Skip to content
Vantly Plan your event

Q4 Sales Kickoff (SKO) destinations from New York

New York has five Q4 options: Palm Beach, Charleston, Savannah, San Juan and Scottsdale. The Southeast and Caribbean return once hurricane season winds down, and the desert is at its best.

Charleston and Savannah cool into the high 60s and 70s by November. Palm Beach and San Juan are best in December, after hurricane season, and Scottsdale is dry all quarter. Keep the kickoff out of the final week of December.

Attendees sit in rows and listen during a session in a large conference hall. Warm lights glow over the softly blurred crowd.
Photo: Caleb Oquendo / Pexels (Pexels License)

Destinations from New York.

From New York, the best-weather option is San Juan, about 4 hours nonstop by flight.

Worth Avenue in Palm Beach.
Photo: Jonathan S

Palm Beach, FL

Palm Beach, FL Flight · approx. 3 hours nonstop

October
85°F / 73°F (29°C / 23°C)
November
80°F / 66°F (27°C / 19°C)
December
77°F / 62°F (25°C / 17°C)

Palm Beach is New York's December option, at about 77°F once hurricane season has ended. Rain is far lower than in late summer.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Beachfront resort; Resort with conference space; Golf resort.

Hurricane season runs to November 30, so a December date is the safer choice.

Where you could stay

The Breakers Palm Beach

Palm Beach, FL

On the ocean in Palm Beach, The Breakers pairs 534 rooms with upward of 80,000 square feet for meetings inside and out. A New York group need not leave the property.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Experience Epic Events

    Lake Worth Beach, FL

    Experience Epic Events is a corporate event planning and production company headquartered in Lake Worth Beach, in Palm Beach County, founded and led by CEO Sarah Martin. Its South Florida meeting page lists executive retreats, sales kickoffs, leadership summits, incentive meetings, board meetings and client appreciation events among its typical programs, with venue sourcing, vendor management, agenda design, guest logistics and on-site management across Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. In 2023 it added destination management services such as itineraries, transportation, accommodation and activities. Its site describes producing the 2016 Luminary Gala, where it says replacing the sit-down dinner with food stations and new sponsorship and ticketing raised net profits by 232%, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art Ice Ball with JES Publishing. It says it has produced events in New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.

  • South Florida Corporate Events

    Pompano Beach, FL

    South Florida Corporate Events is the corporate division of All On Stage Productions, producing corporate events from a shop in Pompano Beach, Florida. Its site says it has been producing since 2004 and has delivered more than 1,000 events, with audio, video, lighting, staging and rigging from its own inventory, run by a permanent crew. It also supplies scenic and fabrication, tenting and structures, show power and furnishings, so a single team covers everything on the same estimate and load-in plan. The work it lists includes general sessions and conferences, company meetings and sales kickoffs, trade shows and exhibits, product launches and ribbon cuttings, fashion shows, company parties, and awards nights and galas, indoors and outdoors. Selected work on its site includes a conference with a large video wall and line array, a municipal bonds conference with a 40-by-12-foot video wall and live stream, a shareholder meeting with dual video walls and a trade show booth build. It says its clients range from private companies to Fortune 500 brands, along with municipalities, universities, non-profits and hotels. It started in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach and also works in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and across Florida.

Pastel townhouses of Rainbow Row, Charleston.
Photo: Ymblanter / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Charleston, SC

Charleston, SC Flight · approx. 2–2.5 hours nonstop

October
78°F / 58°F (26°C / 14°C)
November
69°F / 47°F (21°C / 8°C)
December
63°F / 42°F (17°C / 6°C)

Charleston is crisp and walkable in November, with highs near 69°F. From New York it is the shortest flight on the list.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Historic hotel or event hall; Boutique hotel (smaller groups); Downtown conference hotel.

Thanksgiving falls on November 25, 2027. Book the week before or early December.

Where you could stay

The Charleston Place

Charleston, SC

In the historic district, The Charleston Place has 433 rooms and a Grand Ballroom of about 14,000 square feet for the New York general session.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Destination South Meetings + Experiences

    Mount Pleasant, SC

    Destination South Meetings + Experiences (DSME) is a meeting management and production company founded by Cynthia Alford in 1995. It is headquartered in Atlanta, and its ADMEI listing gives a Charleston-area office in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Its site says it has delivered meetings for corporations, associations and non-profits "from 50 to 40,000 attendees across the Southeast and beyond," and that it now focuses entirely on meetings. Services cover meeting strategy, site selection and hotel sourcing, budget development and reconciliation, agenda design, hybrid meetings, food and beverage, room setup and BEO review, registration, production, speaker care and on-site program management, with a dedicated team that can include a technical director, creative director, show caller and stage manager. A Blackbaud sales-enablement manager says on its site that DSME plans the company's annual sales kickoff each year, including budget, contracts, keynote speakers and onsite production; Hansgrohe and Stibo Systems also give testimonials. Alford received the ADMEI Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024, and the company won a 2020 ADMEI award for a Stibo program in Copenhagen.

