By: Taylor Smith | From: Meetings Today
There’s something special about San Antonio.
I made that discovery when visiting the storied Texas city in early June for MPI’s World Education Congress (WEC), which saw nearly 1,800 meeting and event professionals fill spaces throughout the Henry B. González Convention Center and venues across San Antonio.
With a 1.5-day Visit San Antonio pre-fam tacked on to the front of my WEC agenda, and thanks to the collaboration and partnership between MPI and the host DMO, my trip to Texas provided a blueprint for “bleisure” in the Alamo City.
Day One: Curio Collection, Culture and Color
Summer arrived late at home in Chicago this year, so I soaked up the 90-degree San Antonio sunshine while waiting for my Uber outside San Antonio International Airport (SAT). Besides the heat and my friendly driver, my first impression of San Antonio came in the form a 60-foot-long “You Are Beautiful” sign overlooking Highway 281. The city gave me a warm welcome in more ways than one.
Opened March 3, The Monarch San Antonio, a member of the Curio Collection by Hilton portfolio, was my home for the week. Guided by her namesake, the 200-room luxury hotel is shaped by the belief that “where instinct meets intention, something beautiful can begin.”
A symbol of transformation and resilience, the monarch butterfly has also been a guiding force in my life since the start. The hotel already felt like home because of that, but when Bethany, a guest service agent at The Monarch, checked me in at the front desk, her hospitality made me feel like I had family there with me, too.
Elements of monarch butterflies followed me from the lobby, where dozens of decorative monarchs fluttered up a corner wall, into the elevator, with a mirror on the back wall overlayed with butterfly wings, and down a monarch wing-patterned carpeted hallway to my fifth-floor guest room. Inside, a massive wing-shaped headboard stretched across the wall from one side of the room to the other. Books about butterflies were stacked on my desk, right next to a little gift and sweet treat from Visit San Antonio.
The Monarch San Antonio offers 15,000 square feet of event space, including the 5,000-square-foot Meridian Ballroom, the open-air Kaleidoscope Terrace and the La Mariposa Pavillion, where guests can gather beneath the wings of a massive monarch sculpture just outside the hotel’s doors.
The property is also perfectly placed between the convention center, River Walk, La Villita Historic Village and the legendary Alamo, all of which are within one block of the hotel. After getting settled in my room, I took advantage of that.
Visit San Antonio gifted us each a CityPASS that included one-time, prepaid admission to four San Antonio attractions of our choosing from a list of eight. With the River Walk just steps away, the sun preparing to set and two GO RIO River Cruises boarding docks nearby, a 35-minute cruise through the city on an eco-friendly electric riverboat seemed like the perfect pre-dinner activity. The knowledge and wit of our captain made me wish the tour was 35 minutes longer, and the scenery and energy of the River Walk made the whole experience feel like a Disney ride. There was color everywhere.
GO RIO offers private charter cruises that include a boat captain and seat approximately 37 passengers, depending on the type of cruise. Groups can pre-order beverages such as beer, wine, canned cocktails, sodas, water and more.
After my cruise, I ended up staying on the River Walk for dinner, drawn to Tex-Mex cantina Buffalo Blue by the sound of local musician Aaron Montano-Teague strumming his guitar—and the thought of chips, queso and a spicy margarita.
My night ended with a stroll down Commerce Street, past iconic establishments ranging from The Esquire Tavern, a historic bar on the River Walk dating to 1933, to San Fernando Cathedral, the oldest operating sanctuary in North America. Every Tuesday-Sunday at 9 p.m., “San Antonio | The Saga,” a 7,000-square-foot projection video art installation created by world-renowned French artist Xavier de Richemont, takes over the facade of the cathedral for 24 minutes. The show is free to the public and educates viewers on the history of San Antonio.
It captures the city in all its colors.
Day Two: Repaired, Restored and Reinvented
Visit San Antonio’s director of regional communications, Dee Dee Poteete, met media the next morning at Nectarie, a coffee shop tucked off to the side of the lobby at The Monarch that had the best seasonal coconut iced coffee concoction I’ve ever had. (I mean it—I ordered it every morning before walking over to WEC and even went back for a second one afternoon for a post-lunch pick me up.)
We started our day in event-capable La Villita in the Historic Arts Village, one of San Antonio’s first settlements, in the 1700s, which was restored in the 1930s and offers outdoor venues for groups of 80 to 1,000. From there, we walked down the steps of historic Arneson River Theatre—an 800-seat amphitheater on the banks of the San Antonio River with a stage many of us recognized from the 2000 film Miss Congeniality—and loaded a barge for a cruise to the Pearl. The 22-acre site is a revitalized historic brewery district along the River Walk that’s now home to chef-driven dining, culture, locally owned storefronts and walkable public spaces.
For groups, there’s a range of distinct event venues to choose from, including the elegant Stable Hall, one of San Antonio’s newest venues, blending an intimate early 1900s theater, classic Texas dance hall and state-of-the-art concert venue, as well as flexible studio spaces and outdoor plazas for large-scale gatherings.
Our tour of the Pearl started at the luxurious Hotel Emma, a 146-room boutique property that singer and actress Cher once said was “one of the most unique, beautiful hotels ever” in a 2019 Tweet.
“Stayed in amazing hotels all over the [world],” Cher wrote. “Emma might take the [cake].”
Walking through the 19th-century brewhouse-turned-hotel, I could see why the cultural icon fell in love with it. From the original floors in the lobby, which was carefully preserved by removing each tile, repairing and restoring them one by one, to the jaw-dropping library housing the 3,700-volume collection of San Antonio icon and novelist Sherry Kafka Wagner, Hotel Emma had a story to tell behind every door and around every corner.
