Health Care Shows: More Space Isn't Only Cure

Health care tradeshows and meetings have become such plums for convention and visitors bureaus to land that some cities – Cleveland, for one – are using them as part of their pitch when they go to the public to sell voters on paying for convention center construction or expansion.

But even with so many cities calling, “Here, please!” health care show managers face the same challenges their peers in other sectors do: finding the right dates, securing enough space and marketing the show – and then some. Health care shows typically require more meeting room space to go along with showfloors that grow every year, and they often need a wider range of price points when they put together their room blocks (as they seek to accommodate everybody from physicians and executives at major health care institutions to nurses and technicians). What's more, most are association shows and often require a rotation pattern in order to please their members, so it's hard to get comfortable with a single venue.

One thing that's not causing an extra headache for managers of large medical meetings around the country: all the inventory that appears to be coming on line. As of mid-2007, Tradeshow Week research estimated nearly 3.75 million square feet of new meeting space and 7.79 million sq. ft. of new exhibit space was in various stages of development.

“It's fabulous for our show because our show is growing,” said Gail Mutnik, director of meetings with the American Assn. for Clinical Chemistry, which has its annual meeting as part of AACC/American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science Annual Meetings & Clinical Lab Expo, No. 157 on the 2007 TSW 200.

“As these centers are expanding, it gives us more opportunities to choose from,” she added.

The show, which takes place July 27-31 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., has very specific needs in terms of meeting and convention space and hotel rooms when looking for potential sites, Mutnik said, especially since the show requires that its meeting and convention space be contiguous.

The 2007 show, held in San Diego, had a 188,500 net sq. ft. showfloor with 679 exhibiting companies and 11,274 professional attendees.

The Los Angeles Convention Center will host the show in 2012, but Mutnik already knows it won't return there until L.A. expands again. “(In the meantime,) we've outgrown the existing L.A. contiguous space,” Mutnik said.

That won't be a problem for Philadelphia, which will host the AACC show in 2016. By then, the $700 million expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center will have added 260,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space and 72,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

“Once Philly expands, they will be big enough for us,” Mutnik said. “Right now they're not.”

Sue Sears Hamilton, senior director of the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session, wished that was all she had to worry about. Even now, her cardiology show, held in conjunction with the i2Summit, will only fit in Orlando's Orange County Convention Center, Chicago's McCormick Place, Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center or New Orleans' Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

“Unless a convention center has a major expansion (there's not enough space),” she added. “For us, it isn't just the convention center, it's the housing block.”

The most recent show, March 24-27 at Morial in New Orleans, attracted 15,018 professional attendees to a 247,000 net sq. ft. showfloor with 401 exhibiting companies. Add exhibitors and conference attendees to that list of professional attendees, and the required housing block is usually for 28,000 to 30,000 people.

“Our needs for meeting space and hotels ... discount a lot of cities, a lot of centers,” Hamilton added. “Those four can do it, but it's tight. It's very tight.”

And, if all you have is hope of expanding space at a convention center, don't bother calling her. When considering new locations, Hamilton said, she wants to see “a shovel in the ground.”

Hamilton said she recently met with a representative from Anaheim, Calif., who told her about the possibility of an expansion to be completed by 2012. “We outgrew Anaheim three years ago,” she added.

Hamilton told him to come back when Anaheim “firmed up” the plan. Anaheim has proposed an expansion of 200,000 to 300,000 sq. ft. but, so far, no funding mechanism to pay for it.

Gretchen Bliss, director of meetings and conventions with the Assn. of periOperative Registered Nurses, said she wouldn't book the AORN Annual Congress into anywhere new unless she was sure of the details.

The show, held in March in Orlando, had a 187,200 net sq. ft. showfloor, 588 exhibiting companies and 12,955 attendees, including exhibitors.

“I'm cautious of when a city says they're going to expand,” she added. Bliss cited Washington, D.C., as an example: There are plans for a two-acre site currently controlled by the Washington Convention Center Authority and a developer for a headquarters hotel with 1,150 rooms and 100,000 sq. ft. of meeting space. But work hadn't begun (as of press time), she said.

Bliss said the additional space convention centers want to sell her often isn't as important as the attitude that comes with it.

“The cities that are doing expansions are making show directors (feel wanted),” she added. “For me, that's a big driving factor on why I would consider their city over someone else.”

Space also is the No. 1 issue for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and its AAOS Annual Meeting.

Patricia Whitaker, exhibits manager for AAOS, said, “People approach us all the time, whether we fit or not.”

No. 83 on the most recent TSW 200, AAOS also is limited to where it can go because there are only a handful of centers that meet both their requirements for meeting and exhibit space. Currently on the calendar are the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas, Morial in New Orleans, the San Diego Convention Center and the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The 2007 show brought an estimated 14,500 professional attendees to a 262,715 net sq. ft. showfloor with 468 exhibiting companies.

“It all has to work,” Whitaker added.