A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas

Bentonville's Unconventional Conventions: Redefining Conference Experiences

• Visit Bentonville • Season 7 • Episode 26

Share episode

Join this chat with Visit Bentonville's VP of Communications Alison Nation and Katie Holden from Versapay about their insights and the planning process from Versapay’s recent Homecoming gathering.

Alison shares how Bentonville is redefining the conference experience with its groundbreaking Unconventional Conventions. From unique venues blended with efficiency and immersive experiences to seeing our city through nature, food, and art, the Unconventional Convention solves logistical challenges and encourages connection. 

Katie shares her personal reflections on Versapay's first-ever company gathering in Bentonville, highlighting memorable moments that created a powerful impact on company culture and collaboration. Tune in for a deep dive into how Bentonville offers a canvas for setting a new standard for impactful, engaging events!

You can listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, CastBox, Podcast Casts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Podcast Addict.

Find us at visitbentonville.com and subscribe to our newsletter. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn.

Beth Bobbitt:

Welcome to A New American Town, a podcast presented by Visit Bentonville. I'm your host, Beth Bobbitt, broadcasting from Haxton Road Studio, and today we're pulling back the curtain a bit to hear a case study about a new tourism approach known as unconventional conventions. Our guests include Visit Bentonville's own VP of Communication, Alison Nation, and Katie Holden, head of Transformation and Business Acceleration with Versapay. So glad you're both here. Hello, great, hi, welcome. So let's start with some quick introductions. Katie, can you talk about your role at Versapay and, for those not familiar maybe, explain a little bit about what the company does? It's a fintech working on streamlining invoices payment process, that kind of thing. Is that right?

Katie Holden:

Yes, that's exactly right. Versapay offers an accounts receivable efficiency suite that aims to simplify the invoice to cash process. We do that by automating invoicing, facilitating B2B payments and streamlining cash reconciliation with AI. We're very focused on embedding and integrating with ERPs, but we're not stopping there. As we seek to meet our customers where they are getting jobs done to protect and grow cash flow. We're really excited to be taking a unique approach to solving problems for modern finance teams, and in doing so, we're sinking and scaling how we work to maximize our positive impact on those businesses and the communities that rely on them. And that's a bit where my role enters the picture. As head of transformation and business acceleration at Versapay, I get to tinker and encourage my colleagues to try new things in service of our ambition to unleash prosperity. We're always looking to find new connections, set new standards and really take a crack at new ways to get it done.

Beth Bobbitt:

Great, great Thanks, and Alison, you're one of the masterminds behind this podcast, for one, but you do so much more. Can you talk a little bit about your role in history with Visit Bentonville?

Alison Nation:

Sure. So I joined the Visit Bentonville team about almost a year and a half ago and prior to that I worked at Crystal Bridges for 14 years, so I'm familiar with Bentonville. I've been a part of our city for a while and at Visit Bentonville I have the privilege of working with this amazing team to help tell the story of what visitors can enjoy when they come to our city, which includes the business development our staff does in recruiting and supporting business meetings and conferences here in Bentonville. So here we are to help shed some light on our amazing, Unconventional Convention.

Beth Bobbitt:

Yeah, so with that, talk a little bit about what you mean Unconventional Convention and how your sales team supports this approach.

Alison Nation:

Yeah, so let's talk about the standard conference experience that most folks are used to. You know all sorts of industries get together for annual meetings, trade shows, professional development and there's a standard sort of expected format for that and it's usually a large conference center, a big box kind of hotel or convention center, maybe in the heart of town, and the experience most folks have they enter the conference center at dawn and they exit the conference center at 10 p.

Beth Bobbitt:

they exit the conference center at 10 pm and see nothing of the city that they are inhabiting.

