Q3 Sales Kickoff (SKO) destinations from Chicago

Lake Tahoe, California / Nevada

Tahoe By Design is a locally owned and operated destination management company with 25 years of corporate meeting and event planning in Lake Tahoe. It plans executive retreats and incentive programs, and handles transportation from Reno and Truckee airports, hotel room blocks, off-site evening events, tours and activities, AV and production, theme décor, VIP management and on-site staffing. Hotel partners include Edgewood Tahoe, the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe, the Ritz-Carlton, Everline Resort, Harveys and Harrah's, and the Tahoe Blue Event Center. It charges a percentage management fee on net costs.

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.

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.

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.

Carmel, California

Karissa Paxton Events is a boutique planning and production company on California's Central Coast, serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Pebble Beach, Big Sur, Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. With more than 20 years of experience, the team offers full-service planning, design and event management, and produces corporate, social and nonprofit events, from venue sourcing to on-site execution. Its related company, Paxton Entertainment, handles entertainment.