February Convention Numbers Up
Diane Taylor -- Tradeshow Week, 4/24/2008 2:56:00 PM
The local convention industry can exhale. Following a couple months of bad news, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority Executive Summary stabilized in February.
According to the report, in the second month of this year, overall visitor volume was up 3.1 percent. Drilling down, on a per-day basis (February 2008 had one more day than February 2007), visitor volume was down 0.5 percent. On the other hand, using the same per-day analysis, convention visitation was up almost 12 percent.
Convention visitors’ expense reports got a boost in February, when hotel room rates continued to respond to the slowing economy, decreasing 5.1 percent, compared with a year earlier, to $128.80 per night. Conventions’ economic impact for February grew 1.9 percent.
Visitor volume in nearby Laughlin was down 3 percent from February 2007 to February 2008; Mesquite saw a slight increase in visitor volume of 2.4 percent.
Calling their first meeting in Las Vegas this February “a huge success” were organizers of Digital Signage Expo, collocated with Interactive Technology Expo, Feb. 27-28 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. With 3,400 attendees, the show boasted a 70-percent attendance increase, compared with the May ’07 show in Chicago.
“Our show is five years old,” said Chris Gibbs, co-founder and executive vice president of ExpoNation, producer of the both expos. “We saw a niche in a high-growth area, and we’ve become the largest international tradeshow and conference exclusively dedicated to digital signage.”
Gibbs said the audience for the show, a 2007 TSW Fastest 50 winner, came from many different markets, from advertising and retail to education and religious institutions. “Because we compete for attendee dollars,” he added, “we moved the show earlier in the year, hoping to capture an attendee’s attention before their industry-specific tradeshows.”
Gibbs credited changing the dates, moving the show to Las Vegas and extensive promotion for the show’s success. Digital Signage Expo and Interactive Technology Expo return to Las Vegas Feb. 25-26.
