Nuclear Symposium Moves to Phoenix
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 3/26/2007
After 34 years, Tucson, Ariz., is losing a well-established tradeshow to Phoenix, its bigger brother up the road. The Waste Management Symposium will move from the Tucson Convention Center to the Phoenix Convention Center beginning with the Feb. 24–28, 2008, show.
James Voss, managing director for WMSymposia, the Tucson-based nonprofit that puts on the nuclear waste management conference and tradeshow, said attendees had complained about the lack of restaurants and adequate business-class hotel rooms in downtown Tucson.
He said the dearth of hotel rooms in that area was so severe that 800 of the 2,500 attendees at this year's conference had to stay in hotels in other parts of the city.
There also weren't enough rental cars available locally, Voss added. Consequently, some attendees had to fly to Phoenix to pick up cars before making the 2-hour-plus drive to Tucson.
The tradeshow component of the meeting uses about 100,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space and another 100,000 sq. ft. outside.
Voss said it was easy to quickly book 1,100 rooms at four-star hotels within a few blocks of the Phoenix Convention Center. The city is constructing a light rail metro system with a station near the center, making even more hotel rooms accessible in the future.
The symposium is committed to Phoenix for the next five years, and Voss said, "We have no expectation of relocating."
Jonathan Walker, CEO of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau, said, "We're sorry to see them go."
The Tucson CVB is working to address the issues the symposium raised, Walker noted. The show's economic impact in Tucson was about $2 million per year.
