Feature - December 2008 / January 2009

By Diana Rowe

Here’s a simple headline with a much larger story behind it: “American Water Works Association Selects Pennsylvania Convention Center As Site For 2017 Convention.”

The news release explains: “Officials from the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PCVB), Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, and regional business leaders today announced that AWWA has selected Philadelphia as the host city for its 2017

A rendering of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, facing down Philadelphia’s famed Broad Street. By 2011, the convention center will expand its meeting and exhibit space by 60 percent. Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority

convention in the expanded Pennsylvania Convention Center. The AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition (ACE) will be held June 11-14, 2017. The event is expected to attract more than 14,000 attendees utilizing more than 27,000 total room nights with an economic impact of more than $30 million for the Philadelphia region.”

But here’s the kicker: “Due to the growth of the association, the group has been unable to hold its meeting in Philadelphia without an expanded convention center.”

For years, convention centers have been losing business to major-city centers that have abundant square footage for conventions, exhibits, meetings and events.

The good news is that when planners demanded additional space, the convention centers (and their cities) listened and answered the call. In this instance, Philadelphia jumped on the expansion bandwagon, and now AWWA’s ACE will return to the city and the Pennsylvania Convention Center: “ACE is the most comprehensive and diverse water conference in the world, and we’re pleased to bring that excitement to Philadelphia,” said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of AWWA. “The city’s strong ties to the water community, its vibrant character, and the expanded amenities at the convention center are just a few of the reasons we chose to come back to Philadelphia.”

The Pennsylvania Convention Center’s expansion, slated for completion in early 2011, will increase meeting and exhibit space by nearly 60 percent, which will allow two conventions to hold their meetings

Popularized by national television coverage during this summer’s Democratic National Convention, the 40-foot Big Blue Bear peers into Denver’s Colorado Convention Center, which enjoys a reputation as one of the most practical and user-friendly meeting facilities on the scene today. Photo courtesy of Visit Denver

simultaneously. The center will boast 1 million square feet of saleable space, the largest contiguous exhibit space in the Northeast (541,000 square feet), and the largest convention center ballroom on the East Coast (60,000 square feet). It also is estimated that approximately 2,500 hotel rooms will be added by 2013.

Solutions For Difficult Times
But what about the current economic crisis? Meet less often and meet regionally is one solution bandied about town. Pennsylvania hit the mark on this key point, too: “This announcement comes at a time when the PCVB (Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau) is set to launch a new campaign, “Bring it Home,” created to encourage local business leaders to bring or keep meetings and conventions in their own backyard. The AWWA convention is the first of many groups expected to select the Philadelphia region thanks to the growing partnerships between the local business community, the PCVB and the Pennsylvania Convention Center.”

This Philadelphia story is not unique. Success stories abound. Denver listened, too. Today, the Colorado Convention Center is one of the most practical and user-friendly meeting facilities ever built, largely due to the input from more than 100 professional meeting planners who worked with the architects from its inception. The center boasts 584,000 square feet of exhibit space on one level, 63 meeting rooms and 100,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

Denver won the brass ring when they snagged the Democratic National Convention (DNC), and now association meeting planners can take advantage of the development dollars and training programs that Denver put in place for last summer’s convention. According to Rachel Benedick, associate vice president of convention sales at Visit Denver, “The sheer size and magnitude of the DNC benefits association meetings. From the Colorado Convention Center to the city’s stable of accommodations, the entire community had to be on board to host this successful event. For planners, the success of the DNC further cements our commitment and ability to host any meeting size.”

Getting Greener Every Day
“Mayor John Hickenlooper vowed that Denver would host the greenest political convention in America’s history,” Benedick said. “All indications are that we succeeded. This is particularly valuable to Denver’s image as a meeting destination as one-third of all meeting planners report that greening efforts are important to their convention destination decision.”

Visit Denver is the first convention bureau to host an online carbon footprint calculator, and the Denver Events CO2e Emissions Calculator Tool is available on their Web site (www.denver.org/convention/green/event-calculator). Denver convention delegates can purchase offsets benefiting programs designated by the Governor’s Energy Office.

Debbie Antrim, director of trade shows for CEDIA, also joined the ranks of planners who know that sustainability is a very important issue. “We started implementation of more and more green meeting practices. When registering, attendees voluntarily offset their carbon footprint by donating to Carbonfund.org.

Planners in the mid-Atlantic corridor will have more meeting options when the Lancaster (PA) County Convention Center and Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square opens next spring. Photo courtesy of PA Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau

We also reduced our paper handouts and placed recycle bins throughout the Colorado Convention Center,” explained Antrim.

