Greenbuild '07: L.A.'s Loss, Chicago's Gain

By Gary Tufel -- Tradeshow Week, 2/26/2007

Chicago — not Los Angeles, as originally planned — will host the Greenbuild Intl. Conference & Expo 2007. The show's owner, the U.S. Green Building Council, made the decision to move from the Los Angeles Convention Center to McCormick Place after LA INC., the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, shifted the show's dates twice. Greenbuild 2007 will still take place Nov. 7–9, the dates most recently scheduled in Los Angeles and later rescinded.

It was the second announcement in two weeks that a tradeshow would leave Los Angeles and the third in the last year. The week of Feb. 12, Randall-Reilly Publishing announced its deal with the California Trucking Assn. to stop producing the Intl. Trucking Show in L.A. and instead sponsor The Truck Show in Las Vegas. Last year, the Entertainment Software Assn. canned E³/Electronic Entertainment Expo, until then the largest tradeshow held in L.A., and replaced it with a smaller meeting and consumer event.

Katie Callahan-Giobbi, then-senior vice president of sales and services for LA INC., said, "We are disappointed that we were not able to offer U.S. Green Builders (sic) Council their preferred dates for their November 2007 convention."

Peter Templeton, U.S. Green Building Council vice president of education and research, laid the blame for Greenbuild's move squarely on LA INC. The show was originally scheduled Oct. 16–19 at the L.A. Convention Center, he said, but in January "the bureau came to us and wanted us to make way for E³'s replacement at the Los Angeles Convention Center. We were happy with the October dates, but we worked with them to make the date change possible. They OK'd the November dates for us, but then they couldn't fulfill that commitment either."

According to Templeton, the L.A. bureau realized it had already committed the promised November dates to the Los Angeles Auto Show. That led to the bureau's final date change request, to December, this month.

At that point, Greenbuild had had enough. Templeton said the December dates L.A. wanted Greenbuild to take were too close to the holiday season and well after other scheduled industry conferences.

"Having to move was very disappointing and regrettable for us, as well as for our local chapter in Los Angeles, which worked very hard for two years on this show," he said. "We tried everything to come to a solution with Los Angeles, but none of their dates would work for us."

Greenbuild explored other California locations, but time was running out.

Meanwhile, "Chicago welcomed us with open arms," Templeton said. "They've been fantastic, and the city is very committed to our mission."

Greenbuild will be held in Boston in 2008 and, Templeton said, would like to return to California in the future.

And Los Angeles would like another chance.

Callahan-Giobbi said, "To say that this convention was eagerly anticipated is to risk very real understatement. We trust that the future will present opportunities to host this distinguished group."