This is [PART 2] of an interview with organizers/summary of INTERMAG 2023 (May 15-19). View [PART 1] by clicking here.
For large-scale international conventions held in Sendai, the Sendai City Government and Sendai Convention Bureau try to go above-and-beyond to welcome participants by introducing or sponsoring memorable experiences and providing exceptional support services.
At INTERMAG 2023, international participants, many visiting for their first time, were very excited about the Japanese cultural experience programs introduced by the Sendai Convention Bureau. With no reservation or sign-up necessary, participants could easily join in a rotation of activities each day, such as tea ceremony, kokeshi doll coloring, sustainable chopstick-making, and bonseki, a traditional art form involving the arrangement of sand on a lacquer tray, which even many Japanese people have never tried. Sendai Convention Bureau volunteers assisted with English interpretation and guiding participants around the venue.
A welcome reception for the convention was held at Ryokusaikan Visitors Center, a wooden building used for small scale events or meetings, community exchange, and tourism promotion, conveniently located right across the street from the Sendai International Center. This new facility opened right before INTERMAG 2023 came to Sendai, marking this reception as the facility’s first major event. Participants were delighted with an innovative ninja-samurai show incorporating three-dimensional (3D) projection, and a chance to try on a kimono.
While some participants were tired from the long day at the conference and returned to their hotels for rest, others took advantage of an experimental nightlife bar-hopping event sponsored by Sendai City. Participants who gathered in Inari-koji alley in the downtown Kokubuncho entertainment district could use a map and hanging posters to identify a number of bars, restaurants and izakaya pubs. Drink and food pairings with carefully-selected items or offered at a special price of 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 yen made it easy for participants to go “hopping” from location to location with no need to worry about the menu or how much the bill would cost. This bar-hopping program was offered each night of the conference. Sendai City and Sendai Convention Bureau are considering introducing these kinds of programs regularly for future large-scale conventions as well.
Participants had the options of joining a reception featuring a unique performance (left) and extending their stay in Sendai to see the Sendai Aoba Festival (right).
By chance, the INTERMAG 2023 conference concluded right before the weekend the Sendai Aoba Festival was held. A number of participants and their family members happily extended their stay to join in. This local festival features literally hundreds of traditional “Suzume-odori” Sparrow Dancers accompanied by upbeat music and a parade of traditional floats pulled by citizens through the streets. If you are lucky, you can even spot a few samurai!
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