The Indianapolis, IN-based CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) was one of the first association meetings to settle into the post-DNC meeting dust. CEDIA is a global trade association composed of companies specializing in planning and installing home electronic systems.

Each year CEDIA plans to add more green practices to their list, said Antrim. A community such as Denver that is proactive and in the forefront of sustainability practices is attractive to planners seeking to “green” their meetings and events.

Antrim noted several key factors in selecting Denver as their meeting site: abundant airlift, quality and quantity of guest room inventory near the convention center, exhibit and meeting space requirements and layout, commitment to attendance-building and creative marketing planning.

With more than 25,000 in attendance, CEDIA quickly snapped up the downtown hotels and surrounding areas for sleeping rooms, including the Cherry Creek area and Denver Tech Center. They also used the entire convention center for exhibits and meetings.

Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center will install a solar energy system on the roof of the convention center next year — another step in reducing the environmental impact of the center. Photo courtesy of George R. Brown Convention Center

Downtown Denver offers more than 8,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of the Colorado Convention Center, including the adjacent Hyatt Regency, Sheraton Hotel, Marriott City Center, Grand Hyatt and Westin Tabor Center. For attendees preferring an upscale option, Denver boasts boutique and luxury hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton, Brown Palace, Hotel Teatro, Hotel Monaco and Magnolia Hotel Denver. A Four Seasons and W Hotel are in the works. Low-cost accommodations are also readily available.

Antrim said, “With our large attendance, we required the commitment of the entire metro area. The CVB (Visit Denver) partnered with us to make our citywide event successful. They coordinated bid proposals, assisted with site selection and developing itineraries, registration assistance, signage, promotional marketing and publicity.”

CEDIA attendees loved Denver’s downtown, said Antrim. “Free time in Denver can be filled with shopping, restaurants, nightlife, professional sports and cultural attractions — all within minutes of their hotel or the convention center.”

Texas-sized Community Cooperation
Community cooperation is exactly what Marilyn McKinnis required in order to land nearly 60 aircraft at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX. McKinnis is vice president, marketing & expositions for the Helicopter Association International (HAI), an international association dedicated to the advancement of the helicopter community.

“Houston had been talking to us for a long time, said McKinnis. “Houston continued to expand and renovate their infrastructure until the city could handle more than 17,000 attendees and exhibitors and our specialized needs — like a convention center that can accommodate helicopters!”

McKinnis reported that the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau (GHCVB) and the George R. Brown Convention Center facilitated permits and street closings — whatever was necessary to ensure the smooth process of flying in the helicopters. “It’s quite involved as we have to coordinate with the FAA, area businesses and airports, and the city and federal governments when bringing in aircraft. A pilot briefing is required every morning, and the helicopters fly in one by one. Even without publicizing the event, the community gets involved, frequently bringing the kids and setting up lawn chairs to watch,” she said.

“You can go a lot of places and people are friendly,” added McKinnis. “However, in Houston, when we had free time, attendees took advantage of the fabulous restaurants and shopping. Signs posted in the windows of the restaurant and business community ‘Welcome Heli-Expo’ assured us our business was appreciated.”

The Houston Pavilion, which opened in October,  is a premier entertainment, retail and urban office park, which also features nightlife, dining and a bowling alley.

Community involvement is crucial to a successful event of any size, said Ken Middleton, vice president of sales for the GHCVB. “However, in order to select that destination, the planner wants all the meeting cards to fall into place, including accessibility, venue selection and inventory.”

Accessibility is very manageable because together George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport offer a combined 150 domestic flights and more than 70 international direct/non-stop flights.

Middleton also notes that Houston’s guest room inventories are all new or recently renovated (the majority in the last five years).

 McKinnis’ headquarters hotel, the Hilton Americas-Houston, which has 92,000 square feet of meeting space, is the official convention center hotel. The 1,200-

The Georgia World Congress Center features 1.4 million square feet of exhibit space, making it one of the top five largest convention centers in the country. Despite extensive damage from a tornado in mid-March, all three buildings in the downtown Atlanta center were fully operational in 42 days. Photo by Paul Dingman

room hotel is conveniently attached to the center by a double-deck pedestrian sky bridge. Within one mile of the center, there are 15 hotels and more than 5,000 of the greater Houston area’s more than 60,000 hotel rooms.

Meeting options are infinite in Houston. The George R. Brown Convention Center offers 1.2 million square feet of exhibit, meeting and registration space. It is flanked by the Toyota Center (home to the Houston Rockets professional basketball team) on the south and Minute Maid Park (home to the Houston Astros major league baseball team) on the north for even more meeting options. And a new 7.5-mile light rail system connects Reliant Park, including the 1.4 million-square-foot Reliant Center and 71,500-seat Reliant Stadium (home to the NFL’s Houston Texans).

