CASE STUDY
Background
The Alliance for Downtown New York was selected to host the Women in Tourism Summit 2025 (WITS25), an annual global conference for independent female travel social media influencers, in May 2025. Main Street Wisdom was brought in, in March 2025, to help the Communications team coordinate pre-event and day-of logistics on behalf of Downtown Alliance.
Challenges
The conference was expected to host at least 600 people at various venues across Lower Manhattan. There was a single point person at Downtown Alliance who was spread thin and needed additional support coordinating with the conference organizers. Just eight weeks prior to the conference, there was still no logistical plan for the pre-conference events, day-of logistics, and various aspects within the Communications team and across the entire organization.
Solutions
We worked with Downtown Alliance to establish which event functions needed to be led by them and which could be outsourced. We managed the coordination and operations of the event, setting up weekly meetings with the SVP of Communications & Marketing and Director of Tourism to ensure on time coordination and decision making, as well as end of week wrap-ups. We also set up weekly subgroup meetings for merchandise, collateral and graphic design, welcome party logistics.
We drafted timelines and trackers (including a week by week master plan) and location maps with collaborative input to ensure timelines were met, communication was clear, and input was gathered. To coordinate various operational needs, we worked with operational divisions to pull together a daily briefing of all activities in the district, and all logistics needs, including furniture load-ins and load-outs.
Results
WITS25 was the largest conference to date, with more than 600 registered attendees
Increased branding for the Downtown Alliance, partner hotels, and attractions on social media
Downtown Alliance, conference sponsor, and attendees expressed their extreme satisfaction with the event and a positive experience