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Q1 Sales Kickoff (SKO) destinations from Los Angeles

Los Angeles teams can keep a Q1 kickoff on the road. Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and San Diego are each about two hours by car. For a different setting, Scottsdale is about 1.5 hours by air, and Las Vegas handles the largest groups.

Lounge chairs and umbrellas beside a palm-lined resort pool.
Photo: Pexels

Destinations from Los Angeles.

From Los Angeles, the warmest option is Palm Springs, about 2 h by drive.

A palm tree in front of the Hotel California in Palm Springs at sunset.
Photo: Katterinaaa

Palm Springs, CA

Palm Springs, CA Drive · approx. 2 h

January
71°F / 48°F (22°C / 9°C)
February
74°F / 50°F (23°C / 10°C)
March
81°F / 54°F (27°C / 12°C)

Palm Springs is the desert within driving distance for an LA team: about two hours on I-10, so people can carpool rather than fly. Q1 is the dry season, with about an inch of rain a month in January and February.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Golf / desert resort; Resort with conference space; Boutique hotel (smaller groups).

Avoid Modernism Week (February 11–21, 2027), and the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells (February 28 to March 14) if you need rooms down-valley.

Where you could stay

Riviera Resort & Spa

Palm Springs, CA

The Riviera Resort & Spa is an easy drive-in base for a Los Angeles team. Its 19,670-square-foot Crosby Ballroom can be divided into sections for a general session in the morning and smaller team rooms in the afternoon.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • MOMENTOUS

    Palm Springs, California

    MOMENTOUS is an event design, production and destination management agency headquartered in Palm Springs, with more than 35 years of experience. It produces corporate meetings, incentives, conferences, awards shows, galas and brand activations across the Coachella Valley, and handles DMC work locally: tours and activities, team building and CSR, transportation, site selection and VIP logistics. Staging, lighting, audio, décor, entertainment and catering management are all done in-house. The company says it has engaged more than 750,000 attendees, and its client logos include Disney, Modernism Week, Omni Rancho Las Palmas and Eisenhower Health.

A rocky beach on the Santa Barbara coast.
Photo: Ekaterina Belinskaya

Santa Barbara, CA

Santa Barbara, CA Drive · approx. 1.5–2 h

January
67°F / 47°F (19°C / 8°C)
February
67°F / 47°F (19°C / 8°C)
March
68°F / 49°F (20°C / 9°C)

Santa Barbara suits a leadership team or a mid-size org that wants the coast without the scale of a convention hotel. It is about 1.5–2 hours up US-101, and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (February 3–13, 2027) adds evening options downtown.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Resort with conference space; Boutique hotel (smaller groups).

January and February average about 4.4 inches of rain each, the wettest months of the year. Plan indoor backups for beach events.

Where you could stay

Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort

Santa Barbara, CA

The Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort sits on the Santa Barbara waterfront, an easy drive for an LA group.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Relevé Unlimited

    Solvang, California

    Relevé Unlimited is an event production and destination management company based in Solvang, in Santa Barbara County, founded and led by Diane Hamilton. It plans corporate incentives, board retreats, product launches, nonprofit galas and sales conferences across California, with transportation and airport meet-and-greet, dine-arounds, team building, winery events, tours, site and venue selection, food and beverage, and vendor management.

Downtown San Diego's towers line the far shore of San Diego Bay beneath a deep blue sky and a few white clouds. A barge sits quietly on the water in front of the waterfront.
Photo: Humphrey Jones-Behan / Pexels

San Diego, CA

San Diego, CA Drive · approx. 2–2.5 h

January
66°F / 50°F (19°C / 10°C)
February
66°F / 52°F (19°C / 11°C)
March
67°F / 55°F (19°C / 13°C)

San Diego gives an LA team waterfront conference space within a day's drive and very steady weather, with highs near 66–67°F all quarter.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Beachfront resort; Resort with conference space; Large convention hotel (200–300+).

