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Steve Marcus / FILE
A worker sets up the Panasonic booth for last year’s Consumer Electronics Show. This year’s begins Thursday.
Monday, Jan. 5, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Beyond the Sun
Strip resorts, restaurants, show producers and exotic dancers reeling from slumping tourism will get a boost in coming weeks with four major conventions and trade shows each bringing more than 80,000 attendees to town.
The largest of them, the International Consumer Electronics Show, anticipates 2,700 exhibitors, about the same as last year. But the figure represents the loss of 300 companies that are not coming this year, being replaced by 300 other companies attending for the first time.
And because of the recession’s effect on the Strip, convention sponsors may not be complaining as much this year as they have in the past about exorbitant room rates or being forced into bundled convention packages that saddled them with minimum food-and-beverage guarantees.
The winter conventions are the best-attended shows of the year, including the largest, CES, which runs Thursday through Sunday; the return of the nation’s largest homebuilder show after a four-year hiatus, the International Builders’ Show, Jan. 20-23; and two longtime Las Vegas fixtures, the World of Concrete, Feb. 3-6, and MAGIC International, a major fashion industry show over Presidents Day weekend, Feb. 17-19.
Several other well-attended shows — smaller by Las Vegas standards but significant in their potential economic effect — in February. They are Surfaces 2009, a floor and fixtures show expected to draw 40,000 people, Feb. 3-5; the February World Market Center furniture exhibition, with more than 50,000 expected, Feb. 9-13; and the World Shoe Association Show, with attendance of about 30,000, Feb. 12-14.
The shows are wrapped around two other events that bring people to the Strip — the start of the Chinese New Year (Jan. 26) and Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 1).
The two months of activity couldn’t come at a better time. Las Vegas limped through the end of 2008 with a decline in visitors of more than 3 percent for the first 10 months of the year compared with the previous year.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority also reported that for those 10 months, the number of Las Vegas conventions and trade shows was down more than 4 percent, convention attendance was off nearly 4 percent and economic effect from attendees was down almost 7 percent to $6.9 billion.
Tara Dunion, senior director of communications for CES, said advanced registration figures point to attendance of more than 130,000 for this year’s show. The authority is gearing up for 140,000, last year’s attendance total.
CES and the other three massive shows will be staged at the Convention Center.
Another major draw that begins in January is this year’s U.S. Bowling Congress Championships, which start Jan. 15 and run through July 31. Thousands of people will rotate through Las Vegas and bowl at lanes to be set up at Cashman Center. By the time the event ends, 150,000 people will have come through Las Vegas for it.
The four-day Consumer Electronics Show is a public relations bonanza for Las Vegas because media from around the world attend and file stories with a Las Vegas dateline. Many of the major networks’ morning shows broadcast segments from the show. This year, one of the nation’s best-rated television game shows, “Jeopardy!,” will be taped in conjunction with CES at the Convention Center.
An issue that was brewing in the months leading up to last year’s CES apparently has been resolved as a result of the economic slowdown and an increase in room inventory.
CES exhibitors complained to executives of the Consumer Electronics Association, the owner and organizer of the show, about the high cost of food and beverage guarantees that were being written into bulk hotel room contracts.
Association officials said the prices had climbed dramatically in two years before the 2008 show. They asked the authority to persuade resorts to moderate prices or they would be forced to look elsewhere for a convention venue.
But CES attendees report that resorts have been willing to negotiate more favorable rates. In addition, there’s new competition for customers, thanks to the opening of Palazzo, Trump International and Encore.
Less than 10 days after CES leaves, the annual International Builders Show comes to town, beginning the day after the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. An estimated 90,000 people are expected for the show, held in conjunction with a series of National Homebuilders Association educational programs.
The homebuilders are returning after four years of conventions in Orlando, Fla. Part of the builders’ show includes tours of specially designed homes of the future in a Henderson neighborhood.
A version of this story appears in this week’s In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun.
I've been to tradeshows and conventions in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Orlando, San Francisco, Anaheim, San Diego and Dallas.
