Comdex cements ties with MGM

Friday, April 27, 2001 | 11:27 a.m.

Producers of the largest convention to visit Las Vegas annually said Thursday they signed a three-year deal with MGM MIRAGE to stage seminars at the MGM Grand Conference Center.

Key3Media Group Inc., which every November produces Comdex -- the nation's largest computer exhibition -- signed a deal with MGM MIRAGE to use the 380,000-square-foot center.

Comdex brings more than 200,000 conventioneers to the city in mid-November to see the latest in computer technology. Comdex is easily the largest annual gathering in the city, with last year's show producing an estimated $255 million nongaming economic impact on the city.

Hotel rooms are commonly sold out for the duration of the five-day convention, which includes a multivenue trade show with more than 1 million square feet of exhibits, a series of keynote speakers and the conference program, which features about 400 speakers in 175 education sessions and panel discussions. It's the conference program that is planned at the MGM Grand.

Key3Media produces 60 information technology events in 19 countries every year. The company's shows annually draw 2 million attendees.

The MGM Grand became a Comdex venue for the first time last fall when the three-story conference center was the site for the Comdex Conference Program and Jason Chudnofsky, president and chief executive officer of Key3Media Events, said positive feedback from conventioneers convinced the company of the need to strike a long-term deal with MGM MIRAGE.

Chudnofsky said while the deal with MGM MIRAGE is for three years beginning with the 2001 show, he said he expects to sign subsequent agreements to keep the MGM Grand as one of the Comdex venues.

"All of us at MGM MIRAGE our proud to play a larger role in Comdex, which has been and will continue to be an important annual event for Las Vegas," MGM MIRAGE Chairman J. Terrence Lanni in a statement.

Chudnofsky said the deal with the MGM also includes use of the MGM Grand Garden arena for a preconvention keynote address on the Sunday night preceding the kickoff of the show. The perennial speaker for the Sunday-night address is Bill Gates, the head of Microsoft Corp., and his Las Vegas appearances usually draw more people than there are seats. About 12,000 attended Gates' Comdex 2000 speech.

"The MGM has tremendous facilities," Chudnofsky said. "Our experience there (in November) was the catalyst for signing the multiyear contract. Our delegates had a tremendous level of satisfaction."

Chudnofsky said the Gates address at the MGM Grand Garden to kick off the 2000 show was the most successful keynote in Comdex history and that sold convention organizers on the venue.

"The MGM has tremendous facilities and experience with arenas, so they were able to seat all our people promptly," Chudnofsky said.

He said Key3Media would continue to evaluate its venue options as new Las Vegas convention facilities come on the market. He said the shift to the MGM Grand would reduce Comdex's presence at the Venetian hotel-casino and its 500,000-square-foot Congress Center, where the Gates keynote and several conference program events were conducted in 1999.

Other keynote speakers who don't draw as heavily as Gates could be set for other locations, such as the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, Chudnofsky said. The theater at the Aladdin hosted Gates and other Comdex speakers in several of the 20 years the show has occurred.

Chudnofsky said Comdex 2001, which will run Nov. 12-16 with the Gates keynote on Nov. 11, will again use trade show floor space at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Sands Expo Center. In 2002, a 1.3 million-square-foot expansion at the Convention Center should be completed and Comdex plans to use that for the trade show.

"Contiguous space is obviously much easier for us and for delegates," Chudnofsky said.

But he reiterated that his company would continue to evaluate new venues as they open, including a new conference center planned at Mandalay Bay, scheduled to open in mid-2002.

The abundance of new facilities enables Las Vegas to book simultaneous conventions, Chudnofsky said, which will help Key3Media's other smaller Las Vegas events. For example, the Networld+Interop show, a computer networking convention, will draw more than 60,000 people to the city in early May while several other meetings and shows are planned.

Chudnofsky said Las Vegas' growth gives his company the opportunity to produce more shows here.

"These new places will provide the opportunity to bring even more business to the city," Chudnofsky said. "The word is getting out around the world that Las Vegas will have the ability to handle all these events."

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority officials say their mission is to recruit as much convention business as they can, not just to the Convention Center, but to other properties that can accommodate meetings and shows.

The public-private agency has run into some criticism from private convention center operators like the Sands Expo Center for undercutting their rates. LVCVA officials say they routinely pass along leads on shows to other properties and that their main objective is to keep the shows coming to Las Vegas and not to rival cities.