Golf fans fill La Jolla for The Sentry at Torrey Pines, January 27–30, 2027.

Where you could stay

Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina

San Diego, CA

The Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina is the large-format option within driving range of Los Angeles. It has about 271,000 square feet of event space and a 35,631-square-foot Grand Ballroom on Harbor Drive, steps from the marina.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Cue the Magic

    San Diego, CA

    Cue the Magic is a boutique corporate event studio in San Diego, founded in 2025 by Kelly McCleland, who leads it as founder and creative director. It plans events from strategy through on-site delivery: setting objectives and audience, designing the guest journey and programming, creative direction, communications, and running the room on the day. Its site lists customer events, sales meetings, workshops and trainings, leadership retreats, internal culture moments, and trade shows and conferences among the events it supports, and says it works with a select group of clients rather than at volume. It is based in San Diego and serves teams across the U.S.

  • GoGather

    Escondido, CA

    GoGather is a full-service corporate event management agency based in Escondido, in San Diego County, co-founded in 2008 by Brian Kellerman (Partner & CEO) and Dave Wagner (Partner & President). It plans sales kickoffs, conferences, corporate meetings, and employee and channel-partner incentive trips, handling strategy, site selection, budgeting, vendor management, production and A/V, and on-site management. Its case studies include a 3,000-person, eight-division sales kickoff, a sales kickoff for more than 300 people in Puerto Rico, a franchise conference at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and a first user conference for an AI software company in San Francisco. According to its site, it works with Fortune 1000 companies in manufacturing, trucking and transportation, home services, construction and franchising, and has managed more than 1,000 events. It says clients get an online project plan and budget they can view anytime, plus KPI-setting and post-event reporting.

  • The Private Event Company

    San Diego, CA

    The Private Event Company is a female-owned San Diego event planner that specializes in group dining and evening events: corporate and client dinners, dine-arounds, restaurant buyouts, block parties and holiday parties. For groups in town for a conference, incentive trip or sales meeting, its destination management page describes handling the ground program, including group dinners, off-site evenings, transport, hotel coordination and excursions, with one dedicated contact. It says it works with more than 100 venues across the Gaslamp, Little Italy and Downtown, handles everything from 20-person dinners to 5,000-guest block parties, and charges no planning fee because the venues pay it. Case studies on its site include a 245-guest VIP dinner for the California Cattlemen's Association, a cocktail reception and group dinner for Marsh, dinners for Ryvu Therapeutics and AstraZeneca Brazil, and a Taco Bell brand activation.

A saguaro cactus in the desert at Scottsdale, Arizona.
Photo: Edward Wolinski

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ Flight · approx. 1.5 hours nonstop and 33$ if booked in October

January
68°F / 46°F (20°C / 8°C)
February
71°F / 49°F (22°C / 9°C)
March
78°F / 55°F (26°C / 13°C)

Scottsdale is the short hop for an LA team, about 1.5 hours by air, with large resorts and a drier winter than the coast. Spring training starts February 19, 2027.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Golf / desert resort; Resort with conference space; Ranch or estate venue.

Plan around the WM Phoenix Open, which takes over TPC Scottsdale from February 8 to 14, 2027.

Where you could stay

Fairmont Scottsdale Princess

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ

The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess gives an LA group a full change of scene after a short flight: 750 rooms, two ballrooms of about 23,000 square feet, and space for golf or a desert dinner after sessions.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Centric Events

    Phoenix, AZ

    Centric Events & Rentals is a Phoenix event production company that handles the technical side of live events: audio, lighting, LED video walls, staging, live streaming and on-site technicians. Its site describes it as primarily a full-service production company that also owns an in-house rental inventory, including AV gear and pipe and drape. It works on corporate conferences and general sessions, hybrid events, brand activations, galas, concerts and weddings, mainly across the greater Phoenix area, and says it travels for multi-city programs. Featured projects on its site include Carvana's Spark annual employee conference, LoudRumor's annual conference, a Milagro Tequila brand activation and the Westgate Entertainment District's Fourth of July concert. It was co-founded by Dustin Dluhy, its managing director, and Daniel Pitner; according to its LinkedIn page, the company was founded in 2013.

