CT Convention & Sports Bureau/CTMEETINGS Wins Prestigious Stella Award

Northstar Meetings Group and its leading brands, Meetings & Conventions and Successful Meetings, have announced the 2024 recipients of the 8th Annual Stella Awards that includes a Silver Award for the Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTMEETINGS) in the Convention & Visitors Bureau/Destination Marketing Organization (CVB/DMO) for the Northeast. CTMEETINGS is Connecticut’s only statewide sales and marketing organization for meetings, conventions, and sports events.

Recognizing 248 organizations globally, these awards celebrate outstanding achievements in quality service and innovation for meeting and event professionals. The list of winners, finalists and their profiles can be found at NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com/Stellas.

The Stella Awards honor excellence across key industry segments: hotels, convention and conference centers, airlines, cruise lines, DMOs/CVBs and DMCs. This year's winners, selected from more than 8,000 votes and 1,001 nominations, exemplify overall excellence, superb food and beverage offerings, professionalism of staff, sustainability initiatives, and other critical aspects of the meetings and events experience.

“The Stella Awards emphasize the crucial role of trusted supplier partners in raising the bar for service and innovation,” said Loren Edelstein, vice president and content director for Northstar Meetings Group. “Winners have earned planners’ nominations and votes, followed by a rigorous vetting process by a hand-picked panel of judges.”

The judging panel for the 2024 Stella Awards includes:
Julie Blank – Director, Strategic Accounts, Brightspot Incentives & Events
Sarah Buchbinder – Regional Director, Meeting Broker Division, Meetings Made Easy
Kate Cardoso – Founder, Travel With Purpose Pact
Shawn (Yih-Hsiang) Cheng – Lead Strategist/Event Manager, Curious Bear Management
Tiffany Cohen – Senior Vice President, Incentives & Global Sourcing, Opus Agency
Megan Henshall – Global Events Strategic Solutions Lead, Google
Liz Lathan – Cofounder and CMO, The Community Factory
Cindy Y. Lo – CEO, Red Velvet & Strong Events
Huong Nguyen – Founder and CEO, Shiloh Events
Edward Perotti – Owner, EP Events & Experiences
Mike Rowan – Event Strategist, Maritz
Brett Sterenson – President, Hotel Lobbyists
David T. Stevens – Cofounder, Olympian Meeting
Tess Vismale – Founder and Chief Event Rescuer, isocialx
Alex Zapple – Senior Director of Meetings, American Society of Nephrology

To learn about all the winners of the 2024 Stella Awards, visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com/Stellas.

Northstar Meetings Group is the leading B-to-B information and marketing solutions company serving all segments of the business meetings, events, sports and incentives market — including full- and part-time meeting planners, as well as corporate, association, sports and not-for-profit decision-makers, and incentive professionals — facilitating their professional development and achievement of business goals. The company's influential brands — Meetings & Conventions, Successful Meetings, Associations Meetings International, Meetings & Incentive Travel, Meeting News, Incentive and SportsTravel — currently serve nearly 500,000 active meeting and event planners and incentive professionals, across an integrated suite of data, digital, events and print products. For more information, please visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com.

The Middletown, Conn.-based Connecticut Convention & Sports Bureau (CTMEETINGS) is the State’s official meetings, conventions and sports event sales and marketing organization. Working in partnership with the state’s businesses, institutions, nonprofit organizations, and their surrounding communities, the Bureau markets all of the state – convention and meeting venues, hotels and attractions, and sporting venues – as a premier destination for international, national, regional and statewide conferences, conventions and major sports events. For more information, please visit CTMEETINGS.org