CES snubs Sands for 2001 show, plans tents in parking lot

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2000 | 11:04 a.m.

CES attendance

Thousands more people attended this month's Consumer Electronics Show than were anticipated.

Robbi Lycett, vice president of Arlington, Va.-based International CES, which conducts the annual gadget exhibition, said 126,818 people attended the show at four venues in Las Vegas. Originally, organizers were anticipating between 90,000 and 100,000 to show up.

Lycett said several factors contributed to the record turnout: a strong economy, good sales in the industry, several new technologies to show, with some new categories for booths. But the biggest contributor may have been CES's big marketing push. Organizers spent $1 million more marketing the show this year in addition to the nearly $3 million they usually spend.

"It was a record-breaking show for us in every respect," Lycett said, "from the amount of square footage of exhibits, to attendance to the number of media representatives that attended the show."

When organizers of the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show closed the doors and turned off the lights at the Sands Expo Center at the end of their trade show this week, they may have done it for the last time.

The giant convention, traditionally held at the beginning of the year in Las Vegas, didn't sign an agreement to return to the Sands and will have some of its exhibits in parking-lot tents at the less-expensive Las Vegas Convention Center next year.

Robbi Lycett, vice president of International CES, Arlington, Va., organizer of the trade show, said she hopes the plan to camp out in the parking lot only lasts one year. After that, CES is banking on moving exhibits into the planned South Hall expansion, a two-story, 1.3 million-square-foot addition to be built just south of the main Las Vegas Convention Center.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is still four to six weeks away from breaking ground on the expansion. If construction goes according to plan, the building would be completed by fall 2001, in time for the 2002 CES.

But so far, little has gone according to plan on the expansion.

The LVCVA originally wanted to build the expansion with a consortium of trade show owners. The consortium planned to put up the construction money in exchange for prepaid rent. CES was one of the leaders of the consortium.

A less expensive alternative emerged when the Nevada Legislature approved a law allowing tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance LVCVA projects. But Las Vegas Sands Inc., parent company to the Venetian hotel-casino and the Sands Expo Center, filed suit against the LVCVA, challenging whether the bonds being used by the LVCVA were revenue or general obligation bonds backed by other Clark County revenues. If they were a form of general obligation bond, the Venetian argued, they required a public vote for approval.

The District Court judge hearing the case expedited the trial knowing that the longer the delay, the more the project would cost.

The LVCVA prevailed in court in October. In November, the agency authorized a negotiated sale of bonds with Morgan Stanley Inc., the same company that won the original competitive bid -- another cost-cutting measure.

Today, there remains a tangled web of lawsuits and threatened litigation.

"How many lawsuits are there?" asked one LVCVA board member at Tuesday's monthly meeting. "Too many," replied an exasperated Luke Puschnig, legal counsel for the LVCVA.

In addition to the Venetian's appeal of the October ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court, there are at least three suits filed or pending.

The LVCVA board has authorized its legal staff to sue the Venetian in an attempt to recover the difference the agency is spending on the expansion with what it would have spent had the project gone forward last summer. Early estimates were that the difference would be at least $10 million.

Last week, the Venetian filed another District Court suit challenging the LVCVA's negotiated sale of bonds. It also sued LVCVA President Manny Cortez and the LVCVA in a civil rights action in U.S. District Court, saying the agency's threatened suit is a violation of the Venetian's free-speech and due-process rights.

Puschnig hasn't seen the most recent suits and said he would only apprise the board of them after he has seen them. He's also concerned about getting sued over Clean Air Act violations and has been in touch with a Washington law firm for help fighting that.

Developers of a private monorail with a station at the Convention Center also are preparing to fight a Clean Air Act violations lawsuit.

Will the tangle of suits further delay the expansion and keep CES in tents? Lycett said she keeps up with current events in Las Vegas to see how they will affect her association.

She said while she is optimistic that the 2002 show will be in the new building, CES is committed to the Convention Center and will stay in tents as long as necessary.

The tents for the CES show next year will be set up at the LVCVA Gold Lot, the parking area on the northwest corner of Paradise Road and Convention Center Drive. Lycett said CES also is negotiating with the Riviera hotel-casino to set up exhibits there if necessary.

Cortez said replacing the parking lot with exhibits would not create a parking problem.

"Most of the people that come to the shows are shuttled in on buses," Cortez said. "MAGIC (Men's Apparel Guild in California) and SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association) have used the lots for exhibits and parking has yet to be a problem for us."

The Sands Expo Center, in the meantime, has signed several other trade shows to long-term contracts -- but not CES.

Lycett said the show would not go back to the Sands Expo Center.

The Sands charges about 30 cents more per square foot for convention space than the Convention Center. Sands officials say the LVCVA can charge less because it is subsidized by tax dollars.

"We don't ever want to lose anybody as a customer," said Richard Heller, vice president and general manager of the Sands Expo Center. "We offered long-term contracts to CES on numerous occasions, but they only wanted to commit to one year."

The Sands made several overtures to CES, Heller said, but the nation's largest private convention center decided to offer space to other shows.

Heller said the Sands booked the Video Software Dealers Association in two of the center's four halls. It also booked a hunting organization called Safari Clubs in a hall that normally would be occupied during the CES shut-down period.

"They (CES) have been a good customer for us for many, many years," Heller said. "I realize it was a business decision for them.

"But I feel sorry for those exhibitors out in those tents," he said. "If it gets cold or rainy, it could be an unpleasant experience."