A Little CMEpalooza Holiday Cheer

I saw my first Santa of the holiday season (complete with two “I wish I were any place but here” elves) on Saturday morning. It must not have been promoted very well because, despite a large crowd of people in the building, there was no one queueing up to sit on the big guy’s lap. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Santa’s beard was a bit scraggly and jet black, not exactly how he’s portrayed in the cinema. Just a guess.

But you know what never disappoints? No, it’s not Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (Derek’s full 2,500 word review coming later this week).

It’s CMEpalooza. Big “CME” and little “palooza.” Yes, this is our way of reminding everyone not to send us emails this year about “CMEPalooza” or “CmePalooza.” It’s like the friend I have who continues to call me “Scot” in every text message he sends me. It’s been too long now so I really can’t say anything without unnecessarily embarrassing him. But we will publicly embarrass you this year if you botch “CMEpalooza” since we are telling you once again here how it is properly spelled. Derek suggested that we should tar and feather everyone who butchers things, but he’s been reading a bit too much about the Salem Witch trials, so we’ll probably come up with something less extreme (note from Derek: Why?).

With that, a few CMEpalooza announcements:

1. After much consideration, consultation with two psychics, and hours of debate, we have set the two dates for CMEpalooza in 2025. Our Spring meeting will be Wednesday, April 16, and our Fall meeting will be on Wednesday, October 22. Please mark your calendars. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll let you in on a little secret – we actually changed the initially announced date of CMEpalooza Fall 2024 last year. There was another industry event that was dropped onto the calendar after our announcement, so instead of creating a conflict and totally destroying any chance of anyone attending the competing event, we simply moved our event by a week. Did anyone notice? Not that we are aware of. So yes, while we fully intend for these 2025 dates to be set in stone, we’ll keep the cement wet in case we need to adjust things.
2. You may have noticed that the CMEpalooza Archive tab is missing a few things, namely the 2024 Fall sessions. There is a very good reason for this. That reason is as follows: Derek has been lazy. If the Archive tab is not updated by the end of this week, he tells me that I can tar and feather him during the opening session of the upcoming Alliance conference. Stay tuned everyone! (note from Derek: meh [shrugs shoulders])
3. On Tuesday morning (that’s tomorrow), our 2025 CMEpalooza Sponsorship Prospectus will be available on our Sponsors tab. For the lucky few on our email distribution list, you will get some sort of pithy message from me noting its debut. While sponsorship commitments always trickle in over the course of the next few weeks, this is just a reminder for anyone interested in one of our more glamorous sponsorship levels to act quickly since we have limited high visibility slots. We operate on a first come, first served basis, with no “savesies” in advance. But once the prospectus is publicly available, step right up.