Feeding her creative juices and her zest for innovation, Samantha Vogel, CMP, loves her position at GameStop where she is able to utilize her talents to the fullest. Innovation, however, has had a whole new meaning in this COVID-19 world as this Sr. Manager of Meetings and Travel and her GameStop (the video game store giant is headquartered in Grapevine, TX) co-workers have quickly learned.

“Our big annual meeting is always at the end of August or after Labor Day and all of our shop managers are required to attend (GameStop has 5,700 stores in 14 different countries). We have very creative and innovative attendees and exhibitors. It is always magical. The attendees have so much energy and passion.”

Vogel’s meeting responsibility is focused on the exhibit floor and the “festivalization” of the show, orchestrating tournaments while being the front person for sponsorships. As a six-year veteran of GameStop, the San Antonio native said it has been a total team effort to move this large event to a virtual extravaganza.

“We are fortunate that we have a couple of internal platforms (GameStop TV and Level Up) that have people working year-round to produce content for our employees. We will create content for our main stage general session and have the speakers pre-record their talks and play them back on a schedule on GameStop TV,” Vogel said. The Level Up platform will be used to create a video-game-like environment where attendees can move around an exhibit floor and interact with the exhibitors virtually.

“We want to maintain that energy and magic as much as possible,” Vogel said. “There will be experiential opportunities like polling, quizzes surveys and live chats. Our attendees are used to receiving a lot of swag and we plan on sending all of them items from our sponsors.”

When not immersing herself in GameStop work, Vogel also sits on the Visit Houston Customer Advisory & Innovation Board. She previously held positions on the PCMA Exhibits & Tradeshow Taskforce and the Connect Tech Customer Advisory Board.

Notes: Vogel is a graduate of University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas in Austin. She studied abroad in Dublin, Ireland where she found a passion for travel. Tropical locations top her list although when global travel resumes she would like to venture out to Asia and Africa.

She likes to spend time with her family and two Chihuahuas and her favorite movie is The Devil Wears Prada.