Katie Holden:

Yeah Well, Bentville is in a unique situation because we do not have a large standalone conference center. We have some excellent convention spaces and hotels like Doubletree and Four Points by Sheraton, but that large format hosts hundreds of people in one space for a whole day isn't here. So about eight years ago the Visit Bentonville team got really creative and designed the Unconventional Convention, which utilizes our walkable downtown and our unique excellent meeting spaces like Record, meteor, guitar Gallery, 21c Museum Hotel, crystal Bridges and now Ledger and the Momentary to host what we call unconventional conventions. So we're breaking people out of the box of that convention space and inviting them to hold their meetings and their panel talks and their dinners throughout our downtown and allow their guests to walk about or shuttle between those locations and see and experience what our wonderful city has to offer.

Beth Bobbitt:

I love that you took a problem and you approached it in a creative way, and then you enhance the experience for those looking for conventions, and I think it's just brilliant. So, katie, I understand you all had a bit of a homecoming where First Pay employees were brought together in Bentonville. Priya Parker, the author of Art of Gathering, talks about bringing people together and in doing so you should have a sharp and bold purpose, and I know you did. Can you tell us a little bit about your sharp and bold purpose? Sure.

Katie Holden:

Yeah, I'm happy to, and I have to admit I don't know Priya Parker and I don the context that Versapay is a scale-up company. We are the reflection of five startups whose collective potential is immense. However, unification is not easy and we realized it was a moment in our story where we really needed to inject a high-impact, high-recall type experience that could be a catalyst to forge a connected, outcome-driven, customer-obsessed team that would really be ready to leap ahead eye to eye and together a few chapters in our business. The three main objectives we wrote down and these are objectives that even informed and inspired the team that came up with the name Homecoming was that we wanted to, first of all, claim our purpose. We needed to sink and celebrate our people and illuminate the road ahead.

Katie Holden:

Early on in these conversations, we agreed that our location would be a delivery mechanism for all the ideas we had on how to achieve these outcomes and as such, you know, we had to have honest conversations about picking the right location, not necessarily the most convenient dates or the perfect travel itinerary or, as Allison was talking about, that like one stop shop where we would just be day in and day out. We had to step back and continue to push along and write a creative brief. Really, that set our design criteria. So, before we even looked at a map or at flight options or at budgets, even we wrote down things like our final selection must provide the ability to converge and diverge. We wanted our place to seem modern, creative, welcoming and unexpected and, lastly, it needed to invite people to take a leap. And so, you know, with those qualities in mind, I generated a series of ways to think about this location. Here are some logistical aspects, here are some emotional outcomes that might happen if we picked a place like this or like that. I think we actually started with a list of over 50 places.

Katie Holden:

Ultimately, it became clear that Bentonville was the answer. It was a unanimous vote, amongst the committee at least, and you know some obvious reasons. Why were the world-class venues that Allison was listing out, the variety that you were offering in choice and experience and environment, the ability to really switch it up. The variety that you were offering in choice and experience and environment, the ability to really switch it up. The overall familiar yet unexpected atmosphere of Bentonville and the strong community of innovators and, beth, as you said, problem solvers. I met many helpful, helpful, helpful problem solvers along the way in creating Homecoming, and it's worth mentioning.

Katie Holden:

I think you know that I've lived in a lot of places. I currently live in Colorado, but prior to that I spent a long time in New York. I spent a long time in LA, had the privilege to work in the art world and visit a lot of places and produce countless experiences. And so for me, when I set foot in Bentonville, I'd read about it, I heard about it. I had not been, but when I set foot I could just sense that your raw ingredients were legit and I got really excited, but also a little nervous hope, you know, just making sure that my colleagues would get it too, and I'm so happy they did.

Beth Bobbitt:

That's amazing. I saw photos and heard all about it. So 20 venues in four days it looked incredibly immersive. Can you talk a little bit about the itinerary, what people knew kind of coming into this and highlights for you specifically?