Cher and another sensational singer, Celine Dion, both stayed in the Emma Koehler Suite, the hotel’s version of a presidential suite, with double-height floor-to-ceiling windows, a 718-square-foot terrace and a grand piano that Dion once sat at herself. I followed suit.
Hotel Emma’s 6,160 square feet of meeting space and 1,500 square feet of landscaped outdoor venues pays homage to the history of the old brewhouse through decor and recycled original materials, such as the brewing tanks lining the walls of the 3,200-square-foot Elephant Cellar.
“This was the last space added to the brewery in 1940,” said Neal Bozeman, director of global sales at Hotel Emma, during our tour of the property. “The reason the space was added is the beer making technology had changed. They no longer had to use those smaller beer vats that stood upright; they could now lay the tanks on their side, wall to wall, each holding up to 25,000 gallons of beer.
“Your Brewmeister would walk up along the catwalk,” Bozeman continued, pointing to the ceiling. “When he looked down, he thought the tanks looked like elephants, so he called it the Elephant Room, and we kept that name: the Elephant Cellar.”
From there, we made our way back to The Monarch for lunch at rooftop restaurant Aleteo, inspired by the Yucatán. Coastal Mexican flavors were featured in every plate on the menu, from the Gulf-catch ceviche, with red snapper, shrimp, coconut leche de tigre, sofrito and wild garlic, to the black garlic skirt steak with salsa blanca, grilled scallions and corn. Some of us at the table loved the Guacamole Aleteo so much, one asked the chef for a recipe, while the tres leches cake with whipped cream and strawberries won over the hearts of the others.
No visit to San Antonio is complete without a tour of the Alamo, which is currently in the middle of a multiyear, multiphase $700 million restoration project that includes the preservation of the Alamo Church and Long Barrack, along with a restoration of the mission’s historic footprint, plus the creation of a world-class museum and visitor center. Construction is set to conclude in 2028.
Private venues at the Alamo are available for daytime and evening events, with indoor and outdoor spaces that can accommodate a range of gatherings. I thought the 120-capacity Cavalry Courtyard was a stunning outdoor venue, shaded by trees and surrounded by bronze statues of heroes of the Texas Revolution.
Across the street from the Alamo at the Shops of Rivercenter, Mexico Ceaty was our next stop. Think Eataly but for Mexico, with eight dining and drinking venues, curated retail and a large selection of Mexican wines. Behind a bookshelf is a door leading to El Ultimo, a small speakeasy-style venue where our private mezcal class and tasting took place. Just a couple days later, MPI WEC took over all 20,000-plus square feet of Mexico Ceaty for its closing night reception.
Following our tasting, we walked one block over to the Henry B. González Convention Center just in time for WEC’s opening general session, “Why Adversity Is the Key to Future Identity,” with entrepreneur and author Dr. Magie Cook, who used raw storytelling to show attendees that how we navigate life’s low points shapes the strength, wisdom and purpose we carry with us through our highs. It was also the audience’s first look at MPI’s newly redesigned general session format (see "Taking the Texas Stage" sidebar below).
The conference continued with an opening night reception at the Grotto, a charming section of the River Walk that runs through the convention center and offers the only space in San Antonio where you can host a large reception (2,500 max.) directly on the River Walk.
While making their way from food station to food station, trying bites inspired by Spanish, Mexican, African American, German, French and Texana influences, WEC attendees enjoyed live music, immersive art and their own private river parade with colorful barges decorated to reflect the sights and symbols of San Antonio.
Surrounded by industry friends that included my Eventualists co-host Hannah Elston, the night still felt young, and San Antonio’s walkable streets made it easy for us to keep it going. A small group of us found ourselves at Tokyo Cowboy, a River Walk spot serving Japanese street food and specialty cocktails with a tiki bar below.
We left in the middle of a downpour more than two hours later, without umbrellas or a care in the world.
Taking the Texas Stage
They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and this year’s MPI World Education Congress (WEC) June 2-4 in San Antonio certainly felt bigger to me, in more ways than one.
Arguably the biggest change for me was going from delivering breakout sessions at the past two WEC shows in St. Louis (2025) and Louisville, Kentucky (2024)—the only two I’ve attended so far—to speaking in front of a crowd of nearly 1,800 industry professionals during the Thursday morning general session.
Vice President of MPI Consulting Jessie States reached out in the spring and asked me to be a part of MPI’s new studio-style general session format called “The Break Down,” designed to blend keynote inspiration with real-time industry commentary and practical application.
For each general session, “The Break Down” consisted of a commentator’s desk situated on the right-hand side of the main stage, with four stools reserved for professional emcee Chuck Cureau, one planner, one supplier and one member of industry media.
My turn to represent industry media came on Thursday morning. Unsurprisingly, I was nervous to step out and speak in front of the crowd that day, but I kept thinking back to something States said during our Eventualists podcast recording onsite the day before: “I was too often putting external experts and inspirational voices on stage, but I wasn’t putting our community on stage, and they are just as deserving and just as smart and just as able to help our community grow as some of the people that were from outside of our space. This gives us an opportunity to put our community on stage and give them a voice.”
MPI introduced “The Break Down” not as another mainstage pedestal for people familiar with squinting under a spotlight—and that’s not the type of speaker MPI asked commentators to try to be. The goal was to feel friendly and familiar, to be one with the audience and not just relate to them, to say the things I knew they were thinking.
I’m no mind reader, but MPI designed a general session format that makes me think they might be. They listened to what attendees wanted, figured out what mattered to them and found a way to put them at the center of something that, at least for me, felt too big to be a part of. But when I saw myself up there that day—literally and figuratively—what I once considered a pipe dream became my reality, and the audience, I hope, saw the seemingly impossible grow closer in reach.