It’s not uncommon for conference attendees to make travel plans for their arrival and departure to be scheduled as close to the event’s start and finish as possible.

Tony Long, executive director of the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance, suggests that executives and managers from auctions, consignors, finance companies and dealerships use a different approach for the organization’s 2014 Remarketing Roundtable, which runs from Aug. 19 through Aug. 21 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick in Chicago.

“This is a record membership year for IARA. Our membership committee has done a fantastic job. Our education and conference committee is working hard to bring all of the last-minute details together for this meeting. Many attendees are coming in a day early and staying a day late because of sidebar activities that are taking place in addition to the main program,” Long told Auto Remarketing.

“IARA is driven by identifying the needs and opportunities that exist in the remarketing industry. There’s probably going to be one or two surprise projects that come out of the meeting. We’re working on a number of initiatives as we speak,” he continued.

Along with series of committee meetings as well as certification seminars and testing, the Remarketing Roundtable has a trio of keynote speakers who will cover a wide range of topics.

The keynotes begin with Daniel Gemp, who has been the president and chief executive of Dreamscape Marketing since its founding in 2005. Dreamscape is a provider of professional business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing strategy, lead generation and custom digital campaign development.

Following discussions about multiplatform buying and selling — two hot topics that have dominated the remarketing world — IARA welcomes back Melinda Zabritski, senior director at Experian Automotive.

“Melinda Zabritski of Experian was with us last year, and she was so well accepted that there was a demand for her to come back as our luncheon speaker this year,” Long said. “We’ll be interested to hear her trends analysis and see how things have changed and what to expect in the near future.”

The keynote presentations wrap up with another appearance by Shama Kabani, CEO of the award-winning Marketing Zen Group, which has averaged annual growth of more than 400 percent since beginning operations in 2009.

For more details on the 2014 IARA Remarketing Roundtable, check out the Aug. 15 edition of Auto Remarketing. The digital version of this magazine hit email inboxes Tuesday and can also be found at digital.autoremarketing.com.