  • Highway 85 Productions

    Peoria, AZ

    Highway 85 Productions describes itself as "a full-service corporate event production company headquartered in Peoria, AZ" that builds "the physical environments that make events work: staging, scenic, branded structures, registration, wayfinding, and everything in between." It works on user conferences and customer summits, product launches, brand activations, and sales kickoffs and internal events, with 3D design, fabrication in its Peoria facility, and installation by its own crew; AV and LED are handled as design coordination. It says it has "produced full environments for Axon’s annual user conference," including general session staging, breakouts, branded registration and product demo zones, and has built for Microchip Technology’s Masters Summit; it also builds trade show exhibits and permanent interiors. It was founded by Guy Zwick, its founder and chief experience officer.

  • Xperience Entertainment

    Peoria, AZ

    Xperience Entertainment is an event production company in Peoria, Arizona, that handles the technical side of corporate events: audio, video, LED video walls, lighting, staging and scenic, and live streaming for hybrid audiences. Founded in 2006 by Darrell Perez as a DJ business, it grew into full event production, and its site says the work is done by its own crew rather than subcontractors. For conferences it runs general sessions and breakout rooms, with confidence monitors, teleprompters, multi-camera video and a show caller. It works on conferences, sales kickoffs, award galas, trade shows, product launches and company events across the Phoenix Valley, and lists PlayStation, Nike, 23andMe and the City of Phoenix among its clients. Its featured project is Diana Taurasi's retirement celebration in Phoenix, where it handled audio, staging, lighting, LED video and a custom LED DJ booth. It also handled lighting, draping, projection and audio for VEN Centers' Doing it in the Desert summit in 2026. It also produces weddings and school events and rents equipment without crew.

The Las Vegas Strip, with the Paris Las Vegas Eiffel Tower replica.
Photo: dumitru bumbu

Las Vegas, NV

Las Vegas, NV Flight · approx. 1–1.5 hours nonstop, or about 4–4.5 hours by road and 19$ if booked in October

January
59°F / 41°F (15°C / 5°C)
February
63°F / 44°F (17°C / 7°C)
March
71°F / 51°F (22°C / 11°C)

Las Vegas is the scale play: a short flight or a long drive from Los Angeles, and convention space for a 300-plus kickoff that brings in remote reps from across the US.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Large convention hotel (200–300+); Resort with conference space.

CES runs January 6–9, 2027, and lifts rates citywide. Schedule the kickoff for later in January or February.

Where you could stay

Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino

Las Vegas, NV

Mandalay Bay's 3,209 rooms and more than two million square feet of meeting and exhibit space mean a Los Angeles kickoff can scale from a single ballroom to a full exhibit floor without changing hotels.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Corporate Events Las Vegas

    Las Vegas, NV

    Corporate Events Las Vegas is an independent corporate event planner in Las Vegas, where Daniel Herschman has been Director of Events since 2004. It plans corporate meetings, sales kickoffs, conferences, receptions, product launches and convention-related programs, with one point of contact from venue search to on-site execution. Much of its work is finding and negotiating venues: restaurants, lounges, nightclubs, rooftops, pools, ballrooms and hospitality suites, including food and beverage minimums, venue fees, event hours and contract terms. Its site describes a 200-guest welcome reception at The Chandelier Bar at The Cosmopolitan for a corporate client attending a conference, where it negotiated the food and beverage minimum down from $40,000 to $30,000. Example programs it lists include a 500-person sales kickoff at Wynn, a 300-person annual summit at Fontainebleau and a 250-person awards dinner at Bellagio. It also provides destination management support, including hotel room blocks, group transportation, dine-arounds and entertainment. Clients quoted on its site include Velocitor Solutions, whose president says they have done more than 30 events with the team over 20 years.

