Participants were happy to hit Park City's Main Street for dinner the second night. Photo Credit: Ketara Gadahn, Studio Alani
Visit Park City hosted Northstar Meetings Group's final Small & Boutique Meetings event of 2025, once again showing how perfect many compact destinations are for gatherings of 100 room nights or fewer on peak.
The event welcomed 140 meeting professionals Oct. 26-28 at the Pendry Park City, a ski-in, ski-out property in the Canyons Village. A total of 1,324 appointments were scheduled for hosted planners to chat with their supplier counterparts to learn about new destinations and properties for their meetings.
Experience design drives strategy
Sheets of brown kraft paper on the meeting room's rounds, accompanied by Sharpies of many colors and heaps of sticky notes, were the tools that Anthony Vade, cofounder of Strategy Table, used to involve participants in learning about experience design and how it can help meeting professionals view the planning process in a new way.
"Experience design was birthed out of the tech industry," said Vade. "It's why you're addicted to doom scrolling. But it's been coopted by the meetings and events industry now for about a decade to use it for good. For meetings and events, we want a holistic approach to creating really deep meaning and seamless experiences on that human level."
Each group worked on an event that one of their tablemates was planning, to help take apart and put back together its scheduled sessions, breaks and networking — and ultimately breathe new life into the event infrastructure.
Olympic-awarded wellness practices
Participants were energized the final morning by the appearance of Shannon Bahrke Happe, a silver and bronze Olympic medalist in mogul skiing, which included winning the United States' first medal at the 2002 Games held in Salt Lake City and Park City.
Rather than talking about the stress she battled competing on the bumps, Happe shared her tricks for getting through the hard times in her career. "There were three really, really important things that were taught to me that I used every single day, not only in the Olympic gate," she said, "but also when we were traveling and when we were training and when we had recovery time." Happe proceeded to get everyone out of their seats and moving as she described her practices for conscious breathing, full-body movement and focused muscle relaxation (yes, more than half the attendees ended up lying on the floor with their eyes closed for the last part).
Winter wonderland preview
A lovely snow squall arrived just as the group was heading out for a fantastic lunch at the Stein Eriksen Lodge, giving everyone a taste of what Park City looks like once the mountains are covered in white. The small storm stopped and the sun came back out in time for the afternoon's activities: a scavenger hunt to get to know Main Street; a trip to Utah Olympic Park, whose facilities were built for the 2002 Winter Games (and will be upgraded in the coming years for the Games in 2034); and the Mines & Wines tour, which visited historic sites and offered wine pairings and nibbles. Six notable restaurants on Main Street hosted the attendees for dinner.
Once again, we'd like to thank our generous partners for their support for this event: Visit Park City; the Pendry Park City; the Hyatt Centric Park City; the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley; Hamilton County, Ind.; Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley; Awesome Alpharetta Georgia; Visit Rancho Cordova, Calif.; Madison Avenue; and PC Nametag.
Northstar's next Small & Boutique Meetings hosted-buyer event will take place May 28-30, 2026, at the Marriott Anchorage Downtown in Alaska. Check out our calendar for more Northstar events taking place in the next 12 months. All photos below were taken by Ketara Gadahn of Studio Alani.