Has Elvis left the building? During Healthcare Financial Management Association's (HFMA) 2005 annual conference at Bally's-Paris in Las Vegas, there were actually three in house.

When Teri Elliott Jarvie, CMP, HFMA director of meeting services, was planning a meeting at Bally's-Paris, she knew she faced a logistics challenge. Jarvie was expecting 5,000 attendees and every inch of the meeting and exhibit space in these sister properties would be needed. "The fact that the meeting space is located on the main level and the 26th floor presented a challenge to the group. I knew I'd have to use human directionals to help the attendees find their way," explained Jarvie.

She considered having staff members or volunteers help with navigation. Then it hit her. Why not add a little bit of Vegas to these "human directionals"? Who better than Elvis to help attendees find their way? Plus, this could be an aspect of the meeting that could be sponsored.

The Elvis impersonators would have to interact with her attendees, so Jarvie turned to Las Vegas-based corporate entertainment company, always entertaining!, to find three perfect Elvises.

"We wanted to make sure our attendees knew there were people out there to help them. I knew an Elvis would really stand out," said Jarvie. "We had to move our people through a facility that did not have as much space as we might have liked. There could have been frustrating traffic knots along the way but the Elvises were so entertaining that no one noticed. They made waiting in line for the elevator and navigating through the property fun. They also lightened up the staff office during their breaks."

McKesson, a health care services company, loved the idea of sponsoring these human directionals - especially since the theme of its booth at the exhibit was "McKesson Shows You the Way." That theme became the message on the signs carried by the Elvises.

Each Elvis was strategically positioned in spots where bottlenecks might occur. They were also given copies of the program to study before the meeting kicked off so they could answer attendee questions.

"It was an opportunity to give a sponsor visibility in an entirely new way. Plus, our attendees were thoroughly entertained. The Elvises stayed in character and would say things like, 'Hey baby, that way to the food,'" Jarvie said.

Although a small part of the overall conference, the Elvises added a unique feature to the attendee experience.

"We let it take a life of its own and it certainly did," Jarvie said. "During the first day, the Elvises answered a lot of questions. By the second day, they were posing for photos with our attendees, who had brought their cameras with them."

When the general session broke, the Elvises directed the attendees to sessions they had signed up for or back to the exhibit hall. They were also part of meal functions to make sure food lines moved along.

The Elvises were such a big hit at HFMA's annual conference that they will be back for a return engagement when the group heads back to Las Vegas this June. Even though signage will not be as critical at the more spacious Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, HFMA will be making sure that Elvis has not left the building.

With a little ingenuity, this association turned a potential negative into a positive:

Moving 5,000 attendees between the main level and the 26th floor could have been a thorn in HFMA's side during its annual conference in Las Vegas. Instead, the association's meeting services director turned the problem into a positive, by hiring three Elvises to provide directions and interact with attendees. It became a sponsorship opportunity, so much so that the same sponsor renewed its agreement to bring back the Elvises to the annual conference in Las Vegas this year.

Andrea Doyle is Convene's senior writer. The Innovative Meetings column is sponsored by the Irving, Texas Convention and Visitors Bureau, www.irving texas.com.