Delegates now can take a break or meet outdoors on the new “front porch” of the convention center — Discovery Green, the recently opened, eco-friendly 12-acre park, which also offers dining options such as The Grove and The Lake House.

“Once a planner has established that the destination fits those criteria,” Middleton continued, “it’s a matter of matching the personality of the destination to your group’s needs. With more than 90 languages spoken in its households, Houston offers a cultural mix of ethnic and racial diversities and endless possibilities. We also like to think we’re friendly and welcoming down here in Texas.”

Houston is sure on the right track. The Travel Industry Association lists Houston as one of the top 25 convention cities. In 2007, Houston hosted 294 conventions, events and shows, and more than 2,000 attendees at Meeting Professionals International’s annual Professional Education Conference (now known as MeetDifferent).

More New And Renovated
Scheduled to open next spring, the state-of-the-art Lancaster County Convention Center and Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square will provide planners with a new option for conventions in the mid-Atlantic corridor,

Representatives of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority and the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa in Reno, NV, recently celebrated the completion of the Reno-Sparks Convention Center-Atlantis Sky Bridge project during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The sky bridge connects the Atlantis (47,000 square feet of meeting space) to more than 500,000 square feet of newly renovated space at the convention center. Photo courtesy of Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority

90 minutes from Philadelphia and Baltimore and 45 minutes from Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. The new convention center has a 45,000-square-foot exhibit hall and an elegant 9,000-square-foot ballroom. The adjoining 300-room Lancaster Marriott offers 15,000 square feet of meeting space.

No sales tax is just one of the valuable benefits when meeting in Wilmington, DE, at the Chase Center at the Riverfront. Only 20 minutes from the Philadelphia International Airport and five minutes from the Amtrak train station, the Chase Center, the largest special event facility in the Brandywine Valley, offers 87,000 square feet of versatile space for up to 1,200 attendees. A new hotel next to the center is on the drawing board.

North Carolina’s Cape Fear coast, which encompasses the city of Wilmington and the island communities of Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach, offers excellent hotels with meeting space and unique offsite meeting facilities. Ground was broken on the 95,000-square-foot riverfront convention center complex, expected to open in late 2009/early 2010. Plans for the center include approximately 50,000 square feet of meeting space with an exhibit hall, ballroom, breakout rooms and an adjacent 157-room hotel.

The Indiana Convention Center will double in size, moving Indianapolis to 16th place among America’s major convention cities in space available. The expanded center and the new Lucas Oil Stadium (connected by a skywalk) will have a total of 749,000 square feet of exhibit space. When completed in 2010, the center will be connected via skywalks to more hotel rooms (4,700) than any convention center in the U.S. The expansion will allow the city to host an additional 28 major conventions and trade shows.

In downtown Seattle, the Washington State Convention & Trade Center (WSCTC) is joining together with members of business, labor and government to propose building a new facility adjacent to the center’s existing complex above the existing Convention Place Transit Station, providing a direct light rail connection between the center and SeaTac International Airport. Should funding be approved by the state legislature, the new building would effectively double the capacity of the center, and be completed by 2015.

“The time is right to expand the convention center,” said WSCTC Chairman Frank K. Finneran. “We are turning away more business than we book due to the lack of space and available dates. The center has a proven record of economic benefits and job creation, and building the new facility would provide a much needed economic stimulus to help move us past the current downturn.”

However, this proposal will not affect the center’s plan to convert the 138,610 square feet of space at the recently acquired 800 Pike Street building into meeting and exhibit space, which will be connected to the center and available in 2010.

One of the newest high-tech convention centers is the Branson Convention Center in Branson, MO, boasting 220,000 square feet of meeting space, two exhibit halls totaling 50,000 square feet, a 23,000-square-foot ballroom and five additional meeting rooms. Also, the centerpiece of the newly developed Branson Landing offers the latest in meeting technology, including LCD screens in all rooms, high-speed wireless Internet throughout, video conferencing, soundproof rooms and audio-visual options. The convention center also connects directly to the 290-room Hilton Branson Convention Hotel.

Located in the heart of downtown Atlanta and connected by rail service to the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the Convention Collection at Centennial Olympic Park offers six luxury hotels and more than 3,000 guest rooms, more than 200,000 square feet of function space and a single point of contact. Earlier this year, the W Atlanta Downtown and the Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Downtown joined the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, the Embassy Suites Hotel Atlanta at Centennial Olympic Park, the Marriott Atlanta Downtown and the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel. Each of the six properties surrounds Centennial Olympic Park and is near the Georgia World Congress Center, which recently announced the groundbreaking of a 403-room Marriott with 20,000 square feet of meeting space and a 147-room Spring Hill Suites that are expected to open in 2010.

