A short chronology
The public story of Global Meetings Industry Day is a widening circle, not a single founding memo. Mid-1990s Edmonton MPI members marked a Meeting Planners Day. The Canadian Council then ran National Meetings Industry Day for more than twenty years. In 2013 Canadian chapters received an MPI RISE Award for that national habit. 2015 brought North American Meetings Industry Day with Meetings Mean Business and the Events Industry Council. 2016 was announced as the first global edition. After that the letters GMID stuck.
Each widening kept local rooms. A Calgary breakfast and a Michigan virtual hour are still chapter property. The coalition supplies a theme and a press line; it does not replace a treasurer counting muffins. That split — local muscle, shared masthead — is the part worth remembering when a search result looks like a single official portal.
Dates drift. April is common in Canada. Late March has been used for the global stream. Always read the year on the chapter site or on mpi.org. This page is a chronology, not a calendar.