I of course can't agree more with what seems to be the general sentiment on this forum of reverting the Prime Osbourn back to its original use as a transportation hub. But, I really can't wrap my mind around the various ideas and proposed locations for the convention center.
I often hear people talking about the old Duval County Courthouse as the prime location for it but I'm not sure I agree. Too often, in our past, we have allowed lackluster, ill-conceived or just plain bad things to be constructed on prime waterfront.
In my experience with countless convention center locations, the convention center itself is essentially a big box accompanied by the supporting big box parking garages.
In the interest of a creating a vibrant downtown with residential components, why would we put the convention center at the old courthouse location. If anything, I see that location as creating a figurative barrier to the natural progression of development down the riverbank and essentially further isolating the shipyards from downtown.
Be interest to know others thoughts on this.
If your convention center isn't mixed use, it isn't worth doing on the courthouse site. Does a convention center have to be a plain box? No. Take a look at Seattle's...
(http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/42/ec/dc/convention-center.jpg)
However, what you do need in a successful convention center is an attached hotel, restaurants and entertainment within a compact setting. In DT Jax, unfortunately, the Hyatt is our convention center sized hotel. It's so large, you're not going to be able to successfully land another on a different site.
I don't know how successful Tampa's convention center is an example.
It has a connected hotel and restaurants but I wouldn't really call it a vibrant development. Plus look at the footprint for that convention center.
I simply don't think there is enough real estate at the old Courthouse location, even if razing the old City Hall as well, to build a comparable facility.
Saying, we have to put it there because of the Hyatt is akin to doubling down on a bad hand/bet to me. I would think it better suited for a portion of the Shipyards or the Brest tract as that would integrate with the marina and the sport district.
I'm not aware of Tampa's hotel being considered mixed-use. However, even that scene is better than the Prime Osborn's. Oh, and there's enough real estate. The property also allows for a better configuration than the Shipyards, unless you're also assuming filling in some of the river to create more space on that site. As far as a hotel goes, we'd be wasting money if we invest in a convention center without a hotel. Might was well just build a larger box in the Prime Osborn's case. Either way, the you're ROI will be damaged. The major issue with the courthouse site is the cost associated with constructing an exhibition hall. We should have addressed this issue a decade ago but eventually we'll need to decide if the investment of a new convention center is worth the costs. If so, we need to move forward. If not, we need to move on from the debate.
Well, I think we need to start with points everyone can hopefully agree upon:
1.) The Prime Osborn convention center is inadequate and is not providing an adequate ROI as a convention center.
2.) Expansion of the Prime Osborn for use as a convention center does not make economic, logical or practical sense.
I think as you say the real questions are:
1.) do we build a convention center? (that is does it actually make sense)
2.) If we were to, where would that be. (I still think the old courthouse site is just wrong for so many reasons.)
Personally, I think we are better off transforming the Prime Osborn back to the transportation center and putting a new convention center off. I'm not entirely sure that the JEA site on the Southbank doesn't hold more promise as a potential site if done as part of a larger scale redevelopment.
Possibly, but I think getting someone to build a 1,000 room hotel is your issue. I also think it's disconnected from the rest of downtown. The courthouse site allows for Bay Street development (if done right), skyway expansion (if so desired, it was spec'ed to the stadium), and botique hotel possibilities. Even with the Hyatt, many convention centers have smaller botique hotels nearby for an alternative for people.
And, from a downtown perspective, I'd never turn down a flowing stream of business travelers on expense accounts.
I think using the Prime as a transportation center and moving the convention center to the Shipyard location, along with a new hotel and some restaurants, etc. make sense. Then you have created a gateway for extending the Skyway down Bay St with multiple uses - convention and sports. And really, extending it only makes sense if you have some sort of development at Shipyards. Why not the convention center and all it amenities. Not in favor though of just a plain box building. If we're going to build one, especially on the river, then make it memorable.
Quote...and with a new hotel and restaurants....
That's the part where the reality of downtown Jacksonville's market kills the dream. You're pretty much forced to work with our current taxpayer subsidized (and struggling) hotel or forget about doing anything.