Katie Holden:

Sure, we kept the details pretty close to the vest. We sent out save the dates about three months out, merely revealing the location. So people had the dates on Bentonville, arkansas, about three months out. It wasn't until about a month closer to an actual program where we started to ramp up communications about this first ever gathering of our workforce. We did this partly because we wanted to have elements of surprise. We wanted to play up the aspect of trust I mentioned we wanted people to take a leap. And part of surprise, we wanted to play up the aspect of trust. You know I mentioned we wanted people to take a leap, and part of that is just looking to your left and your right and realizing, hey, I believe in these people. Wherever we're going, we're going to get there together and we're going to take care of each other. And so that was a bit of why it wasn't this steady drumbeat months in advance, but really just holding our breath a little bit, waiting to see what questions and excitement bubbled up. We played with energy flows and thought and cared deeply about that throughout.

Katie Holden:

How we orchestrated those four days. For example, no large welcome party that first night. Rather put everyone into small dinner gatherings at a number of your restaurants, randomly assigned by alpha order, because we really wanted to take the pressure off that travel day. We didn't want people to have anxiety of like, oh gosh, I'm missing the big opening remarks Like no, hey, just get to town, get settled, understand where you are, and then tomorrow we'll really kick it off. And also just to demystify some of those first hellos. As I mentioned, this was the first time we were all going to be in the same place at the same time. We're about three to four hundred people and they so as much as we're on Zoom and Slack and all of our different tools. This was a moment that we wanted to just break it down and make it feel approachable and so, following that cue, we really did again, like I said, care for energy throughout, looking at our schedule, figuring out how we would build to certain crescendos and then offer moments to step away. We, of course, also needed to get stuff done leveraging spaces to hack and hype our current initiatives, learn new skills and get immersed in teams' daily routines.

Katie Holden:

And if I have one more moment, I'll list off. I mean, the highlight for me is just thinking back and thinking, wow, we did this and we did this for peers and by peers. Um is a totally in-house production, of course, with in partnership with all the wonderful people in bentonville, at all our different venues. Um, a few just key moments that really like vividly come to mind are that moment stepping into the empty great hall at crystal bridges. And then a few just key moments that really like vividly come to mind are that moment stepping into the empty great hall at Crystal Bridges and then a few hours later, seeing it filled by our team looking around the ledger where we had five simultaneous sessions humming every hour on the hour and it just worked like clockwork.

Katie Holden:

Talk about self-directed humans. It was pretty awesome. You know, we worked with countless people in your town to bring our ideas to life. Little things like balloons and barbecue Although I mean, depending on who you are and what you care about, those might be big things and of course, coffee, hotel room blocks and all the fundamental logistics too. And then, lastly, you know I really have a lot of pride in the evening we spend at the Momentary. Really have a lot of pride in the evening we spent at the momentary. The craftsmen that operate that space, in partnership with our emcees and our award presenters, really nailed that big show and I think it was a celebration everyone will always remember.

Beth Bobbitt:

Yeah, well, let's talk about that. You mentioned emotional outcomes. What do you think came of this experience? Have you heard from employees?

Katie Holden:

Yeah, yeah, we do. And you know, I think at a service level, there were some people a few that had been to Bentonville before and were super thrilled to be having the opportunity to return. They actually never thought that would happen for them and so they were excited to be back. And for the majority of people coming to town for the first time, we just consistently heard about their amazement of what they were finding, the quality of the interactions, the quality of the places they were encountering.

Katie Holden:

For us, the lasting impact has been, I'd say, threefold.

Katie Holden:

You know it was a seminal experience that really enabled company-wide connections, collaboration and choice and kind of breaking those things down. We've noticed increased connections between individuals and ideas, a desire to be more collaborative in solving problems and working together, and a respect and a recognition of how important it is to offer choice and how we each create our own journey, both in our workplace and for our customers. And so we do still recall many moments. As I said, we were going for high impact, high recall, and so it is. It's exciting when we approach one of our town hall gatherings and we're thinking about what we can we put on the screen as a visual anchor for this conversation, we often do go back to the imagery and the moments that were shared in Bentonville because we put it on the screen, even if it has no words on it. People know what we were talking about, and so we're really excited that we were able to create that vernacular and these types of cultural references that we really needed to set the tone for our future together at VersaPay.

