The 21st annual ACES national conference will take place overlooking Tampa Bay on March 23-25, 2017, at the Hilton Bayfront in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida.
The American Copy Editors Society puts on the premier editing conference each year, with quality training from recognized experts in the field. You’ll have the chance to network and socialize with hundreds of your peers.
The Gulf Coast has miles of nearby beaches and attractions with guaranteed sunshine to enjoy before and after the national conference.
ACES 2017 will include several dozen sessions over three days covering topics like: core editing skills, diversity and respectful language, fact-checking, social media and digital editing, freelance editing, news editing, job-hunting and career development, and style guides and dictionaries.
The conference also will include plenty of time to get to know new people, catch up with old friends, or find some quiet time to yourself.
One of the best things about ACES 2017 is the pricing: There is no change from the comparatively low pricing for ACES 2016. Early-bird pricing starts today and runs until Jan. 31.
The conference hotel is the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront at 333 First St. S. It’s across the street from Al Lang Stadium and the Salvador Dali Museum. It’s a short walk from bars and restaurants, and it’s half a mile from our friends at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. A Starbucks is onsite; the swimming pool is just outside.
St. Petersburg boasts sunshine 99 percent of its days — and that’s not just a way of saying “a lot,” that’s a literal, fact-checked 99 percent of days of sunshine every year. The average high temperature for March is 71 degrees.
A short walk from the conference hotel is the Dali Museum, home to one of the greatest concentrations of Salvador Dali art anywhere. To the north are shops, restaurants, bars and waterfront parks. St. Pete boats the biggest city marina in the Southeast along with the Chihuly Collection of glasswork, the Florida Holocaust Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts. Nearby Tropicana Field is home to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Tampa Bay is just to the east, and St. Pete Beach and the Gulf of Mexico are a 20-minute drive to the west. Tampa is across the bay and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is just south, leading to Bradenton, Sarasota, Venice and points south. Driving to Disney World will take you about 90 minutes.