Oh Canada!
Metropolitan cities provide a host of amenities and accommodations, but when your association event is medium-sized like Kristin Thompson’s, you often lose the bargaining chip of sheer numbers.

“We’re not a citywide nor do we require several hundred thousand feet of exhibit hall space,” explained Thompson, the director of conferences for the Annapolis, MD-based Association for Hose and Accessories Distribution (NAHAD). “Without 10,000 or more delegates, we don’t have the economic advantage of taking over the city, yet we still prefer to be the only fish in the pond.”

Victoria, British Columbia courted NAHAD for several years, and for the first time in association history, Thompson reported, they held their 23rd annual meeting in Canada last year, welcoming nearly 1,000 delegates.

Thompson said, “We loved the scale of Victoria, the ability to walk across the street and board a whale-watching boat or take the ferry. Hotels are just steps away from the Victoria Conference Centre (VCC), and

An ambitious expansion will triple the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre’s existing capacity in time for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. A glass-walled connector will link the facilities. The project also includes a six-acre living roof, one of the largest of its kind in the world. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre

the entire city is walkable. The final piece fell into place when we realized that our event would be their citywide.”

Located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Victoria has all the cosmopolitan amenities without the “big city” price tag. At the heart of the city is the Victoria Conference Centre, which recently completed a 40 percent expansion that provided an additional 25,000 square feet of space. Thompson compared the conference center to a glass-like conservatory with fountains and a tranquil atmosphere for doing business.

Conference delegates can choose from more than 3,200 hotel rooms within walking distance of the VCC. Hotels range from internationally known to independent hotels, and major resorts to economy lodges. Host hotels for NAHAD included the Fairmont Empress, Delta, Hotel Grand Pacific, Queen Victoria Hotels & Suites, and Victoria Marriott Inner Harbour, matching all needs and budgets.

Thompson said, “Many attendees signed up for deep-sea fishing and simply walked to the docks and boarded their boat. Families walked to the museums, zoo, parks or IMAX. Couples could dine at any number of upscale restaurant options. Shopping was just a half block from their hotel, and the city even offered discount shopping opportunities.”

For add-on options, Thompson partnered with Victoria Clipper (offering high-speed service from Seattle to Victoria), Southwest Airlines and Rocky Mountaineer Vacations (providers of unique Canadian train trips). She also provided details about cruises out of Victoria.

Proximity to Vancouver and Seattle made it an easy destination to promote, said Thompson, but not without challenges. The new passport rules and the exchange rates loomed high as possible deterrents.

However, Thompson said, “The Canadian Tourism Board and Victoria provided us with promotional material to notch up the excitement and emphasize the value once the attendees stepped foot in Victoria. I spent a lot of time e-mailing bulletins and promoting through our newsletter. The payoff was a group that loved the destination and a highly successful meeting.”

Green In Canada
The Palais des congrès de Montréal was awarded the green environmental certification by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Quebec. The prime downtown center boasts 200,000 square feet of meeting space, and is linked to 4,000 hotel rooms. Recent hotel renovations include the Hyatt Regency Montreal, the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure (including meeting space expansion) and Le Centre Sheraton Montreal. Next year, a new Westin will open adjacent to the convention center, and the Ritz-Carlton will begin a $100 million renovation, slated for a summer 2009 completion date.

Vancouver, a progressive, eco-friendly city, is expanding and adding more inventory due to consistent demand for meeting space and in preparation for hosting the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “The Olympics enhances the presence of Vancouver around the world; reinforces what we have to offer; and acts as a catalyst for those that have not visited yet. For planners, selecting the exciting city of Vancouver is a great way to maximize your delegate count,” said Warren Buckley, president and CEO of PavCo, operator of British Columbia’s public assembly facilities: BC Place and the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre (VCEC).

The VCEC expansion project will more than triple the size of the existing center, ultimately totaling almost 500,000 square feet when it opens in 2009. The VCEC has built sustainability into the project. In addition to a six-acre living roof, the new building will use a seawater heating and cooling system, an onsite water treatment system, natural ventilation, the latest in energy efficiency technology and more. The VCEC already recycles nearly half the total generated waste and offers Happy Earth menus that use organic and local ingredients. 

Buyer’s Market
Finally, planners should consider the many special incentives designed to promote business. In New Orleans, planners can qualify for free meeting space at the Morial Convention Center. A new package in Cincinnati includes discounts at the Duke Energy Convention Center, and the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau’s program offers discounts on airfares, ground transportation and rental rates at McCormick Place and Navy Pier among other incentives. Now that the pendulum is swinging toward a buyer’s market, planners have more opportunities to stretch their budgets.    ACF