The International Live Events Association (ILEA) was founded to foster enlightened performance through education while promoting ethical conduct. ILEA works to join professionals to focus on the "event as a whole" rather than its individual parts. ILEA has grown to involve nearly 5,000 members active in 30 chapters throughout the world. Membership brings together professionals from a variety of special events disciplines including caterers, meeting planners, decorators, event planners, audio-visual technicians, party and convention coordinators, educators, journalists, hotel sales managers and many more professional disciplines. The solid peer network ILEA provides helps special events professionals produce outstanding results for clients while establishing positive working relationships with other event colleagues.

The San Antonio Chapter began its formation in 1999. Although there were efforts to start a local chapter before 1999, according to Jay Hall, “it was time to get serious and take the steps necessary to start a chapter here.” The time was right! Several industry professionals felt that a chapter would bring together those in the local event industry. “There was a need to know each other, help each other and learn from each other.” As the process began to start a chapter, several of the founding members attended ILEA meetings in Houston and Dallas. Austin was also in the process of starting a chapter and the International consensus was that we should be one chapter. Without the efforts and determination of past members and leaders like Jay Hall and Caryn Hasslocher with Fresh Horizons, the San Antonio Chapter would not be what and where it is today.

It was the culmination of many like Hall, Hasslocher and 18 founding members to know, support and learn from each other. There was a need for an association like ILEA to provide the framework to build a network of like mindsets, businesses and services to support the growth of the events industry and city. It was very beneficial to connect, share stories,