BCEC Opening Talk of the Town

New Boston facility will boast region's largest exhibit hall and ballroom

By Vanessa VanderZanden -- Tradeshow Week, 6/7/2004

The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center will have its grand opening this week amid much nail-biting, wonder and excitement. The city began raising taxes to cover costs in January 1998 but didn't break ground on the project until 2000. Now, four years later, the doors are opening and the tradeshow industry is talking.

With 516,000 square feet of exhibit space and 160,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, the new BCEC is New England's biggest convention building. Its 41,000 sq. ft. ballroom is also the region's largest. A 790-room Westin convention headquarters hotel is set to complete construction in 2006. Currently, though, only one hotel, the 426-room Seaport, is located nearby, and no subway line has been built to reach the center.

So far, Milton Herbert, executive director of the Boston Marketing Center, claims these facts have not hindered efforts to sell the center to tradeshow organizers. From July 2004 and beyond, his team has confirmed 43 events in the BCEC with 10 more in the pipeline. He said the shows run the gamut from big time for-profit and association shows to large-scale corporate events. Microsoft's Tech Ed show, set to take place there in June 2006, is just one example of the flurry of new customers that have booked at the facility, according to Herbert.

Still, by the time Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center opened last September, it had booked 103 tradeshows for its first eight years of operation, with 30 events scheduled in the last four months of 2003 and 25 for 2004. The 330,000 net sq. ft. facility will count 14 tradeshows for the second quarter of this year alone.

The BCEC joins three other properties in the Boston area, including the 250,000 sq. ft. Bayside Expo & Executive Conference Center, mostly used for consumer shows; the 193,000 sq. ft. John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center; and the 250,000 sq. ft. Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center Boston.

The competition among the four, according to Herbert, is a non-issue. "There are 40 cities in the United States with three or more larger facilities than are in Boston," he said. He added that booking enough shows hasn't been a problem in the other 40 cities, and it isn't a problem in Boston.

Yet, there remains some debate over how much business the new center is getting relative to original expectations. "Their marketing and sales efforts have been a disgrace," exclaimed Charlie Greco, chairman and CEO of Universal Event Management. "All they've done is go to existing business at the Hynes and Bayside and sent them into the new building," Greco claimed.

He pointed out that the promise of the new center was that it would hold shows too large for the existing Boston properties, and yet many of the shows in the new center are no bigger than what already fit in the old facilities. Although he agreed that the shows might grow in the future, the average yearly growth rate of a tradeshow is not enough to merit moving into the new facility so soon. "We'd all like to see a 25-percent compound growth rate, but that hasn't happened in years," he said.

Stephen Schuldenfrei, trade-show director of Access Intelligence, said the BCEC should be able to overcome its perceived problems. "They've had some interesting problems that I don't understand why they're considered problems. The fact that they have only one hotel nearby — well, I don't understand why they're using that as an excuse."

He pointed out that the 2.2 million sq. ft. McCormick Place in Chicago also only has one nearby hotel and isn't known to have difficulty booking shows.

Schuldenfrei added that while he won't be bringing any of his shows to the new center, it's only because none of his shows currently fit into the New England market. As for who or what is to blame for the lack of shows at the BCEC, "I'm sure Herbert is doing everything he can possibly think of to do," he said.

Herbert stood by his sales team, bringing up shows they have managed to book, like BIO 2007, which he expects to take up the building's entire capacity. According to the TSW Data Book, however, this June's show is likely to take up only 220,000 net sq. ft.

"This is a recurring theme," he said. "Associations or corporations that couldn't consider Boston before are now booking at the BCEC."

The first large event scheduled for the center is IDG World Expo's Macword Conference & Expo, scheduled for July 12–15. David Korse, president of IDG World Expo, said he's not worried about holding the show at a brand new center. "I've been in new facilities before, but we're based in Boston," Korse said. "We've been watching its progress."

He said his team has remained in close contact with the BCEC, where construction has accelerated over the past four to five months. Macworld has experienced its own share of controversy, this being the first year Apple Computer has not exhibited, partly in response to Korse's predecessor, Greco, moving the show from New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, its home for the past five years.

Korse said nearby hotel space isn't a factor, since most Macworld attendees drive in from neighboring communities. And while the site only has 200 parking spots attached — far less than the Bayside's 1,780 — Korse said shuttle buses will help bring visitors to the show.

The biggest concern, he said, is confusion about the Democratic Convention. Scheduled to come to Boston the week after Macworld, it will require that some roads be blocked. Korse fears some attendees may get the dates wrong and stay away. Currently, Korse has no plans to take future shows to the BCEC.

"The building is built. It's a good six to seven weeks before MacWorld and six to eight before the Democratic convention. The meeting rooms are completed, the ballroom is built, the sound system works, the dimmers work," Herbert said. "We've received the certificate of occupancy and health and safety."