that the Twin Cities are further along than many metros in preparing for terrorism, while such cities as Las Vegas, New Orleans and Milwaukee were judged by a January CNN analysis to be “less prepared.” Relatively speaking, then, it’s safe to say Minnesota’s security issues, even after Sept. 11, revolve less around terrorism than in other convention markets.

“Our message has been to be vigilant, but don’t change your rou-tines,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Cynthia Lehman. “I don’t think we would discourage anyone from doing what they would normally do.” Dan Russell, executive director of the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, said he’s sensitive to the port city’s use as an entry point for foreign ships, and security has been enhanced, particularly where the DECC, like all convention centers, is most vulnerable—at the loading dock. But, he pointed out, it’s still Duluth.

For meeting planners, the reality of Minnesota being a lesser target may have been a double-edged sword, cutting cancellations post Sept. 11 but never forcing greater security education. “I’m afraid,” said Kranz, “that it’s still not one of those glamorous things.”

Whose Job is It?
In Family Circus cartoons, whenever a mess was made there were a number of imaginary people wandering the scene, all named “Not Me.” Luckily, that was fiction. In reality, “Not Me” had better have a good lawyer. “If something goes wrong and there’s litigation, the meeting planner has to be able to say ‘Hold it: Here’s the paperwork. I fulfilled my duty to the client,’” said Duane Fredrickson.

“In the world today, meeting planners have to make security just as important as whether the food is hot.” —DUANE FREDRICKSON safety expert with Violence Free

Since Sept. 11, more planners have taken this liability to heart. “We’ve definitely had planners asking us more about security and being more willing to allow us to add extra,” said Jeff Johnson, guest services manager at St. Paul’s RiverCentre. Which party is ultimately responsible for security, however, remains confusing. Some planners say it’s the facility’s obligation. Fredrickson says it’s an issue for both planner and facility. “The onus,” he said, “is put on the meeting planner to take a risk assessment to the facility and say, ‘What are you going to do to fulfill the risk assessment?’”

To ensure such discussions, several meeting facilities around the country have begun to require pre-convention, or “pre-con,” meetings. At the Minneapolis Convention Center, security talks are routine, though not mandatory. “We do more than 500 meetings a year and security is absolutely represented in those meetings,” said Kevin Lewis, vice president of Convention Center sales. And in many other ways, Sept. 11 has spurred facilities to increase emergency response capabilities.

“One of the main things I’ve done,” said Johnson, “is that I now have direct contact with an FBI agent. I have his personal cell phone. I can call him and get the latest update they have on terrorist threats or movement. We’ve had him come down and walk through our buildings and had him say where we should look at adding extra security, what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong.”

Awareness isn’t limited to convention centers. “Since the Sept. 11 tragedy, all hotels have increasedtraining for their staffs to respond to emergencies of all sorts,” said Tom Chase, general manager of the City Center Marriott and chair of the GMCVA.

Convention-goers are becoming used to the changes, said Johnson. “It’s not a shock anymore that someone wants to search your bag when you come in here,” he said. “Everybody expects and wants that now.”

What people want has always motivated facilities and meeting planners, no matter who is responsible for what. It may be the facility’s marquee, but it’s the meeting planner’s name, essentially, written across it. And post-Sept. 11, a good name for security means everything.

Playing it Safe
“We never want to be relaxed,” said Johnson of RiverCentre. “We always want to be vigilant and make sure that everyone who comes here feels comfortable.” For incentive travel planners, ensuring comfort has meant fewer far-flung destinations and more regional locales. “I think everybody thinks twice now about stepping on a plane,” said Laura Wells, director of meetings management for Minnetonka-based Carlson Marketing Group. “You just don’t know where you’re safe anymore.”

A feeling of safety, say planners, is what meetings truly need to provide now—whether that means security or just sensitivity.

Last year’s Great Clips convention won attendees’ appreciation—and an award from the local chapter of Meeting Professionals International—for its sensitive orchestration, especially important considering it was held Sept. 21. “We didn’t have any additional security other than what the buildings provided,” said Pat Burley, communications manager for Great Clips, an Edina-based company. “We give a lot of credit to the Minneapolis Convention Center and the Minneapolis Hilton. We told them we wanted our people to feel secure and they did. Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot you can control.”

Great Clips told registrants they could cancel, but in the end about 1,300 of 1,400 expected participants attended. “We were just so surprised at the response,” said Burley. “They wanted to come, wanted to get together, wanted to heal.”

This year, the conference movein day was Sept. 11. “We told our people, ‘We absolutely do not want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with as far as travel,’” said Burley. “We changed some of our pre-meetings to accommodate that. But about half of our own corporate staff was coming on Sept. 11. They’re ready to move on.”

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