Larger Venues: Texas Has Its Own Second Tier
By Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 7/18/2005
Dallas and Houston, with 11 Tradeshow Week 200 trade-shows between them last year, can duke it out for all the national business they want. They can keep themselves busy trying to lure shows away from Orlando and Chicago and Las Vegas — and that's just fine with Texas' own second tier of exhibition halls.
"That's not where we do our fishing anyway," said Robert Hodge, director of the Austin Convention Center.
Once you move past the Big Two — well, add San Antonio, which also can easily attract a national clientele, and make it a Big Three — there are still four cities in Texas with convention centers offering at least 250,000 square feet of exhibit space, and they all believe they have a case to make for why somebody would pick them for their tradeshow or meeting.
It's just a different case than might be made for Dallas, Houston or San Antonio.
There is no denying the three elephants in the middle of the state — and everybody includes them in their pitch, one way or the other. In some cases, as with Fort Worth or the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, the proximity to much bigger competitors is viewed as an asset. In others, like Austin or Amarillo, the fact they are far away from the big city works in their favor.
The Fort Worth Convention Center, back when it was the 171,000 sq. ft. Tarrant County Convention Center, did what it could with a smattering of consumer shows, corporate events and small tradeshows.
"But we just did a $75 million expansion," said Barbara Beaton, sales director for the Forth Worth Convention Center. "We are at a pivotal point."
In May 2003, the old Tarrant County CC became the 253,000 sq. ft. Fort Worth CC. Since then it's signed up, among others, what had been Advanstar's Dallas Intl. Motorcycle Show and VNU Expositions' The Printwear Show. Fort Worth-based RadioShack will hold annual company meetings in 2006 and 2007, taking up all 253,000 sq. ft. of the center. Nation's Best Sports, a 900-store sporting goods chain that already held two meetings a year in Fort Worth, just signed a 20-year contract.
In each of these instances, Beaton said, it's because she can now offer space in the busy Dallas-Fort Worth area that might not have been available elsewhere.
"It's not us against Dallas," she said. "It's just opening up another opportunity."
Also close (but not too close) to Dallas is the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center with 400,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 1,500 hotel rooms, but without the same kind of before-and-after story Fort Worth has. That's because it just opened in April 2004.
Still, "when we opened, we had 800,000 room nights on the books," said Robert McPherrin, the Texan's vice president of sales and marketing, "and 80 percent of that was new business to North Texas."
McPherrin makes much the same argument as his colleagues at other Gaylord properties in Nashville and Kissimmee, Fla.: an all-in-one approach, executed in a couple different ways. First, groups of any size that want to rotate can do so and yet not leave the Gaylord brand (there's also a Gaylord hotel planned in the Washington, D.C., area, and company officials say they're scouting locations on the West Coast). Second, there's that everything-under-one-roof notion it pitches consistently. In this case, of course, it's also within 10 minutes of the Dallas-Fort Worth Intl. Airport.
The American Business Women's Assn. Natl. Convention will bring 2,000 attendees and 70 exhibitors to the Gaylord Texan for the first time this November.
ABWA Convention Manager Betty Burns said she has an imperative to move the convention and tradeshow around each year. And, "as most of our attendees are women, it is important to choose a safe environment," she said, "one in which members will feel secure."
Gaylord's competitors may roll their eyes when they hear its everything-under-one-roof routine, and perhaps for good reason. Hodge said it's made a difference when he's talked to potential customers about Austin. With 5,000 hotel rooms and countless restaurants within walking distance of the 375,000 sq. ft. convention center, downtown Austin offers an uncomfortably close comparison to the Gaylord scenario.
Austin, however, attracts more than its share of tradeshows, given its relative size. The 2005 TSW Data Book lists 39 this year. Then there are innumerable conventions and smaller meetings, mainly because of its central location and the fact that it is the Texas state capital, with more than 400 various state associations using it as their headquarters.
"That's the backbone of our business," Hodge said.
That, and the fact that its central location allows easy access from everywhere in the state. "This is a huge state," he said, "and still a lot of people can drive here in a day."
However, accessibility is not one of the pluses for the panhandle city of Amarillo.
"We have an airport, but we don't have as many flights as a Dallas," said Eric Miller, communications director for the Amarillo Convention & Visitors Council.
But so what? The 340,000 sq. ft. Amarillo Civic Center does fine with groups like the Amateur Athletic Union's girls 12-and-under national basketball championship tournament and the Texas State Federation of Square & Round Dancers.
"We have no problem delving into the SMERF (social, military, educational, religious and fraternal meetings) world," Miller said.
The civic center's biggest annual event (in fact, Amarillo's biggest annual event) is a Jehovah's Witness convention that has been drawing 13,000 people from three states over a three-week period since 1970, providing a $5 million economic impact to the city of about 160,000.
"We've got a 35-year history with them," said Virgil Lowery, convention coordinator for the religious organization. "You do business with people who support you, and they don't fuss and fight with us."
A group like Jehovah's Witnesses is perfect for Amarillo, Miller said. The entire region only has about 4,500 hotel rooms available, many of them some distance from the civic center and not up to the standards frequent business travelers would expect.
But economy, he said, is Amarillo's strongest selling point.
"A delegate's dollar will go further here, because our costs are lower than in some areas," Miller said.
| Show | Management | Site | Size (net sq. ft.) |
| Offshore Technology Conference | Society of Petroleum Engineers | Reliant Center | 397,750 |
| Permian Basin Intl. Oil Show | Permian Basin Intl. Oil Show | Ector Co. Coliseum (Odessa, Texas) | 358,600 |
| HIA Convention & Trade Show | Hobby Industry Assn.* | Dallas Convention Center | 303,900 |
| ASIS Intl. Annual Seminar & Exhibits | ASIS Intl. | Dallas Convention Center | 225,100 |
| WasteExpo | Primedia Business Exhibitions | Dallas Convention Center | 220,000 |
| Intl. JPMA Show | Juvenile Products Manufacturers Assn. | Intl. Apparel Mart (Dallas) | 213,000 |
| Southwest Foodservice Expo | Texas Restaurant Assn. | George R. Brown Convention Center | 168,200 |
| The JCK Show — Phoenix | Reed Exhibitions | Phoenix Civic Plaza | 167,966 |
| Nursery/Landscape Expo | Texas Nursery & Landscape Assn. | George R. Brown Convention Center | 154,400 |
| Dallas Intl. Gift & Home Accessories Market (June) | George Little Management | Dallas Market Center | 151,950 |
| *The Hobby Industry Assn. and Assn. of Crafts & Creative Industries merged in June 2004 to form the Craft & Hobby Assn. **Includes 272,500 net sq. ft. of paid exhibit space outdoors Source: 2005 TSW 200 | |||
| Facility | Location | Exhibit space (sq. ft.) |
| Dallas Convention Center | Dallas | 1,019,142 |
| George R. Brown Convention Center | Houston | 930,000 |
| Reliant Center | Houston | 706,213 |
| Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center | San Antonio | 440,000 |
| Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center | Grapevine, Texas | 400,000 |
| Tulsa Exposition Center | Tulsa, Okla. | 400,000 |
| Austin Convention Center | Austin, Texas | 374,255 |
| Reliant Arena | Houston | 349,000 |
| Amarillo Civic Center | Amarillo, Texas | 340,000 |
| Phoenix Civic Plaza | Phoenix | 282,000 |
| Source: 2004 TSW Major Exhibit Hall Directory | ||
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