Small Events: Little Guys Need Juice Too

The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority estimates that meetings of 500 or fewer people are responsible for 83 percent of the city's approximately 23,000 meetings and conventions.

So, while mega-tradeshows like Intl. CES may capture the headlines, there is plenty of meeting and convention business to go around for those outside the likes of the Consumer Electronics Assn.

Take, for instance, Christy Adams, global account executive for Planning the Globe, a Charleston, S.C.-based meeting planning and event production firm that focuses on medical education and pharmaceutical clients.

"We're small compared to Carlson (Marketing), Maritz, George P. (Johnson)," Adams said. In fact, those companies sometimes subcontract services to her firm.

She added, "I don't own the decor, or the furniture or the vehicles, but I have buying power, and I can negotiate with the people who have those things."

How can this be? Carlson employs 3,000 people in 21 countries. Planning the Globe has less than a dozen, and only one in Las Vegas: Adams.

She said when it comes to the big pond of Las Vegas meetings and events, the size of the fish matters less than its reputation.

"That's how this town works," she added. "It's who you know."

It's the combined clout of the individual destination manager, the firm she works for and her client that determines whether the client gets good seats for a show or restaurant, Adams said.

Melissa Zorko couldn't agree more. Zorko, general manager of destination management firm Hello Las Vegas!, opened the local office of Hello USA! last November. She's had to draw on her personal reputation to overcome challenges created by the company's lack of longevity in the marketplace.

Although she's new to the Hello! franchise, Zorko has been around the DMC block, having worked for big players like USA Hosts and Destinations by Design, though she can't use clients from these former positions as referrals in her Hello Las Vegas! bids.

"Clients know our reputation, so they trust us," she said, "but they want to see what we've done on the ground in town so far, so I have to draw on my individual experience, because we're still new here and don't have that with this company yet."

Despite this struggle, she's confident the Hello! brand, well known elsewhere, will take hold in Las Vegas. "Rome wasn't built in a day," she noted.

Newness to the market aside, Zorko doesn't believe working in a two-person firm — as opposed to, say, Destination by Design's 40 people — is a handicap.

"That really doesn't hinder us. I'll bid against anybody. I go up against the big dogs on a regular basis," she said. "If you're handling a 2,000-person event, it doesn't matter if you have 20 people or two as long as your customer service is great."

Maybe so. Still, Awesome Planners' Allison Walker wouldn't mind having 19 other people to delegate some work to. In business for herself, Walker focuses on reunions for families and other groups — a tough racket in a city of big conventions.

"I get the stuff you have to work harder at," said Walker, who nonetheless has managed to book events at a few Station Casinos venues, Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino and Imperial Palace.

"But once I do a good job, I get referrals," she added. "I don't have a great selection, but it leads to more work, and that's what keeps me going."

Despite some Las Vegas hotels' recent efforts to undo their reputation for not caring about the little guy, sources said many properties still have some distance to go before it's no longer a problem.

"It is more frustrating to find space available," Adams said. "It's harder to find it at the rates you want. All these properties take orders. They don't have to go out and search for business."

Zorko added, "If the restaurants and venues know what they're doing, they realize that a DMC can be a good source of revenue for them, because we bring repeat business."

And if they don't realize that?

"I don't have the time to renegotiate, to fight to get what I need," she said. "I book with the people I can trust."

Roland Timney, a show director for Specialty Trade Shows, remembers what it was like to have trouble booking space in Las Vegas for Women's Wear in Nevada, a semiannual fashion tradeshow. Now that it's grown to about 80,000 net square feet, those days are behind him.

Although it's still a drop in the bucket compared to MAGIC Marketplace (about 1 million net sq. ft.), WWIN provides consistently good business, allowing Timney to forge a solid relationship with the Rio All-Suite Casino Hotel.

"Venue is always a problem (in Las Vegas)," Timney said, "but we've been at the Rio for a number of years, and plan on staying there many more."

He said everybody complains about room rates and availability in Las Vegas, but it's simply part of doing an event in the city.

As for being a relative small fry, Timney said: "We're one of the smaller organizers. We know that. That's what we chose to be. We're not going to try to compete with the big guys. We have a niche in the market and, because of that, are able to run a very well-controlled, profitable business."