Simultaneous Events: Tip No. 1: Lots of Hot Coffee

By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 10/16/2006

Surely most show managers would prefer to have an entire convention center to themselves when they bring an event to town. That way they would have complete and unlimited access to venue management, restrooms, signage, public and private transportation, food service and, of course, Starbucks.

However, considering that most medium to large convention centers have intentionally been built to host multiple shows simultaneously, some managers find they are not exactly the yin to somebody else's yang. But take heart: Venue and bureau staffs these days at least say they can expertly maintain the myriad events without sacrificing customer service — and save managers a few bucks along the way.

In fact, simultaneous events in 2005 and 2006 set the bar for many mega centers.

Five tradeshows and one other event were all hosted at the same time at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center in February, with a total attendance of 113,550.

Many times this year, especially over the summer, Chicago's McCormick Place fit two or three massive concurrent events into the facility at once.

In January 2005, the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center hosted six of the nine presidential balls in one evening. During a two-week period last fall, Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center hosted Medtrade and meetings of the Direct Marketing Assn., American Society of Anesthesiologists, Natl. Automatic Merchandising Assn. and Natl. Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry.

The list could go on but, as always, Las Vegas is the city to beat.

The 16-hall, 3.2 million square foot Las Vegas Convention Center is capable of holding 14 simultaneous events. No, that's not a typo — 14 events. However, according to Chris Meyer, vice president of convention center sales for the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, his staff isn't about to squeeze that many into the center.

"The most individual tradeshows that we ever did at one time was nine (a few years back), all going on at the same time and all with overlapping show days," Meyer said. "There were 68,000 people ... needless to say, we won't be doing that again."

Meyer said his staff prefers to keep the maximum number of simultaneous shows to five or six. And although that sounds like a breeze when compared to 14, it still involves keeping five or six show managers happy. Particularly complicated are services like transportation and security, which the LVCVA encourages shows to share in order to reduce costs and boost buying power.

Because, more often than not, "(some attendees) are going to go to whatever bus they see is available, regardless of what show they're at," Meyer said.

However, above all others, signage is probably the hardest part of housing simultaneous shows, Meyer added.

When the LVCC hosted six shows earlier this month, "We didn't allow one show to overpower the other," he said.

At McCormick Place, evenly balanced signage is also a top priority, said General Manager David Causton, as is adequate food service.

To keep multiple shows' attendees from having to stand in long lines in common areas at lunch, Causton is a proponent of placing multiple food carts inside exhibit halls. Also, it appears that a key factor in satisfying concurrent McCormick Place shows is offering as many Starbucks locations as possible. The venue has two full-service locations, two carts and another stand that declares, "We Proudly Brew Starbucks." Causton said he is looking to add two more carts, and McCormick Place West (opening next year) will feature two more full-service locations.

"You think, at what point do you reach saturation? From what we've seen, we haven't reached that yet," he said.

OK, so the survival guide for hosting multiple simultaneous shows, in a nutshell, calls for evenly balanced signage, plenty of buses and gallons of hot coffee. Once venue staffs get past those obstacles, then they get to watch sometimes wildly diverse groups actually intermingle.

Causton said one of the most interesting show pairings at his venue this year was the Natl. School Boards Assn. Annual Conference & Exposition and BIO Annual Convention in April. Former President Bill Clinton spoke at BIO; former Secretary of State Colin Powell and fitness guru Richard Simmons were at the NSBA meeting.

Pia Brown, director of event management for the Washington Convention Center Authority, each year hosts the American Israeli Public Affairs committee meeting, which has "magnetometers like you wouldn't believe." Brown said it's interesting to see the show intermingle with others; for instance, the government technology event FOSE.

As for how her staff effectively welcomes concurrent events, Brown joked, "Oh, we're magicians," then added, "We have no favorite children. Each one of them has to feel that they're the only one here at that time."