More LV meetings canceled, postponed

Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001 | 10:50 a.m.

Another wave of conventions and meetings in Las Vegas was canceled or postponed Monday, with sponsoring organizations saying attendance would have been down dramatically in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

In a spot check by the Las Vegas Sun, representatives of six events, with an expected attendance of more than 1,500 people, confirmed they wouldn't be coming to Las Vegas this week. Four of the six meetings were postponements with representatives saying they would reschedule as soon as they could make new arrangements with their respective hotels.

With the removal of those events from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority calendar, there are now 15 shows with an anticipated attendance of more than 35,000 people that have confirmed cancellation since terrorists a week ago hijacked four airliners, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, killing thousands.

The most recent cancellations are for the System Innovators Inc. Payment Collection Conference at the Rio hotel-casino, which was expected to draw 280 people last Sunday through Wednesday; and the Tortilla Industry Association, also at the Rio, which was expected to attract 925 people Monday through Wednesday.

Four shows are expected to be rescheduled. They include: two two-day Falmouth Institute Inc. training seminars, one at the Riviera hotel-casino and the other at the Hampton Inn Tropicana, both expected to attract 50 people, with one Monday and today and the other Wednesday and Thursday; a national training seminar by Metro, which was to bring 200 people to the Excalibur hotel-casino Monday through Wednesday; and the National Association of Credit Management, which was to bring 60 people to Paris-Las Vegas.

The two largest shows to cancel to date, confirmed earlier, were the 18,000-delegate International Vision Expo, which was to be this Thursday through Sunday, and an ExxonMobil Corp. meeting, which was to bring 9,000 people to Las Vegas Oct. 9-11. Both of those events were scheduled at the Venetian hotel-casino and the Sands Expo Center.

Conventions play a key role in the Las Vegas economy. Through July of this year, 2.6 million people attended conventions, trade shows, meetings or conferences in Las Vegas, representing 12.5 percent of the 21.2 million tourists that come to the city through 2001.

The LVCVA is months away from opening a $150 million, 1.3 million-square-foot two-story expansion to the Las Vegas Convention Center. And, next summer, the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino will open its own 1.8 million-square-foot convention center.

The LVCVA got some encouraging news Monday when leaders of the Specialty Equipment Market Association show confirmed their event is still on in late October and early November.

The SEMA show -- a major automotive equipment exhibition -- annually draws about 85,000 people to Las Vegas.

Charles Blum, president of SEMA, said his organization's show would go on and he made a statement emphasizing that it will be business as usual.

"We are no more a potential target for terrorists than any other of the thousands of activities or large concentration of people in a million office buildings worldwide," Blum said in an e-mail to his staff that was shared by a spokeswoman.

"Our industry is not a vital industry, nor is it controversial to any of the world's religions or nationalities. With all of the security being implemented at our airports, traveling is about as safe as can be possible. One can argue that perhaps people should stay away from any large gatherings, but to do so is to give in to the terrorists and tell them they have won, we are scared to go on with our lives.

"Will that make the world an unsafe place?" he asked."Well, we currently have wars raging in what was Yugoslavia, in nations in Africa and even Northern Ireland and yet we go about our daily business."