The MAG held the 2022 Mid-Year Conference and Tech Forum at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, GA, and virtually February 14-17. The successful event brought together merchants and industry partners, and speakers covered a range of timely payments topics.
Tech Forum
After two years, the MAG Tech Forum conference was held in-person. With 205 registered in-person attendees and 270 more tuning in virtually, our Tech Forum sponsors, speakers, and staff were excited and prepared to share two full days of educational content.
We kicked off MAG’s Mid-Year Conference Tech Forum Day One with the Investing in Payment Technology and Innovation panel led by Home Depot. This session helped set the stage as we focused on innovation and enhancing the customer experience throughout the Tech Forum conference. Continuing with nearly a dozen other sessions and ending with The Latest in Payments Fraud Technology and a Vision of the Future panel, the Tech Forum speakers gave our audience plenty to reflect on.
In addition to our Tech Forum sessions, we found great engagement during our merchant-only Payments Tech Special Interest Group (SIG), which we held on the second day of the conference separate from the Mid-Year Conference SIGs. MAG combined the Customer Experience and Security SIGs to create the Payments Tech SIG for this event. We found having both audiences together led to important dialogues on relevant technology topics; the discussion was rich, and we look forward to seeing this SIG grow at future events.
Mid-Year Conference
Registrations for the 2022 Mid-Year Conference were record-breaking! We had over 1,000 registrations between the in-person and virtual experiences, and overall attendee numbers were high. Slido engagement showed great numbers as well. There were 600 attendees that checked in to the Slido platform and over 200 interacted with the speakers via polls and submitted questions.
The education sessions How Technology is Changing to Support Innovation and The Anatomy of Fraud: Learn where it starts and How to Minimize It kicked off day one. The day concluded with merchant-only Mid-Year Conference SIGs, including eCommerce, Mass Merchant, Petro/Convenience, and Small Ticket/Restaurant.
The second day started strong with a session dedicated to the hot topic of Buy Now, Pay Later. Panelists represented multiple perspectives, including a merchant and an acquirer. The remainder of the day was dedicated to concurrent breakout sessions every hour. The highly anticipated international panel, Payments Worldwide and The Latest In Payment Fraud Technology and a Vision of the Future, closed out the day.
Merchant-Only Day is a favorite day for merchants with a kick-off from our MAG Board Chair Kathy Hanna and CEO John Drechny who provided headlines on the State of MAG for members. CMSPI followed with a session on The State of Payments, and panelists had an open discussion during the Merchants Unleashed session. SIG leaders gathered to give a comprehensive recap of the SIG discussions held in-person and virtually in the final panel, SIG Leaders Unleashed.
We hope you took advantage of the many opportunities to network and communicate with your peers throughout the conference whether in the mobile app’s social wall, during breaks in the Exhibit Hall, where over 50 sponsors hosted booths, and on LinkedIn.
Post Conference
As we look ahead to our upcoming MAG Annual Conference and Tech Forum September 18-21, 2022, at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX, we want to thank our Mid-Year Conference and Tech Forum sponsors. We also are grateful to our speakers who helped bring relevant sessions topics to the forefront of the minds of our attendees. The MAG leadership looks forward to the continued connections with merchants’ payments professionals, sponsors, and business partners as we continue our educational efforts and plan for the future of payments.