The weekend's MedSurg Conference and Expo drew 3,500 health care product manufacturers and distributors to Navy Pier for three days of product demos, networking sessions, and educational seminars. But on Friday night, 1,000 of those attendees could be found on a temporary dodgeball court that occupied half the grand ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Chicago during the opening-night party and dodgeball tournament.
The event was sponsored by several health care product manufacturing companies, who paid $15,000 a pop for packages that let them get their names—or, more specifically, their logos—in front of a crowd of distributors. Sponsorship packages also allowed a company's employees to compete against the distributors in 15-minute dodgeball games that took place throughout the evening.
In the Hyatt ballroom, sponsor branding abounded—gobos adorned the walls and logos appeared on everything from premiums to special dodgeball uniforms that employees donned on the court, itself surrounded by branded walls and box seats that came stocked with logo-adorned tables and banners.
Jessica Welch, senior manager of events and sponsorships at the Health Industry Distributors Association, oversaw planning for the event. With the goal of creating a networking event that went beyond a typical cocktail reception, "we came up with a 'wheelers versus dealers' concept last year," said Welch. "We designed a basketball tournament that let distributors, or 'wheelers', compete against the manufacturers, or 'dealers.'" Though she deemed last year's event "a hit," Welch noticed that the basketball games involved mostly male participation, and she settled on a dodgeball theme this year because "it's a game everyone can play."
Welch and her team turned to Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn's film Dodgeball to help create a thematic atmosphere. Behind the court, which was a replica of one in the film, a large, drop-down screen showed clips from the movie. And while a cardboard cut-out of Vaughn stood beside the court, actor and professional umpire Al Kaplon, who played the referee in the film, appeared in the flesh as the evening's suprise guest. Other special guests included four cast members from NBC's American Gladiators, who strolled the ballroom and posed for photos with guests. The gladiators also competed in dodgeball matches with six attendees, who had won the opportunity in a raffle held at Navy Pier earlier that day.
