Is two centres one too many?
Careport denies hurting city
Mark McNeil
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/745408
A new trade show facility at McMaster's Innovation Park is starting to divert business from the city-owned Hamilton Convention Centre and raising questions about whether RV and Sexapalooza shows are appropriate for lands intended for scientific research.
Careport Centre -- on Longwood Road South in the 170,000-square-foot former Camco warehouse -- is expecting to do three times the number of shows this year than it had foreseen.
"It's ramping up a lot quicker than we thought it would," said Dwayne McKillop, president of Continuum Production Inc., the company that manages Careport.
"Originally we thought we would have six or seven events in the first year but now it looks like we will have 20 to 25."
Hamilton Councillor Bob Bratina is less than enthusiastic about the early success.
He says there are "concerns related to our aging facility (the convention centre) and our ability to attract larger events than we can comfortably accommodate."
The warehouse being used for the trade shows is owned by the Innovation Park and is being rented out on a temporary basis. But Bratina argues the distraction from the park's mandate of commercializing medical and scientific research is symptomatic of a larger problem.
"The Innovation Park is not living up to its promise, nor is it reflective of council's reasons for advancing $5 million to the project. Look up the mission statement and weigh that against what is going on. Basically they've built a facility and they're looking for tenants ... and forget about the 'vision.'"
Last weekend the giant Car Wars Auto Show & Sale was held at Careport.
McKillop says the car show is a classic example of an event that would not reasonably fit into the convention centre. He believes the giant Careport building is fulfilling a need because it can offer more than four times the square footage of the convention centre.
But two weeks ago, the 28,000-square-foot Sexapalooza show took place at Careport, moving away from the convention centre which it had used the previous two years.
Interestingly, Liz Lewis, the producer of Sexapalooza, now says she regrets the decision to change venues. She plans to go back to the convention centre next year.
In heavy rains on the March 13 weekend, the roof leaked, she said. "And it was very cold. On Sunday there was no heat. It was rough on the body painters and the girls in lingerie. Any of my vendors selling lingerie, their sales were terrible."
Lewis says the base rent for her event at Careport was much cheaper but "the convention centre includes so many services in its base rate that they actually are less expensive."
Duncan Gillespie, CEO of Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc. (HECFI), says he does not believe Careport will have a significant impact on convention centre events.
But he acknowledged that bookings at the convention centre are "slightly behind where we were last year at the same time" and the "latter half of 2010 is a little soft."
Gillespie says he "does not foresee a huge impact on us at HECFI ... (because) Careport is a different venue. It is not as upscale. It looks different and feels different."
For his part, McKillop says, "I know from an outsider's point of view it looks like we are competing but it's really apples and oranges.
"We're not out to eat anybody's lunch. Every single event we have throws a huge amount of money back into the local economy."
Careport does not have kitchen facilities and other amenities. It offers basic accommodation in a huge warehouse with a high ceiling that can be divided into smaller spaces to suit different clients. But one major benefit it has over the convention centre is free parking.
Another show that moved over this year to Careport from HECFI facilities was the annual RV and Family Camping Show.
All acknowledge the RV show needed more space than city-owned facilities could provide. But there was controversy with the Ideal Home and Garden Show that took place at Careport March 5 to 7.
In that case the issue wasn't plucking an event from HECFI but creating a new home show to compete against the 28th annual Living Home and Garden Show at the convention centre.
The two events were only a week apart, and the Hamilton-Halton Home Builders' Association complained bitterly about the upstart competition.
"After nearly three decades working on home shows in our marketplace, the HHHBA knows that Hamilton simply cannot support two large-scale events of this nature and especially only a week apart," HHHBA President Steve Spicer wrote to association members last fall after the new home show was announced.
He said he was also concerned about confusion in the marketplace.
As it turned out, attendance was strong at the convention centre home show and organizers of that event say they had a very good year.
Yet event organizer Paul McNair says he still does not believe two home shows in Hamilton are sustainable over the long run.
And there may be another clash brewing between exhibition hall proponents and the needs of McMaster Innovation Park.
McKillop says: "There are some future plans for this facility that I am not at liberty to disclose. But at the end of the day, the Innovation Park will do what it is going to do and Hamilton is going to end up with a really nice new expo hall full of the big type of events that could help to support other facilities like Copps Coliseum and the convention centre."
McMaster Innovation Park president Zach Douglas says he is looking at taking back some of the former warehouse space at some point in the next several months.
"Right now we are quite happy to have a tenant in that building and generating some revenue to help us with other development at the park ... but warehousing or running shows is not part of our long-term vision for the park."
Linear Mode