Nobody. NOBODY!...holds a candle to Las Vegas for conventions. The other choices suffer from congestion and inconvenience to one degree or another. And maybe with the exception of Apple events at Moscone (SF), no conventions I've been to are run as well as those here in Vegas.
Besides...after the show...it's Vegas Baby!
I'm working set-up now for CES. I try to explain the magnitude of the set-up to relitives back east,but they just can't understand. My hat goes off to all the convention workers and administrative coordinators on putting these conventions together. It's not only needed for bringing more tourists to town, it also gives alot of union workers a paycheck.
I've worked bell service for 20 years at one of the top hotels on the strip, and everyone of the top hotels usually holds even more functions for the major trade groups in there own convention space or even up in the suites. I have never heard of another city that could even come close to the service, organization, overall convienance, or after show nightlife like Las Vegas can deliver. Professionalism, and dedication of thousands of workers in the tourism sector of Las Vegas have given rise to the greatest, and most exciting destination on earth. We may have to change our direction once in a while, but the changes keep us on top, and thats where we will be again when all this economic mess gets cleaned up. I once asked a young family, why Las Vegas and not Disneyland. They said, believe it or not, there is something for everyone here. As a dad, I've waited in those long Disneyland lines, with unhappy screaming kids sucking down a $6.00 soda. I'd rather be sipping a free beer and and playing blackjack while the kids are in the pool.
Hopefully the resorts didnt gouge the conventions on room rates. I've seen WAYYYY too much of that in recent years. Vegas needs to remember who built that town...THE GAMBLERS...give them a fair shake and some decent prices on RF&B and they will come back,,but now with MBA types runing these mega corperations I dont think thats going to happen.
I have exhibited at Comdex and other shows in the late '80s and the 90's in Las Vegas, Chicago and Atlanta. I've also exhibited in Los Angeles, Orlando and Detroit. I've attended shows in many more cities.
Las Vegas is by far the overall best for both exhibitors and attendees alike. (Atlanta a clear winner for 2nd, though) In some respects the economic squeeze on the Strip is good for business in that the transients will be much more inclined to spend (lose) money since there will be more available for them to do so with.
On a side-note, Chicago is absolutely the worst convention town I have ever been to. It is no wonder that there is so much greed and coruption in politics there, even the union workers at the trade show constantly hand their hands out for perks (and you damn well better pay the bribes if you want to see your equipment again).
I have been attending the SIA show in Vegas for years. I was sorry to hear that we will be moving the show next year because Vegas area didn't think enough money was being spent by us when we were in town.. I would think you would want all the business you can get in town. I will miss the trip to Vegas every year, i did spend a far amount of time in the casino's when i'm
in Vegas.
"...we will be moving the show next year because Vegas area didn't think enough money was being spent by us when we were in town..."
Are you sure it isn't because of the unceasing lobbying by Denver for the last two years, along with the fact that they actually have snow there?
I certainly understand the boost on the local economy, but I have trouble understanding why anyone would choose to exhibit in a trade show in this day & age.
I have exhibited in various shows all over the country since 1991, and stopped in 2002 when I realized that there is absolutely no security in regards to what comes into the building. Yes, there are token guards at the doors, but does anyone really know what is coming in all of those crates? I asked a representative from the drayage company, and the answer was a curt "no". Nobody has any idea what is in any given crate. Use your imagination about what could fit in a 7' tall crate, and how many people are in the convention center during a setup; not a comfortable thought at all.
The article sites 300 exhibitors that chose not to come back - I would wager that the return on investment is not worth the danger to most of them. I would also wager that few shows have actually grown since 9/11.
That type of paranoia could be applied to all aspects of our day to day existence.
That is especially true if our day to day existence includes huge crates that have concealed contents.
Every piece that enters the luggage cargo hold of a plane is examined to save the lives of 300 people; why not give the same care to a show floor that could have upwards of a 1000 people during set-up?
It may be a form of paranoia, or just common sense.
The month of Feb will tell the story with over 15 Fashion Week Vegas shows going on just before, at the same time and after the Magic show at the convention center. http://TradeShowsVegas.com