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Meeting venues: bigger is better….maybe
When it comes to conventions, the mantra is more, more, more as expansion continues with many US cities enlarging their facilities in efforts to draw ever-larger groups.
This comes despite the fact that convention center business has been declining, reported the Wall Street Journal in December. So how does government respond to sometimes empty meeting facilities?
By building more convention centers, of course.
“Governments refuse to stop making convention centers bigger,” reports the Journal.
For example:
—The Indianapolis Convention Center doubled its meeting space last year, making it the country’s 16th largest facility from the 32nd largest.
—Plans are underway in San Diego for a major expansion that could start this year. It would add 114,000 square feet of exhibit space, 100,000 square feet of meeting rooms and 80,000 square feet of ballroom space.
—The Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia last year went from 1 million square feet to 2.2 million in a $786 million expansion.
—The Miami Beach Convention Center is also looking at expansion, says Jeffrey Rugg, marketing manager.
The reasons are simple: attract more conventions.
“This expansion allows us to go back to the table and talk to people we weren’t able to accommodate before,” said Stephanie Boyd, vp for sales at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
One simple problem with the continued expansions: optimistic projections about new facilities fail to account for how other cities are also expanding,
By David Wilkening
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