Facility Design: Meeting Space as Marketplace

By Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 1/8/2007

Back in 1991, the big news in convention center construction was the opening of the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas. It offered 615,000 square feet of exhibit space and — here's the remarkable part — only 14 meeting rooms that totaled 18,900 sq. ft.

That year, according to the Tradeshow Week Major Exhibit Hall Directory, the average U.S. and Canadian convention center had 29,879 sq. ft. of meeting space. Fifteen years later, the meeting space average jumped to 58,167 sq. ft. The largest convention center facility to open in 2006 was Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando. It had 195,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space — and 250,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

A not-so-subtle change is taking place in the size and type of space in new and existing convention venues: There's more meeting space, and it's nice.

Traditionally, the rule of thumb has been that convention centers have an 80-to-20 ratio in their percentage of exhibit and meeting space. When you look at the existing inventory of convention center space in the United States and Canada today, the ratio is pretty close, 82-18. However, when you look at convention centers under construction or planned for completion by 2010, the mix jumps to 68 percent exhibit space and 32 percent meeting space.

Rosen Shingle Creek's facility is part of a hotel, which for decades made sense. Hotels concentrated on meetings, and stand-alone convention centers took the lion's share of the tradeshow business.

Now, large and small cities alike are reconfiguring that equation.

When McCormick Place West opens this summer, the Chicago facility will have added 470,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 250,000 sq. ft. of new meeting space. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York expansion, expected to be finished by 2010, will add 276,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 180,000 sq. ft. of meeting space. Even the relatively tiny Branson (Mo.) Convention Center will open in August with 47,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 38,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

This seismic shift in the design and use of today's convention centers is apparent in far more than just the numbers. All those meeting rooms being built will have nicer carpeting than meeting attendees were accustomed to 10 years ago. There will be more sofas lining the halls and lobbies, more majestic views from more points in the building and more access to food and beverage service.

"People say, 'We want you to look more like the Marriott,'" said Charles Stark, executive director of the Nashville (Tenn.) Convention Center, which has its own expansion plans.

Venue managers will tell you they run businesses in which they try to please their customers, and their customers are telling them they want a more comfortable environment and a little less of the massive showfloor with concrete floors and drafty ceilings. But why? And how will it make the convention center of tomorrow different from the convention center of yesterday?

The answer to the first question seems simple enough: "Most importantly, it's the drive to attract the attendees," said Michael Hughes, TSW associate publisher and director of research.

Tens of millions of square feet of exhibit space have been built in the last 20 years. "It's become a commodity," Hughes said.

As the tradeshow and convention business has matured, venues have had to work harder to compete with one another.

"For three decades, you didn't have to," said Hans Detlefsen, a senior manager and consultant with HVS Intl., "but now you can't just build a facility and expect to get your fair share."

According to Hughes, the first shots across the bow were fired by the developers of Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville and Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Both hotel projects included substantial exhibit space, competing for the first time with publicly owned convention centers that, for years, had dominated the tradeshow market.

"The hotels have gotten into the tradeshow business, and the municipal centers are trying to play catch-up," Hughes said.

And they're doing it by going after what had traditionally been the hotels' monopoly: meetings and corporate events.

"Professional societies have made a huge business out of attracting people to their events with continuing education," said Don Grinberg, principal architect with HNTB Architecture, "and event planners have figured out that education can draw people to the exhibits."

At the same time, some venues in secondary or tertiary markets believe they must work harder to attract business.

"Some venues are being told they shouldn't even bother to compete for the big tradeshows," said Andrew McLean, a principal with the architectural firm TVS and Associates. "They're just going to go to you-know-where anyway" (referring to Las Vegas).

Certainly, that's what Stark in Nashville is hoping for. The Nashville Convention Center expansion is still in early planning stages. It currently has 144,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 30,000 sq. ft. of meeting space. By 2010, Stark hopes to have 375,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 230,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

He recognizes how much the demands of the marketplace have changed over the years.

"In the old days at a show, you could offer a couple of seminars, which might draw a couple hundred each, have a banquet and then go home," Stark said. "Today, meeting planners are adding more and more sessions for 25 or 50 people every year."

All of which has made the convention center architect's job a little different, something many don't mind.

"It's given us more fabric to play with," Grinberg said.

When most convention centers had one very large rectangular exhibit hall, it was harder to be creative with what little space might be available around the perimeter. Now, however, with less demand for massive exhibit halls, architects can do more with their design.

"It's allowed us to make it more user-friendly on the edges," Grinberg said.

In tight urban spaces as well, the trend toward more, but smaller, spaces has allowed architects to use vertical space, stacking rooms on multiple floors.

In larger facilities, the cost of constructing this new style of convention center seems to be a wash. While there is less need for long-span construction and substantial floor load, there is more demand for what architects refer to as "finish," amenities that make the facility more appealing to users.

In the case of smaller facilities, like the Branson Convention Center, that may make the cost higher.

"The route that Branson took has to be more costly," said the center's director of sales and marketing, Bill Tirone. "Finish in a ballroom has to be more expensive than if you were just putting down a concrete floor."

Regardless of what it costs to whom, nobody seems to think the trend toward more meeting space in the average convention center will end anytime soon.

"This is not a temporary change; it's a fundamental shift," said Hughes.

"It's affecting literally every single project we're doing," said Grinberg.

"Back over the years, we'd drop a column or two out of the exhibit hall and call it our general session area," McLean said. "Not anymore."