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Posted Aug 9, 2011, 10:32 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Planet earth
Posts: 3,883
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I found this in the Vancouver convention centre thread. I thought I would post it here because it gives some home and comparison to a City that really supports it's convention centre.
Quote:
Vancouver heading toward record year for convention business
Event next month could put almost $50 million into economy
By SCOTT SIMPSON, Vancouver Sun July 13, 2011
VANCOUVER -- Thanks to a new convention centre and some exceptionally large groups of visitors, Vancouver is heading toward a record year for convention business.
The provincial ministry of jobs, tourism and innovation reported on Wednesday that 413 events have been confirmed this year for the Vancouver Convention Centre, including conferences, trade shows, banquets and meetings. That compares to 350 events in 2010.
Among those events are some particularly massive gatherings. The city in May played host to 10,000 international delegates to the annual conference and exhibition of the Risk and Insurance Management Society.
And a five-day conference next month is expected to double that.
The convention centre and its partners, including Tourism Vancouver and Vancouver hotel operators, are expecting 20,000 delegates for the annual conference of SIGGRAPH, the U.S.-based Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques — a group that includes video game developers.
The convention centre estimates that a delegate spends an average of $485 per convention day on accommodations, meals, transportation and shopping, so SIGGRAPH could pump nearly $50 million into the B.C. economy in just five days.
The last time a Vancouver convention got close to that attendance number, it was an international conference on AIDS in 1997 that drew 15,000 delegates.
“This is the strongest city-wide convention year ever in Vancouver’s history because of the expanded convention centre and because of the awareness around the Olympics,” Dave Gazley, vice-president for meeting and convention sales for Tourism Vancouver, said in a phone interview.
“A lot of these events were booked prior to the economic conditions in the U.S. market. Looking back we’ve probably got more than our fair share of major, large-scale U.S. meetings. With the expansion of our centre we were on the radar for a lot of folks. We’ve been fortunate to get some really good ones.”
Events such as SIGGRAPH don’t happen overnight.
Gazley noted that Tourism Vancouver has been pursuing SIGGRAPH’s annual conference business for two decades, but it was only after the new convention centre opened in 2009, in the lead-up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, that it became possible to stage an event of this scope in a local, world-class facility.
The new building, which shares a plaza with the original convention centre at the foot of Howe Street in downtown Vancouver, tripled the capacity of the two-piece facility to 43,340 square metres.
“We work very closely with the convention centre, obviously, as the convention and visitor bureau for the city,” Gazley said.
“They do a lot of events that will go directly to the convention centre that we may not be involved with. The ones that we’re very in tune with, and in fact most times take the lead on bringing to Vancouver — with the convention centre being a big part of that — are what we refer to as the citywide conventions.
“Those are the major ones, the big groups of folks coming to town, using the convention centre, with lots of people staying in the hotels — they are the ones with the big spend and the big impact for the destination.”
Tourism Vancouver worked through a full-time manager it maintains in Chicago, the home base for SIGGRAPH.
“Their normal rotation is Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, and this is the first time they’ve ever brought this event outside the U.S., Gazley said.
“We work very closely with the hotels at the front end to secure the rooms needed at competitive hotel rates, and with the convention centre and their space.”
Gazley recalled pitching Vancouver to SIGGRAPH back in the 1990s.
“We were always on their radar, but we really jumped out with the expansion of the centre. We talked to them. We put a proposal together. We put a compelling offer on the table.”
The other partner in the pursuit of SIGGRAPH was local members of the organization — which is strongly represented in Metro Vancouver through employees at companies such as Electronic Arts.
It’s a common practice for those making the convention pitch to draw in local people to help support their business case.
“We refer to it as the ‘Be A Host’ program,” Gazley said. “We don’t spend a tonne of money on advertising it. We try to do some very targeted things, specific to industries that are strong in B.C.
“It could be your neighbour, who is a certain type of plumber, a certain type of doctor, or lawyer. All of those groups have annual general meetings, and we try to get them to think about bringing them to Vancouver.”
Claire Smith, vice-president of sales and marketing for Vancouver Convention Centre calls it “finding local champions.
“The exciting thing about SIGGRAPH is that a lot of the hard work and credit is due to a local group of professionals in that field that wanted to showcase Vancouver to their colleagues,” Smith said.
“Working hand in hand with the graphics community here, they played a very active role in helping convince their society they should choose Vancouver.”
As well, Smith said, the main players need to show prospective groups that they’re working in harmony.
“The hotel community, Tourism Vancouver and the convention-centre team have to really work as one so that the client that we are interfacing with sees us as very easy to organize a convention with.
[email protected]
Vancouver Convention Centre
Fiscal year: 2010
Economic activity: $215 million
Event revenues: $21 million
Total attendance: 225,000 delegates
Non-B.C. attendance: 128,000 delegate days
Events: 350
Source: Vancouver Convention Centre
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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That is good news and bad news. It sounds like the federal government is planning to support it. But what is the holdup with Rank Inc.? Could Rank Inc. be having difficulties with arranging finances? They have to arrange for an interim loan since they won't receive the federal payment until it is complete and the provincial and HRM contributions are through a yearly lease arrangement. Or are they getting cold feet with the office component? 
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