  • JET The Agency

    Las Vegas, NV

    JET The Agency is a Las Vegas event planning and destination management company that works nationwide and also designs and builds trade show booths. Its DMC page lists venue sourcing, event design and management, staffing, dining, transportation, furniture and decor, entertainment and activities, for corporate events, incentive trips, business meetings, sales kickoffs, annual conferences and team building. It started as a boutique entertainment agency, and today handles booth design and in-house fabrication and rents event and trade show furniture. On its site, Aruba Networks' global event director says the team was hired as DMC for the Airheads/ATMOSPHERE conference, a 2,500-person customer and partner event, handling entertainment, acts, staffing and themes. Other testimonials describe custom booths for AgentSync since 2022 and a conference sponsorship for XUP Payments, a KeyBank brand. Its site says it has worked on more than 1,500 events.

  • MyRSVP

    Las Vegas, NV

    MyRSVP is a Las Vegas nightlife and dining concierge that also runs corporate programs in the city: sales kickoffs, client appreciation events, customer summits, multi-day off-sites, incentive trips, executive retreats and holiday parties. It acts as a single point of contact across restaurants, nightclubs, pool clubs, transportation and room blocks, and, according to its site, sends one consolidated invoice. Its corporate page says it works directly with events teams at nine Strip resorts and with the major nightlife and dayclub operators, and that it handles programs from 10-person executive retreats up to 2,000-attendee summits. It charges a flat or per-attendee fee agreed up front, and says comped tables and venue concessions often offset it. Clients listed on its site include Davis Polk, Crexi, Golub Capital and DocuSign. According to its site, it was founded by Adam Sadie, who has 25 years in hospitality, including opening director roles at Nikki Beach, Hakkasan and Sphere, and it has operated since 2014.

Staying local.

Driving times from central Los Angeles in normal traffic: Santa Barbara about 1.5–2 hours on US-101, Palm Springs about 2 hours on I-10, San Diego about 2–2.5 hours on I-5, and Las Vegas about 4–4.5 hours on I-15. Leave mid-morning to miss the worst of the traffic.

A sample two- to three-day agenda.

In Palm Springs, take breakfast outdoors and hold the general session through the warm middle of the day. In Santa Barbara, the beachfront lawn suits a closing reception. In Las Vegas, keep the agenda tight and let the Strip supply the evening.

  1. Day 0. Arrivals and a welcome reception.
  2. Day 1. CEO or CRO keynote, product and compensation-plan sessions, segment breakouts, and a team dinner.
  3. Day 2. Enablement workshops and role-play, a customer or partner panel, and an awards night.
  4. Day 3, optional. A half-day leadership session, then departures.

Why a local planner, with Vantly.

A local planner knows which rooms are actually free in high season. Vantly is how the company runs the event after that.

Local planners and designers know venue availability, seasonal patterns, and vendors. Vantly adds centralized billing, a shared agenda, guest registration, an AI event builder, and multi-currency support.

Questions planners ask first.

Short answers for a Q1 sales kickoff.

What are the drivable SKO options from Los Angeles?

Santa Barbara (about 1.5–2 hours), Palm Springs (about 2 hours), San Diego (about 2–2.5 hours), and Las Vegas if the group accepts about 4–4.5 hours on I-15.

Where will an LA team find the warmest Q1 weather?

Palm Springs, at about 71°F by day in January and 81°F in March. Scottsdale is a few degrees cooler, and Santa Barbara and San Diego stay in the mid-60s.

Which dates should an LA kickoff avoid?

In 2027, CES fills Las Vegas from January 6 to 9. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs February 3–13, and Modernism Week fills Palm Springs from February 11 to 21.

Which option suits a kickoff of 300 or more?

Las Vegas or San Diego. Mandalay Bay has 3,209 rooms and a 2.1-million-square-foot convention center. The Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina has about 271,000 square feet of event space.

Which suits a smaller leadership kickoff?

Santa Barbara. The Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort sits on the waterfront at a scale that feels like a retreat.

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