Convention Centers: What Tier Is This, Anyway?

Convention centers in Tier I cities – Las Vegas, Orlando and Chicago – all have either expanded recently, plan to or are at least thinking about it. After all, those three cities play host to countless shows that, because of their size, have few other options besides the big buildings in the big cities.

But why do civic leaders in much smaller locales get the idea that enough groups are interested in committing years in advance to visit them, when to the outsider their locations seem to be only head-scratchers? Tradeshow Week contacted officials in three of these cities – Branson, Mo.; Anchorage, Alaska; and Wilmington, N.C. – to ask them exactly why they would choose to plunk down millions of dollars to build a convention center.

For Branson, a tiny city in the Ozark Mountains, taking a chance on the Branson Convention Center, a $50 million facility with 220,000 square feet, was a foregone conclusion.

Even though it only has 6,500 full-time residents, Branson attracts upwards of 8 million visitors a year – because it's a mecca for music fans with its 52 theaters and more than 100 live performances every day during its busiest season.

“We're the clean, family version of Las Vegas,” said Bill Tironi, director of sales and marketing for Hilton Hotels, which manages the center.

The Hilton Branson Convention Center Hotel is attached to the facility, which opened in August, and the Hilton Promenade at Branson Landing is nearby – all part of a $420 million redevelopment project.

The publicly owned convention center is the first one Hilton has ever managed but, according to Tironi, the arrangement works. Now, instead of relying on what would have been a handful of salespeople to sell space for the center, it has a national sales force behind it. So far, more than 200 event days have been booked for next year.

“We're seeing a lot of corporate clients,” Tironi said. “We have a huge religious following and a lot of state associations and regional groups that are part of national associations, as well as public shows.”

The largest group to sign on so far is Prayer Mountain, a religious organization that will bring 4,500 attendees to town in October.

Still, Branson has its challenges as a meetings and convention destination.

“It's been going very well, but right now is the slow season, from Dec. 15 to mid-March. The (music) shows close down, so it's relatively calm,” Tironi said.

He said he hoped next year will be a different story. Enough groups have booked space in the slower winter season already for Tironi to ask some of the theaters to stay open, he added.

Also in 2009, a new airport will open. For now, people fly into Springfield, Mo., a 45-minute drive away. “It will allow us to attract larger associations,” Tironi said.

Like all centers across the United States, Branson has its fair share of competition, but its theaters, theme parks and celebrity entertainers set it apart from other cities, Tironi said. “We like to think of ourselves as a boutique convention center,” he added. “We're a destination that attracts different types of groups.”

The frozen tundra of the north has 19 hours of daylight in the summer and only four or five in the winter. Consequently, it seems an unlikely place for meetings and convention planners to hold their events.

However, according to Julie Saupe, president and CEO of the Anchorage (Alaska) Convention & Visitors Bureau, the moment the ground thawed in the spring of 2006 and construction began, groups started calling to ask about space in the city's new center. “Bookings started going well as soon as we broke ground,” she said. “Meeting planners like to know dirt is moving. We have had a terrific response.”

The $103 million, 200,000 sq. ft. Dena'ina Civic & Convention Center was named after the indigenous people of the area. It's set to open in October 2008, featuring a 50,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall, 25,000 sq. ft. ballroom and 37,000 sq. ft. of meeting rooms. “The building is going to be extremely flexible,” Saupe said.

Anchorage has another facility, the William E. Egan Civic & Convention Center, with 30,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and, according to Saupe, it will still be available for smaller groups once Dena'ina opens.

Meanwhile, the new center will offer opportunities never before available to Anchorage. For example, in 2011 the new center will host the largest convention to ever hit the city: the USA-Canada Lions Leadership Forum with 3,200 attendees and an estimated economic impact of $3.1 million. “It will be huge for Anchorage,” Saupe said.

The association market in general is the city's bread and butter, she added, but with the bigger center it will be easier to attract groups with tradeshows. “Egan is a great meeting center, but it's not built for tradeshows,” Saupe added.

The biggest draw, said Shelly Wozniak, the bureau's spokeswoman, is the beauty of the city and surrounding area, all of which will be seen from 95 ft.-tall windows in the Dena'ina CC's lobby. “It's so people could feel, once they're in the lobby, like they are still outside,” she added.

For decades, very little changed from year to year in the sleepy seaside city of Wilmington, N.C., down in the southeastern corner of the state. Then two things happened in the 1980s.

First, the construction of the four-lane Interstate 40 made it more accessible to bigger cities, such as Raleigh, N.C. Second, the state began providing tax breaks to film and television production companies that, for a while, made the city the third busiest shooting location in the U.S. behind Los Angeles and New York.

Even then, Wilmington may have been able to claim the right to call itself the home of TV series “Dawson's Creek,” but the meetings and convention industry languished for lack of a convention center.

In 2002, the Wilmington City Council put together a convention center task force. In 2003, the North Carolina State Legislature enacted a 3-percent bed tax to fund it.

The next year, “we found a developer for the convention center and (a) hotel that would run both properties,” said Malissa Talbert, communications manager for the city of Wilmington.

But existing hotels that didn't like the idea of new competition sued to stop that plan in 2005.

“We were not able to move forward because of that,” Talbert said.

A new plan was hammered out with SMG agreeing to manage the center and a separate entity (not yet determined) to run the hotel.

Finally, ground was broken late last year and, in 2010, the Wilmington center will have more than 90,000 sq. ft. with a 30,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall, 14,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and 12,000 sq. ft. of pre-function space.

SMG, the city and the Wilmington/Cape Fear Convention & Visitors Bureau have just a few more details to work out before space can begin to be marketed.

“It's exciting for the destination because it will fill a gap we feel is missing,” said Kim Hufman, president and CEO of the Wilmington/Cape Fear Convention & Visitors Bureau.