Magazine details LV’s love-hate relationship with Comdex

Monday, Nov. 2, 1998 | 11:36 a.m.

Some 210,000 conventioneers will soon head to Las Vegas for the giant Comdex convention. Those who read Business Week will learn the city doesn't exactly look forward to their arrival.

Here's what Business Week reports in its Nov. 9 issue:

"Already, the town is dreading gridlocked streets, jammed phone lines and frayed nerves. When the Comdex computer trade show opens its doors on Nov. 17., Las Vegas will suffer the civic equivalent of a computer crash."

A clerk at a 7-Eleven near the Convention Center told Business Week: "Everybody hates Comdex."

And maybe for good reason, according to Business Week. Shopkeepers say Comdex attendees don't spend much on retail goods, casino bosses say they don't gamble much and cabbies hate the event because they spend a week in giant traffic jams carrying conventioneers who aren't big tippers.

"Comdex people aren't known as free spenders," cabbie Emmanuel Solomon told Business Week.

Adds a salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue: "Comdex is the only convention where people arrive with $20 in their pockets and leave with $20."

But, Business Week notes, Comdex is actually a bonanza for the Las Vegas economy as hotels jack up rates and conventioneers eat meals. Some actually spend money at retail shops and a lot, apparently, spend time in topless bars and partake in other adult entertainment.

In fact, Business Week reports, the convention pumps $341 million of non-gambling revenue into the local economy. Restaurants are booked solid. Rental car companies are overwhelmed, Alamo brings in cars from eight states to meet demand. Prostitutes flock to town, some flying in from other cities.

Business Week notes November ranks last in gambling revenue at $341 million largely because the city's hotels are filled with non-gamblers.

"They're not great gamblers. But they make up for it in other ways," a diplomatic MGM Grand executive, Don Welsh, told Business Week.