  • Fox Audio Visual

    Charleston, SC

    Fox Audio Visual is a Charleston event production company that brands itself around Professional Audio Visual & Event Production Services, handling AV-heavy events "from concept to strike" with technical labor, equipment and production management. For corporate clients it describes itself as a regional partner for turnkey conference AV, LED wall rentals and hybrid streaming across the Southeast, covering general sessions, breakouts, annual summits, product launches, sales kickoffs, board meetings and trade shows with LED wall backdrops, multi-camera I-Mag, line array audio and live streaming. It also supplies technical crews, AV rentals and mobile LED screen trailers, and works on galas. Founded by Steve Brown, who started with microphone and speaker rentals at Fox Music House in Charleston, it now has offices in Charleston and St. Simons Island, Georgia, and says it has more than 12 full-time technicians and over 25 contractors.

  • KLH Group

    Charleston, SC

    KLH Group is a Charleston destination management company and corporate event strategy firm led by owner and principal Hope Caldwell. It describes its focus as "high-end corporate experiences, executive retreats, incentive travel programs, leadership summits, and social impact activations," and its corporate services include national sales meetings, corporate conferences, board retreats, company offsites, VIP client experiences and brand activations. As a DMC it provides "the full spectrum of destination management services for the greater Charleston, SC area," from group transfers and excursions to 24/7 support, and it also takes events on the road. Its social impact work builds hands-on service projects into corporate events; its signature KLH Clubhouse Build has teams build clubhouses for children facing serious illness, and its site cites projects with Newell Brands' leadership summit and at IMEX America. Caldwell, who spent over a decade in event design and destination management at a five-star property, has built a team of women, and she founded the nonprofit Doors to Dream.

Forsyth Park walkway and fountain under Spanish moss.
Photo: Evan Walker / Pexels

Savannah, GA

Savannah, GA Flight · approx. 2.5 hours nonstop

October
79°F / 59°F (26°C / 15°C)
November
70°F / 48°F (21°C / 9°C)
December
64°F / 43°F (18°C / 6°C)

Savannah is comfortable for a New York team in October and November, with highs from about 79°F to 70°F.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Historic hotel or event hall; Boutique hotel (smaller groups); Downtown conference hotel.

October is still within hurricane season. November is the calmer month.

Where you could stay

The Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa

Savannah, GA

The Westin Savannah Harbor offers 403 rooms, a covered walkway to the convention center, and a ferry across to River Street.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Savannah Destination Management

    Savannah, Georgia

    Kristin Detwiler, CMP, DMCP, leads Savannah Destination Management, which has served clients since 2009, and has more than 25 years in the industry, including roles at SmithBucklin and Starwood. Her locally owned company designs corporate meetings and events in Savannah, with local tours, team building, gala and reception venues, theme parties, décor, entertainment, and transportation with meet-and-greet. She has planned events for between 2 and 18,000 attendees. The company says it is the only DMC in the area holding ADMEI's Certificate in Emergency Preparedness.

A colorful street in Old San Juan.
Photo: Marie Glez

San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico Flight · approx. 4 hours nonstop

October
89°F / 77°F (32°C / 25°C)
November
86°F / 75°F (30°C / 24°C)
December
84°F / 73°F (29°C / 23°C)

San Juan is warm in December, near 84°F, and needs no passport from New York.

Venue types for about 50–300 people: Beachfront resort; Resort with conference space; Historic hotel or event hall.

The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30. Choose December.

Where you could stay

Condado Vanderbilt Hotel

San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Condado Vanderbilt dates from 1919 and offers a New York group about 25,000 square feet of event space on the beachfront.

Local planners for a sales kickoff here

  • Group Services, Inc. (GSI)

    San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Group Services, Inc. has provided destination management in Puerto Rico for conventions, meetings and incentive groups since 1992. It designs special events at historic venues and resorts, runs team building and land and marine tours, and handles transportation. GSI says it is the only DMC in Puerto Rico with operating offices inside San Juan's international airport, so groups are met on arrival.

A saguaro cactus in the desert near Scottsdale.
Photo: Edward Wolinski

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ Flight · approx. 5.5–6 hours nonstop

October
89°F / 66°F (32°C / 19°C)
November
77°F / 54°F (25°C / 12°C)
December
66°F / 45°F (19°C / 7°C)

Scottsdale gives New York dry desert weather in Q4, near 89°F in October and 77°F in November.

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

Expect lows in the mid 40s in December.

Where you could stay

Fairmont Scottsdale Princess

Scottsdale / Phoenix, AZ

A New York kickoff at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess has 750 rooms and two ballrooms of roughly 23,000 square feet to work with.

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.

Staying local.

All five Q4 options need a flight from New York. Charleston, at about 2 to 2.5 hours, is the shortest.

A sample two- to three-day agenda.

Charleston and Savannah suit walking dinners in the historic districts. Palm Beach and San Juan suit resort days by the water. Scottsdale fits a golf outing.

  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.

Which Q4 destination is the shortest flight from New York?

Charleston, at about 2 to 2.5 hours nonstop.

When is San Juan safest in Q4?

December, after the Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30.

Which dates should New York avoid?

Thanksgiving week (November 25, 2027) and October dates on the coast, which are still in hurricane season.

Which venue has the most rooms?

The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, with 750, followed by The Breakers with 534.

Do New York attendees need a passport for San Juan?

No. Puerto Rico is a US territory, so domestic ID rules apply.

Step 1 of 5

What are you organizing?

Share a few details so we can help you find a local planner.

Event type