Quote:
Originally Posted by bobg
Eventually diminishing marginal returns make expansion wasteful. The justifications you have made have been made and believed in countless cities that are currently struggling to make their convention centers a financial asset rather than a drain.
Looking at the exhibition space in peer cities like San Diego, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh we are about right were we need to be in terms of size. Sure those three cities don't have our airport traffic and are not the most prominent city for hundreds of miles like we are. So maybe some metrics out there would support a 50% increase in exhibition floor size like you are advocating, but their would have to be some great market research to make me believe that we as a city need to allocate more than the 6 full and 3 partial city blocks we already have allocated to the convention center.
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Fair point.
Baltimore and Pittsburgh also compete with Philadelphia, DC, NYC and Boston all which do good (but not necessarily great) convention business.
Phoenix would be the poster child. They copied Denver, only a couple of years later. They've suffered somewhat from politics but logistically they only have a little over 3000 hotel rooms downtown. Additionally they are "out-of-season" for holding the bigger groups which typically meet over the summer (stretched). Now the lavish resort/hotel/spas cater nicely to the corporate crowd and have (generally) recovered but that's a different market. Phoenix is struggling (I've heard) to pay the bonds on their convention hotel. Being 2 1/2 X the size of Denver they'll find a way but it's (presumably) a "drain" as you would say.
But Denver is in a sweet spot. They are (largely) centrally located and yes DIA makes a huge difference as you can reach Denver rather easily, affordably from any part of the country. I thought the CCC had 850,000+ of (mostly) contiguous sq. ft.? In any event I just threw out the 300,000 sq. ft. figure as an example.
I just do think Denver has a strong appeal for many reasons. Any expansion would take 8-10 years from concept to completion. Denver needs to continue to capitalize on the asset, not shrink from the challenge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by navyweaxguy
San Diego's convention center had twice the attendance numbers that CCC had last year(788-380k). Comicon alone is demanding a 1 billion dollar expansion to be able to handle the number of attendees. Is there a marquee convention that Denver hosts? One that is known nationwide. I'm not being a smartass, but as a person that doesn't live there I haven't heard of any.
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Consumer shows may pump up the numbers but aren't as valuable as industry groups who bring many, many thousands of out-of-town visitors. Admittedly San Diego's comicon is now so big that I'd guess many do come from out-of-town. In the few years that Denver has held theirs they have shot up near being a top five city. They do attract regionally. EDIT: Now that I've read
bobg's numbers which I didn't know the latest, I'd guess Denver is now a top five city. I know NYC has also grown rapidly.
As
Plansit suggested Denver has the GABF as well as the January SIA Snow Sports convention for annual events.
"demanding a 1 billion dollar expansion"- Now that would be impressive. Put into context my suggested expansion for Denver is rather puny in comparison.
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