Beth Bobbitt:

That's beautiful. I love the planning and the thoughtfulness that you put into this, and I'm just curious now, having experienced Bentonville a couple times. You spoke about raw ingredients. How would you describe Bentonville to someone who has never even heard of it?

Katie Holden:

Sure, I mean there's a couple ways into that question. I think as a one-liner I could say Bentonville is a town with a vision and you'll either understand what that means or it doesn't. I think if you understand even a little bit of what that means to have a vision, it would be a place you'd be excited to go check out and see what what's going on. In specific memories I would describe Bentonville as a place where I've had one of my most favorite recent meals, found a coffee shop I wish was down my block, explored trails where I grew up that remind me where I grew up in Virginia and got to visit a museum that I think rivals those that you have around the world. You know, I'm sure the crowds are going to find their way. Maybe I am sure that's that's what the point of this podcast is, that you're hoping crowds are going to find their way.

Katie Holden:

Maybe I am sure that's that's what the point of this podcast is that you're hoping people are going to find you, but until then, I would you know, I would describe Bentonville as a place. It's just, it's delightfully surprising, and you can show up and, to use a product word you know you can explore without much friction in the experience, unless, of course, as Allison, I don't know how tuned in you were to our group's dates and what was going on with the weather, but we did face some icy rain and many of our team members ended up on quite the quest, successfully reaching and safely reaching Bentonville, I must add. But that was one little moment we weren't expecting. It makes it all the more memorable, I guess. Yeah, even the being in the airport together was an experience, you know.

Beth Bobbitt:

So, Alison, hearing all this, you know I'm sure there's a million stories similar to this. Can you talk a little bit about how you've activated Bentonville and unique offerings for other events like this?

Katie Holden:

And I just have to say, katie, it was so fun to hear you share about that. I think the VersaPay Homecoming is. For me, it was one of the biggest conventions of this kind that we hosted since I've joined the team and it's always going to hold a special place in my heart. It's like the kind of storybook version of how to do this. So some of the past examples are really remarkable. I think the first unconventional convention we ever hosted was the EMBA Trail Summit in 2016.

Katie Holden:

And EMBA stands for International Mountain Biking Association, which was a key turning point for us in raising awareness about our trail system and what's happening in the cycling community. Here in Bentonville, another that's actually two coming up I'm kind of excited to share about in August. Just next month, we're going to host the Public Relations Society of America Southwest Conference, so folks from throughout the Southwest will be convening in Bentonville to discuss key news and learnings around what's happening in the public relations field. Another oh I wanted to mention another conference we just hosted this past June was the IPIMBA annual meeting, which stands for International Police Mountain Biking Association. We have police and first responders in town for a week, immersed in our trails, working at the NWACC Trail Tech Studio just doing a big, deep dive into how to provide the best protection and support to their communities from their mountain bikes. So that's a pretty inspiring offering that we can give to the world.

Beth Bobbitt:

Yeah, I love the diversity in those events and you know they just keep coming, so there's a lot to look forward to. I will be attending the PRSA conference, so I'm excited about that one, especially. Katie, this has been so meaningful, not only the event but the sharing of the experience. So thank you for your time and being on the podcast.

Alison Nation:

Of course, it's a pleasure, it's nice to go back to this memory and this, as Alison said, this storybook, it's a good one.

Beth Bobbitt:

Yeah, and Alison, thank you too. And if someone is interested in organizing something like this, an unconventional convention, where can they find out more?

Alison Nation:

Sure, Go to visitbentonvillecom. At the top of our page there's a big button that says meetings, and you will learn all kinds of things about it and find some contact us forms to get in touch with our director of sales, Kim Crutch.

Beth Bobbitt:

Perfect, and don't forget, visit Bentonville is here to help you navigate things to do, where to eat and stay and what's going on in our new American town. So give us a follow on social media, sign up for the newsletter and check out the website. Thanks so much for listening.