True statement but what comes first the chicken or the egg. The existing location has no hotel or other amenities. I think making shoot from the hip decisions based on how things are versue what they should be .. is what has gotten us in the circumstances we are in now.
I think you just made a case for the courthouse site. Assuming the chicken is the convention center, it's been nearly 30 years and we're still waiting for the Prime Osborn to lay an egg. There's really no difference between the Prime Osborn, Shipyards and JEA sites, outside of two being waterfront. All three are not centrally located or within decent walkable distance of complementing services such as existing hotels, retail, entertainment and restaurants. With all three, you're looking at having to add new complementing uses.....at the expense of already existing struggling ones. It can be argued that selecting another isolated site could be considered as shooting from the hip by making decisions not based on economic reality. This theory didn't pay off with the Prime Osborn, so what provides the belief that the Shipyards or JEA sites would be any different?
Overall, the chicken or egg theory doesn't apply well to DT Jax because we're not starting from scratch. The courthouse site's strongest asset is that many of the complementing uses are already in place and the land for the center is already in public ownership. Thus, you have an opportunity to do something nice with a more centrally located parcel without having to also invest/subsidize additional complementing uses at the expense of the existing. The end result is you also create a situation where business increases for existing uses as well, creating a critical mass of complementing parts that stimulate more compact growth and infill in the core of the Northbank.
I'm not a fan of COJ being in the convention center business at all, BUT is there a way it could be done at the old courthouse site so that the property (at least eventually) generates ad valorem taxes? Wasn't one of the benefits of moving public buildings away from the river to get those properties on the tax rolls?
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 05, 2013, 10:03:02 AM
I'm not a fan of COJ being in the convention center business at all, BUT is there a way it could be done at the old courthouse site so that the property (at least eventually) generates ad valorem taxes? Wasn't one of the benefits of moving public buildings away from the river to get those properties on the tax rolls?
I think this is where a public-private partnership can come in. A convention center likely won't sustain itself, but if the city can negotiate with the Hyatt owners, that will likely be the best plan. Like, something where they build and manage it, but the city gives them some breaks and incentives in the short term. This might be cheaper than the city paying for it entirely, and the Hyatt gets a guarantee they won't lose their shirts.
Quote from: Steve on October 05, 2013, 03:21:25 PM
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 05, 2013, 10:03:02 AM
I'm not a fan of COJ being in the convention center business at all, BUT is there a way it could be done at the old courthouse site so that the property (at least eventually) generates ad valorem taxes? Wasn't one of the benefits of moving public buildings away from the river to get those properties on the tax rolls?
I think this is where a public-private partnership can come in. A convention center likely won't sustain itself, but if the city can negotiate with the Hyatt owners, that will likely be the best plan. Like, something where they build and manage it, but the city gives them some breaks and incentives in the short term. This might be cheaper than the city paying for it entirely, and the Hyatt gets a guarantee they won't lose their shirts.
So we're back to building something we admit can't sustain itself, to serve an industry we are really unable to compete in, just because....? I still think my uranium mine is a fine idea. For that kind of money could probably have 10 of them. Just turn the prime Osborn back into a rail terminal and forget wasting money on a convention center that will inevitably be a boondoggle.
The Hyatt has been staying off creditors and foreclosure for some time. I'm quite sure they are not in a position to be a partner in any relocation of the convention center.
Putting the convention center on the riverfront will not generate ad valorem taxes. If anything it will tie up a piece of property more likely to generate ad valorem taxes in the hands of a private developer. The only up side of a new convention center would be the possible increase in bed taxes to help pay for jumbo trons and pools at the stadium.
I can think of so many possible uses for the old courthouse site, i.e. mixed use with street level rest. & entertainment as an enhancement to what's there. I'm tired of seeing our beautiful riverfront tied up with utilitarian municipal buildings and private pseudo Mediterranean stucco behemoths.
Why a convention center and why there? Lakelander is the only one who made a rational case and his is simply that we are unlikely to get any other supporting hotel in our market.
I think we are better off shelving the convention center for now and working on making a more vibrant downtown where people will want to visit and have conventions rather than starting from the other direction.
My case for a convention center at the courthouse site would be for a mixed use structure. There's no reason you can't have retail, dining, and entertainment at street level with an exhibition hall above. Of course, this assumes that we decide it's worth the investment.
