Why huge convention left Chicago for Orlando

After four decades at Chicago ’s McCormick Place , the huge Plastics Industry Trade Association moved its trade show to Orlando . Why that was done is creating widespread talk within the meeting industry.

The result was not controversial: attendance went up nearly one third from 2009 with more than 50,000 people from more than 100 countries checking out the latest in plastics processing equipment and materials.

"Exhibitors had started to slow down on the number of machines they were bringing due to costs," said Gene Sanders, the association’s senior vice president of trade shows and conferences. He explained a major reason for the move was the union labor force found in Chicago .

"In a right-to-work state, you can do all of that yourself," clearly saving money, he told Business Bash.

"The equipment filling 920,000 square feet of exhibit space also uses a substantial amount of electricity—as much as 80 megawatts at one time—and was another factor in the move to Orlando ," said the site.

"We were able to work out a package for utilities and that allowed us to charge per square foot," Sanders said. "So the most an exhibitor will pay by our rules is $4.15 per square foot. They can bring unlimited machines and get unlimited power drops."

The final decision on the move came after the association analyzed costs for attendees to fly, sleep, park, eat, exhibit, or attend in Chicago versus Orlando . That study found an average savings of about 19% in Orlando . Sanders said organizers plan to return to the Orange County Convention Center in 2015.

As the incident illustrates, labor costs are increasingly on the minds of convention providers. Example:" the Pennsylvania Convention Center said it is eliminating an $8 labor surcharge.

 "The fee applied to customers and exhibitors for use of unionized labor services, which would have affected virtually any exhibitor and was based on 8% of their total bill," said the Philadelphia Business Journal.

It is part of what the center’s management calls a more "customer-centric" focus, after years of complaints about high labor costs, the paper said.

 Convention officials made the announcement at this year’s Meeting Metropolis, an event designed to showcase the Convention Center, which was expanded at a cost of $780 million a year ago. It now ranks No. 14 among US convention centers, based on exhibit hall space. It has 700,000 square feet of exhibit hall space, and a total of 1 million of "saleable" square footage.

By David Wilkening