Alternative Venues: Meetings With a View
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 4/18/2005
Imagine taking an early-morning hike before the tradeshow floor opens, or passing a world-famous waterfall in the shuttle bus on the way to the exhibition hall. Maybe between sessions or after the show closes for the day, attendees hit the ski slopes. Is this just a harried tradeshow professional's pipe dream?
No, such places do exist. Several U.S. national parks — among them Sequoia, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone — offer meeting venues for smaller groups and at least one, Yosemite, can even accommodate small exhibitions. These facilities are few and far between but, if an event is the right fit, it's worth considering.
David Barna, chief of public affairs for the Natl. Park Service, said, "Typically, our facilities can't hold a very large crowd. Most tradeshow events take place in the gateway communities near the entrances of the parks, like Gatlinburg, Tenn., near Great Smoky Mountains Natl. Park."
The hotels that do operate in parks do so under concession contracts, and it's not unusual for concession hotels to occasionally host small groups, but the NPS is not directly involved. One of the major concessionaires with facilities at several parks, Delaware North, runs the lodges at Yosemite.
The Curry Village Pavilion is the only building in Yosemite Valley that can accommodate both tradeshow booths and conference tables simultaneously, as was done in early March with the California Building Officials 43rd Annual Business Meeting & Tradeshow. The historic Ahwahnee Hotel can accommodate a handful of exhibitors in its meeting spaces, but only in the shoulder and off-season months (late October through the end of March).
The semi-bad news, according to Kenneth Karst, sales manager for DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite: If you have a large show, don't even think about it.
"As a tradeshow venue, we're somewhat limited as to what time of year we can provide adequate square footage," Karst said. "We don't discourage tradeshows, we're just not set up for larger events."
Nevertheless, last year Yosemite hosted 230 meetings and tradeshows of between 10 and 700 participants each, primarily corporate events for everything from small law firms and advertising agencies, to large banking concerns and Fortune 500 companies. The facilities work best for professional retreats, with full-service accommodations at The Ahwahnee and more dining and hotel options at the recently remodeled Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, the Victorian-style Wawona Hotel and the rustic Curry Village.
"Since we do not have a convention center-sized venue, we do not want to present Yosemite as a venue for large tradeshows," Karst said. "Typically, when booths are set up, it's only in conjunction with a conference that is trying to recoup some of its costs, so they'll invite a few companies to set up displays and charge a rental fee."
Karst said DNC's revenue is proprietary information, but his Yosemite operation meets or exceeds its corporate goals.
The California Building Officials event was typical for Yosemite. According to CALBO Director of Administrative Services Bonnie Patterson, the group set up 40 pipe-and-drape booths in the Curry Village Pavilion with no problems.
CALBO was held last in Yosemite about 10 years ago with a much smaller show; its local Yosemite chapter proposed that the group return; and after about a year of planning and meetings with DNC, 400 CALBO attendees met at the park Feb. 28–March 5. Patterson said normally the group would have set the exhibition up in a foyer, but the space at Curry Village worked out beautifully.
She said that, from an attendee point of view, it was the best meeting her association had ever had. It was also the most difficult, because the events were spread out over three park venues: The Ahwanee, which hosted smaller meeting and a hospitality night; Curry Village, which had the exposition, general meetings and a banquet; and Yosemite Lodge, where 90 percent of the attendees stayed.
What made the difference was that, when not in meetings or at the exhibition, attendees had full access to skiing, snowboarding, hiking and other activities available at one of the most popular national parks in the United States.
Exhibitor Nancy Springer, supervising senior plans examiner with Willdan-Marysville Building & Safety Services, said, "It was different than anywhere else you might go to a tradeshow. This was unique and a truly unusual experience for all of us."
For one thing, attendees actually looked forward to the shuttle bus rides between venues as they passed by Half Dome, El Capitan and Bridal Veil Falls.
While it is true the park is far from major cities, seemingly making logistics and shipping problematic, DNC arranged for exhibitors to ship their booths and materials to a central warehouse, and then delivered them to the exhibition site. After the show, DNC handled the return shipping as well.
