Convention Center Follies: Politics, Power, and Public Investment in American Cities

Chapter 3. Promises and Realities

C h a p t e r 3 Promises and Realities Laying out a “long range” strategic plan for Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center in January 1990, consultant Charles H. Johnson described a vibrant and growing convention and tradeshow market. He noted that “facility space requirements have been growing at a rate of eight percent per year” and “Future growth is expected to continue.” He illustrated that finding with two charts, one depicting sharp upward growth in both tradeshow exhibit space use from 1971 to 1987 (8.66 percent) and attendance (6.47 percent), the other showing an even more dramatic upward slope, with annual increases in the size of Tradeshow “200” events—the 200 largest conventions and tradeshows each year—continuing from 1988 though 2000.1 For Johnson and his client, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the presumption of constant and predictable future growth was vital in justifying ever more space and investment in McCormick Place, with the conclusion that “McCormick Place must be bold so that it can stake its claim to maintain the largest events and increasingly attract international delegates.”2 The presumption of industry growth was just as vital for Johnson and convention center backers in Boston and Massachusetts in 1997. Using data from the annual Tradeshow Week Data Book, Johnson argued, “Over the last three years, the number of exhibitions and the amount of demand for exhibit space increased dramatically,” referring to a table showing exhibit space use growing from 399 million square feet in 1994 to over 452 million for 1996, with attendance increasing from 85.3 million to 102.2 million. Under the heading “Future Growth,” Johnson reported projections from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research that the convention and tradeshow industry would reach 550 million square feet of space used and 140 million annual attendees by 2000.3 86 Chapter 3 Johnson employed the same set of data for 1990 through 2000, attributed to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (the tradeshow industry’s research and promotion arm), in a November 1998 “Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Marketability Study” published by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. His conclusion on the future market environment for a new Boston center—“Over the decade, the industry is expected to add approximately 1,000 annual exhibition events to the market and attendance will nearly double , growing from 75 million in 1990 to a projected 140 million in the year 2000.”4 The growth argument and the numbers were just the same in Johnson’s July 2000 analysis of the prospects for a new convention center in Jackson, Mississippi. Noting annual growth of exhibit space use averaging 6.9 percent from 1990 to 2000, with a table (labeled “Cumulative Exhibition Growth”) showing an “estimate” of 140 million total attendees in 2000, Johnson told the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau that “Continuing growth in the demand for various types of conventions, tradeshows, and meetings has motivatedcommunitiesacrossthecountrytodevelopneworexpandedconvention center facilities.” The conclusion for Jackson—“As regional and national conventions and tradeshows continue to increase in number and size, Jackson will enjoy increasing demand from these segments as well.”5 But the promise of convention event and attendance growth (and expansive future estimates) from Johnson and the Center for Exhibition Industry Research appeared to have run afoul of larger forces in 2000 and 2001, including an economic downturn and the events of 9-11. Individual convention centers reported sharp drops in attendance. At Chicago’s McCormick Place, convention and tradeshow attendance fell from 1.44 million in 2000 to 1.33 million in 2001 and 1.16 million in 2002. At Boston’s Hynes Convention Center , hotel room night generation fell from 401,367 in 2000 to 293,743 in 2002 and 253,698 in 2003. The figure reported in the annual Tradeshow Week Data Book fell as well, from 126 million in 2000 to 75 million in 2001 and 56 million in 2002. If the prediction of attendance growth from Johnson and the Center for Exhibition Industry Research—140 million convention and tradeshow attendees for 2000, the forecast Johnson had given Boston and Jackson—had proven erroneous, this seemed to have little impact on Johnson’s subsequent assessment of convention and tradeshow industry growth for other cities. The overall convention industry had clearly seen a dramatic attendance drop, easily visible in the annual Data Book summaries. But that drop was not Promises and Realities 87 at all evident...