Consumer Shows Fight Venue Ban in Boston

By Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 6/20/2005

Consumer show managers in Boston want to change a state law that is keeping them out of the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

The law banning virtually every consumer show from the BCEC has been a boon to Boston's two privately owned facilities, the Bayside Expo & Executive Conference Center and the Seaport Hotel and Seaport World Trade Center, ever since the newer, larger facility opened last year.

But proposed legislation introduced by state Sen. Jack Hart, who was instrumental in the original legislation creating the BCEC, could, under certain circumstances, allow consumer shows to move from the privately owned centers into the BCEC. Hart, a Boston Democrat, did not respond to requests for comment.

Show managers want to move because the BCEC is newer and offers them more room than either Bayside or the WTC. Consumer shows feel particularly cramped at the 250,000 square foot Bayside, which attracted more than 250,000 attendees in the first quarter of 2005.

Bob McAlpine, show director with North American Expositions, said his New England Boat Show and New England Camping and RV Show have sold out Bayside for years. If allowed to move to the BCEC, based on exhibitor demand and wait lists, the boat show would double in size to 500,000 sq. ft., and the RV show would grow as well, he said. The shows are committed to Bayside for 2006, but the company is looking to the BCEC in 2007 even if Hart's legislation isn't successful.

The legislation that created the BCEC included a provision that allows a local community group, the South Boston Community Development Foundation, to sponsor at least three consumer shows a year at the BCEC. McAlpine hopes to be one of the first show managers to take advantage of the opportunity.

The ban on consumer shows was enacted when the BCEC was still in the planning stages. According to Jim Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, which governs the BCEC as well as Bayside and other venues, there were two reasons for the injunction. First, the privately owned Bayside and WTC wanted protection from losing shows to the BCEC — particularly Bayside, because it hosts many more public shows than WTC, which is more conference- and tradeshow-oriented.

Second, the South Boston neighborhood surrounding the BCEC wanted to limit the additional auto traffic created by public shows. Rooney said that since the center opened a year ago, traffic and parking concerns have been handled well.

The three shows each year that the South Boston Community Development Foundation can sponsor are expected to benefit local community programs. The group can't solicit existing shows at Bayside, WTC or other venues unless the venues approve it — meaning producers of existing shows might find their competitors launching shows against them, but at the preferred location of BCEC. Needless to say, that doesn't sit well with producers of shows at Bayside and WTC.

According to Bridget Perry, director of external relations for the MCCA, talks are in the works between BCEC and WTC to allow consumer shows that have outgrown the WTC to move to BCEC. Bayside, however, has not yet made such an agreement.

Bayside General Manager Paul Bennett didn't respond to a request for comment on the mitigation agreement. He did say he didn't consider BCEC to be a competitor because its mission is much different than Bayside's, which is to attract and host regional and local consumer shows and tradeshows.

Bennett noted that BCEC's mission is to "put heads on beds" and, since Boston already had two private sector convention centers and a taxpayer-funded convention center (the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center), it wouldn't have made sense to spend taxpayer dollars to build a new facility that served the same purpose the other facilities did.

"I know that business is a little slow over there, and that they are always being beaten up in the Boston newspapers as a flop, but we are rooting for them to succeed," Bennett said.

Bayside's calendar of public shows also includes the New England Spring Flower Show, World of Wheels, the Natl. Golf Expo, Hot Import Nights, Big Apple Circus, Boston Children's Expo and the Boston Home Show.