Quote from: icarus on October 06, 2013, 09:38:31 AM
The Hyatt has been staying off creditors and foreclosure for some time. I'm quite sure they are not in a position to be a partner in any relocation of the convention center.
Up until this past July, and still as far as I know, the Hyatt management very much wants this, and has been actively pushing for it. And all of the talk concerning design has included retail/entertainment options. Bottom line, location is pretty much set in stone, the only discussion left is "is it worth the investment" and "who will the players be". The Jacksonville Civic Council did a draft outline of what may be entailed, and it seems to be what the basic outline for any project that evolves. Linked below.
http://jaxciviccouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Northbank-Redevelopment-Task-Force-Final-report-020111-21.pdf
With a proper facility, we can definitely compete. And most convention centers bring indirect economic impact, meaning th building itself doesn't make money, but the people in hotels eating at restaurants and drinking at bars do. While the owners of th Hyatt in Jacksonville are struggling with this property, it is a leap to say that the owners of the Hyatt (which is not Hyatt Hotels) are struggling, nor is Hyatt Hotels struggling. If a good opportunity presents itself, they will listen.
If you listen to what turned Downtown San Diego around, it was four things: Convention Center, Light Rail, Horton Plaza (a mall), and later on, Petco Park, the Padres Stadium.
Jacksonville can compete in the convention business, as long as don't try to compete again the big four (Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, and Las Vegas). We can and should be competing against cities like Birmingham though.
And finally, it goes without saying that it most definitely should have a retail component on Bay Street.
Quote from: Steve on October 05, 2013, 03:21:25 PM
Quote from: urbanlibertarian on October 05, 2013, 10:03:02 AM
I'm not a fan of COJ being in the convention center business at all, BUT is there a way it could be done at the old courthouse site so that the property (at least eventually) generates ad valorem taxes? Wasn't one of the benefits of moving public buildings away from the river to get those properties on the tax rolls?
I think this is where a public-private partnership can come in. A convention center likely won't sustain itself, but if the city can negotiate with the Hyatt owners, that will likely be the best plan. Like, something where they build and manage it, but the city gives them some breaks and incentives in the short term. This might be cheaper than the city paying for it entirely, and the Hyatt gets a guarantee they won't lose their shirts.
Are there any working examples of convention centers that are public/private partnerships? If so, what is the ratio of public to private share of the investment?
The old Courthouse site has a relatively small footprint of real estate with half if not a larger portion being a dock (of unknown condition). Street level retail and entertainment impact the design of the building and its effectiveness as a convention center.
Most successful convention centers that I have been to have the ability to bring tractor trailers directly into or adjacent to the convention space. I'm not sure how you satisfy everyone's ideas/wishlist and still provide the necessary access and staging areas.
Sure, we can build something there with street level mixed use but its going to be at best a tier 3 or tier 2 center at that location. Again, I am just not impressed with that as a location.
Yes, there should be a convention center in our city. Location is the question and will be the issue.It would not hurt to see how cities of comparable size have handled this issue.
Icarus, the site is a sloping one. There's more than enough space to accommodate a convention center of Jax's needs for the foreseeable future. With that said, all possible sites have their pros and cons. For example, in addition to being isolated and without complementing uses nearby, the Shipyards and JEA sites are also contaminated.
Quote from: thelakelander on October 06, 2013, 07:08:29 PM
Icarus, the site is a sloping one. There's more than enough space to accommodate a convention center of Jax's needs for the foreseeable future. With that said, all possible sites have their pros and cons. For example, in addition to being isolated and without complementing uses nearby, the Shipyards and JEA sites are also contaminated.
Nothing that a can of WD-40, duct tape and bondo couldn't fix! ;D
LOL. Anyway, just digging up some old stuff... Here's the Civic Council's conceptual exhibition hall layout from a couple of years ago. They caught a lot of flack for adding a parking garage over the existing historic Hermiker Block.
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1185389790_r2bZU-M.jpg)
QuoteAlthough Hyatt has expressed an interest in constructing a 180,000 convention center on these sites, the Civic Council recommends the construction of an 80,000 square foot exhibition hall to replace the 19-story city hall (courthouse annex) building. This two story exhibition hall would be attached to the Hyatt's existing meeting spaces and include street level retail/dining space along Bay Street.
