Blues in Chicago

In the past few weeks, Chicago lost not one, but two major tradeshows scheduled for 2012, NPE – The Intl. Plastics Showcase and the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society Annual Conference & Exhibition.

Instead of taking place at Chicago's McCormick Place, NPE will head April 1-5, 2012, to Orlando's Orange County Convention Center, as well as March 26-29, 2015. HIMSS will move Feb. 20-24, 2012, to the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Both groups cited excessive labor costs in Chicago as their primary reason for leaving the Windy City.

Jim Murphy, NPE2012 vice chairman for the Society of the Plastics Industry, the show's owner, said the decision to move was “driven by exhibitor comments on escalating costs in Chicago for the show.”

HIMSS President and CEO H. Stephen Lieber said, “We made the selection based on specific input from our members and exhibitors and our lengthy discussions with both cities.”

He added a review was made of both Chicago and Las Vegas, and “Las Vegas demonstrated and committed to the unified cooperation of the Sands Expo & Convention Center, the hotels and the city, so that HIMSS can provide our members and attendees with a productive and economical experience.”

HIMSS Meeting Services Director Karen Malone said, “It's sad, in a way.”

The fast-growing health care IT show took place in Chicago in April for the first time in the 24-year history of the Chicago-based association event.

“We wanted a central destination,” Malone said. “We knew it would draw well for us, and it did.”

The only problem: invoices for electrical services that were four to eight times what exhibitors paid a year earlier in Orlando.

Tim Roby, president and CEO of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, said of both losses, “The convention and tradeshow business is increasingly competitive, and Chicago is facing challenges. Both HIMSS and Plastics acted on exhibitor and attendee input, and we respect their decisions.”

Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority CEO Juan Ochoa said, “We know we have to reinvent ourselves.”

This year, according to the SPI, NPE attracted 44,000 attendees (including exhibitor personnel) and 1,851 exhibitors to a 977,660 net square foot showfloor when the show ran in June at McCormick.

HIMSS drew 27,752 attendees and 894 exhibitors to a 374,540 net sq. ft. showfloor, according to information submitted to Tradeshow Week.

Several exhibitors Tradeshow Week contacted who exhibited at the recent NPE show said they were unhappy with the high labor costs at McCormick.

“The cost is so high in Chicago because of the unions,” said Micah Swett, sales engineer for Charlotte, N.C.-based Diversified Printing Techniques. “Getting material from the docks to the exhibit floor is ridiculous, compared to many (other) shows.”

In a Nov. 15 statement, the Trade Show Exhibitors Assn. said, “Exhibitors have been bearing the brunt of increasing and, often, outrageous labor rates for far too long. When marketers have to cut participation – not for strategic reasons, but simply because the rising costs make them impractical or impossible – the whole industry loses. We hope the loss of these shows will motivate leaders in Chicago's exhibition industry to adjust the cost of doing business.”

SPI officials said the move from Chicago to Orlando would translate into $20 million in savings not only for exhibitors, but also attendees.

“A savings of this magnitude will play a substantial role in SPI's mission to stimulate our industry's economic recovery,” said John Buonomo, chairman of the SPI Board.

Earlier this year, Murphy said SPI looked at five possible locations for NPE – Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas and Orlando.

“Even before considering the costs of staging NPE 2012 at various locations, the NPE Operations Committee had to determine which venues could even accommodate a tradeshow as demanding as NPE,” he added.

The choices were narrowed down to Chicago and Orlando, and both cities made presentations to SPI executive committees during the summer.

“The (SPI) operations committee unanimously agreed it was time to make a change in 2012,” Murphy said.

The decision to move to Orlando was music to the ears of Gary Sain, the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau's president and CEO.

“We are thrilled to welcome (NPE) to our destination in 2012 and 2015,” Sain said. “Orlando is ... about affordability and value.”

Even so, SPI and Orlando have their work cut out for them. William R. Carteaux, SPI's president and CEO, said 55 percent of the show's attendees come from within a 300-mile radius of Chicago.

Highlighting the business and pleasure aspects of coming to Orlando is one strategy the bureau and SPI have in mind, Sain said. Another more important one is spreading the word about the lower cost of coming to Orlando for both exhibitors and attendees, he added.

“The value is key for Orlando,” Sain said. “We offer a number of choices for any budget.”

NPE has been in Chicago since 1971, and leaving the city was not an easy decision, Carteaux said. But, he added, “At the end of the day, it came down to one major issue, and that's the cost. ... We've had ongoing issues, and, with the deep, deep recession we're in this year, the costs really exacerbated the problem.”

Of the HIMSS decision to move to Las Vegas, Malone said, “The Sands was very good to us. They were very interested in our business, and very flexible.”

That, unfortunately, was not the message HIMSS got from Chicago and McCormick Place. Malone said the high cost of exhibiting this year was a deal breaker, specifically because of the electricians and their work rules that drove up the expense.

Malone said customer service – long a complaint about many labor unions in Chicago – was not the issue, it was the price.

“We heard over and over again that the electricians were nice,” she said, “but they dragged their tails. Jobs that should take two hours, they dragged out to five or six. They've got inefficient work rules that we ended up paying for.”

Dennis Gannon, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, said, “Is this a wake-up call? Absolutely. Is this a loss? Absolutely. … We're going to see how we can do things a little differently.”

The union representative who spoke for the electricians, though, was more recalcitrant.

“I think HIMSS would have left anyway,” said Tim Foley, business manager for Intl. Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134. “(They) took a parting shot when they pointed at electricians.”