The Race Continues
Effect of hurricane on venue expansion plans creates question marks
By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 9/12/2005
With two new tradeshow venues and one expansion completed within the past six months, Las Vegas was, predictably, one of the busiest U.S. cities in this edition of Tradeshow Week's Semiannual Update on New and Expanded Venues.
Between March and August, Las Vegas added nearly 500,000 square feet of exhibit space. The city welcomed its furniture industry home, the World Market Center, and Steve Wynn's ultrachic Wynn Las Vegas, with 347,000 and 75,586 sq. ft. of exhibit space, respectively. Caesars Palace added 59,750 sq. ft. of exhibit space, to total 167,500 sq. ft. at the venue.
"What can we say? It's been absolutely wonderful," said Chris Meyer, senior director of convention center sales for the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.
However, aside from the 80,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space that the city's new South Coast Event Center will add in February, Las Vegas won't see any additional exhibit space until late 2009. At that time, the Las Vegas Convention Center is expected to add 200,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space (and 300,000 sq. ft. of meeting space). MGM Mirage's Project CityCenter is scheduled to open in 2010 with an undetermined amount of exhibit space.
With about 6.6 million sq. ft. of exhibit space at its fingertips, the LVCVA is busy keeping up with its own tradeshows, in addition to fielding calls from show managers forced to move future shows from tradeshow cities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, especially New Orleans.
"Our heart and prayers go out to our sister city in the tradeshow business. I'm just really despondent over that," Meyer said, "We're not soliciting anybody. Anybody that calls us for assistance, we're putting it immediately out into our system. We'll move things around to try to accommodate groups."
Close to the hurricane's ground zero in Mississippi, the unscathed Shreveport (La.) Convention Center in northwest Louisiana remains scheduled to open in January. The new venue, with 96,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space, is expected to fill its schedule with some small meetings and shows escaping southern Louisiana and Mississippi, said Jessica Hawkins, advertising and publications manager for the Shreveport Convention & Tourist Bureau.
"We are already seeing some meetings and conventions that were scheduled (in southern Louisiana) being moved up here," Hawkins said, noting that many relocated shows will hit Shreveport even before the center opens its doors. "We are getting calls for two weeks out, one month out," she said. "We're doing everything that we can to make sure that those dollars stay within the state, because we need them now more than ever."
Just nine days before New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority officials signed a $315 million contract for a 524,000 sq. ft. exhibit-space expansion. Construction was expected to start this month and be completed by January 2009. Center representatives could not be reached for comment regarding the expansion's future.
The TSW venue report includes 73 facilities — 45 venue expansions and 28 new centers under construction. In the last report, 70 facilities were under construction, including 40 expansions and 30 new venues.
The past six months have also seen 17 new facility or expansion openings. During the previous six months, 10 new venues or expansions opened.
Also, six new or expanded centers are expected to open during the next five months, including the new Broadmoor Hall in Colorado Springs, Colo., opening in October with 60,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space. The state in December will also welcome the Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center, with 30,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space.