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1185389764_9y8ho-M.jpg)
QuoteA mixed use development would be constructed where the courthouse currently stands and the existing parking lot would remain. In addition, Civic Council plans for this area include demolishing the historic Hermiker Block along Newnan Street for the construction of a 325-space parking garage.
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-feb-the-jacksonville-civic-councils-plans-for-downtown
This actually makes a lot more sense to me. Constructing an 80k sq. ft space immediately adjacent to the Hyatt on the old City Hall site with street level retail which would leave the waterfront site open for development.
Convention supporters need to do a gut check. How many conventions do we have and how many events are held at the Marriott at Sawgrass? The 80k space would fulfill most not all of our current convention business.
I think the Civic Council got this one right. Thanks for sharing.
Some good reading...
This link contains images for the Transform Jax concept for a center at the courthouse location:
http://transformjax.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/more-convention-center-concept-images/
Some good data and examples of successful urban centers with a mix of uses:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-convention-centers-how-do-we-compare
Quote from: icarus on October 07, 2013, 08:36:11 AM
This actually makes a lot more sense to me. Constructing an 80k sq. ft space immediately adjacent to the Hyatt on the old City Hall site with street level retail which would leave the waterfront site open for development.
Convention supporters need to do a gut check. How many conventions do we have and how many events are held at the Marriott at Sawgrass? The 80k space would fulfill most not all of our current convention business.
I think the Civic Council got this one right. Thanks for sharing.
80,000sf isn't close to getting it done....currently we have a nearly 80,000 sf exhibit hall and a center with over 200,000 sf total.
what is needed here (and studied numerous times) is 200,000 sf exhibit all and total center size of about double that
Besides the home and patio show(s) and gun show(s) .. what actual convention business do we get right now at the Prime Osborn?
In the last fifteen years, every meeting, conference, trade group, etc. that I have attended has been at the Sawgrass Marriott or the Ritz Carlton. Lets face it. People from out of town would rather meet at the beach than at a building with a leaking roof separated from everything in town by open fields of broken concrete and weeds.
If a private/public venture was used to add 80,000 of exhibition space with additional facility space for breakouts, meetings and smaller conferences at the old City Hall site, I think it would be a real shot in the arm to the only viable convention hotel we have at this point. It would be a boon to the immediate area and would put us into a position to consider something bigger next door at the old Courthouse site.
Our City is in no position for a moon shot on a convention center ... not when we have so many other priorities more likely to deliver long term business to our City.
I've been to quite a few conventions and trade shows and other events at the PO. Black Expo was just this past weekend. Also, a few conventions have outgrown the Prime Osborn and moved on to cities that offer more convention space. Below, a quote from a similar discussion in 2010 about the need for a new convention center.
QuoteJacksonville Business Journal - April 20, 2007
by Rachel Witkowski Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE -- The Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center's size and distance from a hotel has cost the city's economy more than $48 million this year.
Business groups that had planned to hold conventions at the center in 2007 but decided to go to another market equated to a loss of $48.4 million based on the room-nights they would have generated for the city, according to the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau. The city has lost nearly $140 million from groups that have left from 2006 to 2008.[/color]
The 78,500 square feet of exhibit space at the Prime Osborn is limiting its ability to attract state and national conventions while local events' potential to make money is also being constrained by the building's size.
The city and the CVB, through the convention center task force, are looking into expanding the Prime Osborn or building a new convention center. The task force will present a final report later this year, but meanwhile the numbers are staggering.
The CVB, which helps bring larger regional, state and national conventions that generate room-nights, most recently lost two of its larger clients for 2009. After 10 years of holding annual events at the Prime Osborn, the state's Fire-Rescue Convention & Exposition and The State Cheer & Dance Championships of Florida are moving to Daytona Beach, taking $3 million in economic impact.
The Florida Fire Chiefs' Association said it needed 100,000 more square feet to clear exhibits from the lobby areas, according to information provided by the CVB. It uses 117,300 square feet at the Prime Osborn.
