Every year “APR-ites” come together in one location to connect as people, but also to  find ways to balance out each other’s strengths and skills in this ever changing, integrated world of creative production. We spend many hours discussing global creative production challenges, identifying trends, and enjoying the process of collaborating. This year, we landed in Henderson, Nevada overlooking Lake Las Vegas. “Curiosity,” one of APR’s five core values, served as the overall theme for this year’s conference. We digested a lot of content over the course of three days. Here are some of the highlights:   

Keynote Speech

Founder & Global CEO, Jillian Gibbs, kicked off our time together with a keynote address, joined on stage by General Manager, Scott Stevens, and Global Executive Director of Client Services, Fiona McBride. They spoke about APR’s 19-year history and how we’ve evolved as a business, how we work together as a global team, and how we must all remain collectively curious. Jillian presented on the state of the industry and predicted the near-term and future outcomes, further elaborating on APR’s choice to remain vendor neutral, to NOT produce content (like many other consultancies), and to fully embrace being an objective third party that provides consulting advice, leadership, and insights to our clients.  She stated that APR will focus on what’s best for our clients, providing transparency and rigor to maximize our clients content creation ecosystems and creative assets across regions, channels and experiences.   

Industry Guest Speakers

During our three days together, we invited industry thought leaders to further explore how they are meeting global demands for content across all media channels. We had eye-opening conversations with both client-side guests and content creation companies who shared their unique perspectives.

Updates from Around the World

APR’s teams from APAC, EMEA, LatAm and North America presented on creative production trends within their regions and shared nuances and commonalities across the world. Teams were encouraged to tap in to their creativity and pique our community’s curiosity, which they did with some very humorous videos, trivia, and a parody of “My Favorite Things.”

Our annual conference helps us to explore how we can best serve our clients with new approaches, new technologies, new suppliers, and new content creation models.

APR After Hours

Along with learning, we also find time to connect and socialize with our colleagues: a cocktail reception was hosted for our 44 new hires, along with our annual awards ceremony  where we take the opportunity to recognize employees’ longevity in the company, as well as individuals who have gone above and beyond to bring our core values to life.  We threw in a little Las Vegas flair for fun!

You know how the saying goes: what happens in Henderson, stays in Henderson so be sure to ask the APR-ite closest to you for more information!