PCMA Puts an End to Regular Site Rotation

With the Professional Convention Management Assn.'s decision to no longer use geographic rotation to pick the sites of its Annual Meeting, there is no major industry organization left that does so.

While Deborah Sexton, PCMA president and CEO, said it made sense anyway to move to a system that involves requests for proposals, the change in practice was spurred in large part by Hurricane Katrina.

PCMA formerly had a policy in place to put the annual meeting in a different geographic region each year, but the group already had plans to break the pattern. The January 2007 meeting was in Toronto, the 2008 meeting will be in Seattle, and the group had already decided to have the 2009 meeting in New Orleans, outside the ordinary rotation.

"That was a good decision," Sexton said. "We wanted to show our support for New Orleans."

Doing so may have also made it easier to come to the decision to change things.

"Because of the opportunities that come from our annual meeting, destinations are interested in hosting it," Sexton said. "With RFPs, there are financial and sponsorship responsibilities that can be fairly substantial."

Meeting Professionals Intl., which holds a similar-sized annual meeting — most recently in Montreal — has always used RFPs to pick destinations, said MPI Communications Director Kathryn Goldstein.

"We've never considered doing otherwise," she said.

The same is true with other industry organizations, like the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events and the Society of Independent Show Organizers.

Baltimore Area Convention & Visitors Assn. CEO Tom Noonan said it was not likely there would be many complaints from destinations either.

"I like this strategy," Noonan said. "We have a new convention center hotel coming online in '08, but let's say it was opening in 2011. The next time the meeting might rotate through would be three or four years. By that time, it's no longer a new big thing."

Sexton agreed.

"Our rotation broke into five areas and, if you missed your time, you'd have to wait another five years," she said. "The reality is that it doesn't make sense."

While many tradeshows continue to use some form of regional rotation, most of the largest do not, primarily because moving from city to city can be cumbersome. The five shows at the top of the most recent Tradeshow Week 200 — Intl. CES, Pack Expo, the Intl. Manufacturing Technology Show and the WSA Show — have been held in the same locations for many years.

Those that do rotate, often do so because it makes the most sense for their attendees.

"If we can't draw the people, it doesn't matter what kind of deal we get from the convention center or the CVB," said Donna Bellantone, a Hanley Wood Exhibitions associate show director responsible for Intl. Pool & Spa Expo and the Intl. Roofing Expo, both of which rotate.

"For our attendees, the destination does matter," she said. "Both our attendees and exhibitors are mostly small businesses, and they like to use the show sometimes as a vacation."

However, even the Intl. Pool & Spa Expo's rotation has been affected by Hurricane Katrina. It typically rotates between Orlando, New Orleans and Las Vegas, "but what happened in New Orleans threw us for a loop," Bellantone said.

She is not certain when the show will return there.

"We're still trying to figure that out," she said.

At the time PCMA made the announcement about the regional rotation, it also said Dallas would be the site of the 2010 meeting.

"Then our goal is to send an RFP out before the end of September, with the hope we can grid out 2011 and 2012 sometime in the first quarter (of 2008)," Sexton said. "Then we can rest for a moment."

Even then, she said, the PCMA board will use common sense and take regional parity into consideration when choosing a site, so that organization members have the opportunity to attend a meeting near their home every few years.

"The board will obviously recognize and have a history of where we've been," Sexton said.

"It's not all about dollars and cents with PCMA," Noonan said.

He said he plans on making a strong case for having Baltimore host the 2011 meeting.

"I like the fact they are looking at how they can go to the most exciting destination every year," Noonan said.