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"Unwind, Unlock, Uplift" 
A Triumphant Return to Community at the 2025 AIN Global Conference

Written by Amy Angelilli – This article is from AIM Issue 4 (released June 2026).

From July 31 to August 3, 2025, AIN gathered in beautiful Safety Harbor, Florida, for its annual global conference under the theme “Unwind. Unlock. Uplift.” Hosted by the Safety Harbor Resort & Spa in the Tampa Bay area, the event offered an immersive experience including workshops, keynotes, performances, jams, and spirited community-building rooted in the practices of applied improvisation—and the spa services helped attendees unwind.

A New Locale, a Renewed Energy

This was the first time AIN held its flagship in-person conference in the U.S. South—a deliberate shift to broaden geographic access and reflect the network’s growing diversity. After prior conferences in regions like Vancouver (2023) and Prague (2024), the Safety Harbor signaled both a logistical and symbolic pivot. Factors such as travel accessibility, regional infrastructure, and the potential for new local partnerships, that enable everyone to be under the same roof, were key in the decision.
Despite Florida’s famously hot and humid late July– early August climate—and occasional afternoon thunderstorms—attendees embraced the rhythm of the season—with a bathing suit and a cool cocktail by the pool.
 

Setting the Stage: Learning Journeys

Two days of Learning Journeys (pre-conference deep dives) ran on July 30 and July 31, enabling participants to explore specialized topics and stretch beyond the usual session format. These immersive experiences set the tone for the main conference, building relational trust, sparking curiosity, and priming creative engagement.

Opening Sessions

When the conference officially opened Thursday evening, a sense of anticipation rippled through the gathering. From the outset, participants were invited to unwind—to slow down, decompress, and reconnect with playful curiosity. And that’s exactly what happened as attendees “fla-mingle, mingle, mingled” around the main ballroom in groups making stops along the way to play a game with conference committee members facilitating. To ensure a playful spirit, and with a nod to the location, the facilitators carried paper parasols with Florida artwork on them such as manatees, flamingoes, pineapples and so much more. 

 

 

Highlights: Keynotes, Workshops, and Performances

Over the course of four days, the conference delivered a rich tapestry of offerings:
  • Keynote: Andrew Tarvin — “Humor That Works”
    • On Friday, humor strategist Andrew Tarvin delivered a keynote on how humor is more than entertainment—it’s a tool for connection, resilience, and creativity in organizations and teams. His talk emphasized that well-applied humor can shift cultures, break down barriers, and help team members engage more fully.
  • Keynote: Maria Schaedler-Luera — “The Resilient Protagonist”

    • On Saturday, Schaedler-Luera guided participants through emotional coherence, improvisational narrative practices, and micro-resilience exercises.

    • Her goal: not just to teach resilience, but to practice it in real time with attendees, offering tools for navigating uncertainty with curiosity, care, and adaptability.

  • Performance: Will Luera and Friends — “Resonance — A Tapestry in Motion”
    • On Saturday evening, conference-goers gathered for a unique ensemble performance merging movement, sound, and unscripted storytelling. “Resonance” invited all levels of performers into a shared experiment in coherence and surprise.

Beyond those marquee moments, the schedule included dozens of workshops, AIN Talks, open space sessions, and micro-lessons exploring applications of improv in education, leadership, healthcare, social justice, organizational change, and community — all rooted in the notion that improvisational principles can catalyze growth, connection, and transformation.


 

Community, Access, and Inclusion

A key thread through the 2025 conference was accessibility and equity. AIN offered scholarship awards to people from underserved or underrepresented communities—particularly those in the Tampa Bay region—to lower barriers to participation. AIN was also committed to safety, diversity, and inclusion, and noted the conference would actively manage accommodations and consider attendee safety in a sociopolitical context.

The conference also preserved one of AIN’s longstanding traditions: the AIN bookstore, where participant-authored books, decks, and tools could be showcased and sold during the event.

 

Reflections and Next Steps

As the conference wrapped up on Sunday afternoon, participants departed with renewed inspiration, fresh tools, and deeper connections. The arc of “Unwind, Unlock, Uplift” felt not merely thematic but experiential: many attendees remarked that the act of unwinding—letting go of constraints, learning humility, welcoming surprise—was itself a catalyst for unlocking imagination and uplifting capacity.

Looking ahead, the legacy of this gathering will ripple through classrooms, boardrooms, community groups, and nonprofit organizations—wherever practitioners bring improvisational mindsets to pressing real-world challenges. AIN’s annual conferences are more than meetups: they are living laboratories where emergent ideas are tested, practices refined, and alliances formed.

Safety Harbor in August may have been humid, but the atmosphere among conference attendees was electric. The 2025 AIN Global Conference demonstrated that when a community shows up with openness, heart, and playful discipline, the lines between workshop and life blur—and new patterns of possibility emerge. Thank you to the board, the planning committee, the presenters, and the attendees for traveling from far and wide to make this conference meaningful, impactful, and fun!

On a personal note:

While I, and the rest of the planning team, realize there were challenges hosting the conference in Florida, I stand firm in what I said when I welcomed participants—there are good people and good things happening in Florida. And because we were there, we had the opportunity to experience these powerful people and their progressive programs that represent the spirit of AIN. May we continue to highlight local achievements in future locations.
 

About the Author: Amy Angelilli

She is the owner and ringleader of Third Space Improv, a place where creativity meets connection and collaboration, in St. Augustine, Florida. She was also a proud member of the AIN conference planning committee.

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(Last Updated: Friday, June 26th, 2026)