The Modern Hotelier #188: What Makes ILC Events Special | with Meg Gutowski
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David Millili: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged podcast. I'm David Millili. I'm Steve Carran. Steve, who we interviewing today? 
Steve Carran: David, today we have on the famous Meg Gutowski from Independent Lodging Congress. Thanks for sitting down with us. Meg, how are we doing today? 
Meg Gutowski: At the end of my day, so I am doing great.
Steve Carran: Ready for a cocktail? I'm sure. Ready for a drink?
Meg Gutowski: Yes. It's waiting for me up on the roof. 
Steve Carran: There you go. So Meg, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into ILC? 
Meg Gutowski: Yeah, so I actually started as a cater waitress at 17 and kind of fell in love with it. I did weddings, um, for most of my career and I was a catering director before this and just really felt like I wanted to learn from.
People outside of the space I was in and interviewed for the job, met Andrew and was like, this guy is so weird. I need to know more. And three years later, here we are. 
David Millili: What makes ILC special do you think? 
Meg Gutowski: From like an attendee perspective or like from my perspective. 
David Millili: So give us your perspective and then give why you think people keep coming back 'cause this is a true community. 
Meg Gutowski: Yeah, and I think people say community a lot. And I don't think they realize how big that is from like the execution side of things, because. When you travel and host events in all these different locations, you're really, you hate to say at the mercy, but you are at the mercy of the property that you end up hosting with.
And for example, like the Viceroy, we're partners. I'm not a client of them. We were partners on this event and they took it from the day that I signed to now, and they are. Like through the roof, like amazing start to finish the entire team from the front desk the day I stayed here and did a little tour, giving me some like Chicago insights to right now where the team is texting me, asking me what do we need going on in every single space in this room.
So it's just an incredible, uh, location. Incredible team. So I think that the, the the community of people who we host with is what really makes the difference. 
Steve Carran: I completely agree. The catering team has been unbelievable helping us here. Food was fantastic. Fantastic. Really good team overall. Fantastic. 
Meg Gutowski: Yeah, the whole team.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. So Meg, what is next for ILC? 
Meg Gutowski: So we are going to Miami, um, October 21st to the 23rd. Uh, Mayfair House, hotel and Garden. It's preferred hotel. we love preferred hotels and we're gonna be there for a couple of days and get into a little bit of shenanigans, I'm sure. Yeah. some, good stuff will be done. Business will be done, but there's always a little bit of shenanigans that goes along with it. 
David Millili: Absolutely. That's great. So. Tell people how they can get in touch with you or find out more about ILC. 
Meg Gutowski: Yeah, LinkedIn. I'm on it all the time. Our website has everyone's contact information. Um, just reach out our social media, our Instagram, whatever is your preferred method of communication, we're on it. 
David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged Podcast. We're here in Chicago at ILC CONfab. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us.