We asked for your feedback and were excited to see that overall, your comments confirmed what we believed: The 2015 NRPA Annual Conference in Las Vegas was a great success! As one attendee noted: “NRPA’s Annual Conference is a great professional development experience, full of opportunity for learning and engagement with other park and recreation professionals from across the country,” and, as you can see below, from around the world. Education, networking and the exhibit hall continue to offer the highest value for attendees at all levels of experience, with executive and middle management levels giving education the highest value (90 percent and 86 percent, respectively) and staff level giving networking the highest value (81 percent).
50: Number of states represented by attendees (plus Germany, Zimbabwe, France, Singapore, Czech Republic, India, China, Chile, Columbia, New Zealand, Israel, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Jamaica, Finland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Lithuania, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, South Korea, Spain, Canada, Turkey, Brazil and other countries).
292: Number of traditional education sessions, speed sessions, Off-Site Institutes and Pre-Conference Workshops presented (out of 702 submissions).
2,200+: Number of hours invested by approximately 160 attendee volunteers.
3,972: Number of downloads of the 2015 NRPA Conference app.
3,000+: Number of attendees at the Exhibit Hall Reception for networking with their fellow members.
337: Number of speakers.
430: Number of exhibitors on the Exhibit Hall floor.
300,000: Total square footage occupied in the Exhibit Hall.
176: Number of exhibitors already booked for the 2016 conference (as of press time).
3.3 percent: Increase in attendance over the 2014 NRPA Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.
48: Number of awards, scholarships, fellowships and Hall of Fame honors presented.
1,251: Number of times the #NRPA50 hashtag was used on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.8 million: Number of impressions made by social media mentions of the #NRPA50 hashtag.
55 percent: Attendees who make final purchasing decisions (or are a part of the group that makes the final purchasing decision) for their agencies.
98 percent: Attendees who visited the exhibit hall at least once during the Conference (56 percent of whom stayed on the floor for at least three hours).
81 percent: Portion of surveyed attendees who rated their overall satisfaction level of their 2015 NRPA Conference experience as a 4 or 5 out of 5.
Sources: 2015 NRPA Annual Conference attendee survey, NRPA Conferences department, NRPA Marketing and Communications department