Gainesville-based American Championships, which operates State Cheer & Dance, said it needed an additional 40,000 square feet to expand the event and have more warm-up space.
The Prime Osborn's size and the cost to transport event attendees to the nearest hotels were the primary reasons for lost business, said Shirley Smith, CVB's vice president of sales.[/color]
Both conventions will host their events at Daytona's Ocean Center in 2009, the same year it will open as an expanded convention center with 452,491 square feet of space, nearly double its existing size. The center is offering incentives and promotions for businesses that bring events to Ocean Center within the first year of its reopening, Smith said.
The State Cheer & Dance had reached a point where it was trying to book during Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend because it would have needed to extend its event by a day to compensate for space limitations, she said.
The CVB has enough time to replace the events with other business but it will be difficult since both occurred at the beginning of the year.
"It's easier to keep a customer than it is to create a customer," said John Reyes, president and CEO of the CVB.
Limited space also leads to less availability. Event coordinators, on average, must plan on taking two days to move in and a day to move out, Reyes said. By contrast, the Prime Osborn could house two events simultaneously if its exhibit space was expanded to 280,000 square feet, which represents 85 percent of the convention center market nationally.[/color]
Opportunities for expanding events targeted at this market, such as the Jacksonville Spring Home & Patio Show and the Jacksonville International Car & Truck Show, are also limited. Reyes said associations that produce such events generate 60 percent to 70 percent of their revenue from them.
The Car & Truck Show, produced by event marketer Paragon Group Inc. of Massachusetts, has been at the Prime Osborn for nine years. For the past two years vehicles were placed on the grass lot in front of the Prime Osborn, in the parking lot and in lobbies. The Prime Osborn's doorways were changed to bring more vehicles to the lower rooms, said Barbara Pudney, vice president and show producer at Paragon.
Pudney said changing the doorways helped accommodate the Car & Truck Show's recent growth but an expanded Prime Osborn would facilitate an even bigger and better event.
Reyes said if the city creates a new or expanded convention center, it could bring back lost business. "But you can't bring it back if you don't have something to offer."
http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2007/04/23/story2.html
I agree with tufsu1 that it would be a waste of money to building a new center the exact same size as the PO. You could probably get away with less than 200k but even Huntsville, AL features more than 80k of clear exhibition space. If we're going to invest in it, we might as well get it right.
I think you misunderstand what I am saying.
I am saying a temporary or stop gap of adding the space on old City Hall site to make Prime Osborn available for transportation. Further expand or build the larger convention center next door at the courthouse site.
Sometimes we get what we want but not just all at once.
Some level of analysis would have to be done but you could probably save money building a larger space +100k square feet and incrementally expanding as needed, from there.
Convention Center business 10 years ago was in the dumps. Post 9/11 woes, high airfares and an overbuilding of convention centers caused a price war to acquire the needed business.
According to the travel site Skift, it has swung the other way and is now growing at a 44% clip.
http://skift.com/2013/08/04/the-conference-industry-is-booming-and-it-is-only-getting-bigger/ (http://skift.com/2013/08/04/the-conference-industry-is-booming-and-it-is-only-getting-bigger/)
The Conference Industry is Booming, And It Is Only Getting Bigger
(http://d1jlczrezgss9n.cloudfront.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/tedconference-730x515.jpg)
David Ferrell, Orange County Register
Aug 04, 2013 5:00 am
A creature of the information age, Tim Bourquin feeds on the Internet. He is an expert on webinars, email marketing campaigns and social-media strategies. He is the co-founder of AfterOffers.com, a website for buying and selling sales leads.
The dizzying pace of change makes it essential to stay current, so Bourquin does whatever it takes to hear the latest — even stepping beyond cyberspace into real-world spaces, where he can mingle. He likes to find himself in a crowded hallway, talking with someone he met on the fly. Or in a hotel bar, having a long, meandering conversation, because out of the laughter and chit-chat he sometimes forms a bond or has a flash of insight.
Which is why he goes to conferences — about 10 a year, he says, many in Las Vegas, others as far away as Japan, where he attended an industry summit on nanotechnology. Bourquin's travels challenge popular assumptions about how ideas are shared on a wired planet. Many experts believed that the need for face time would diminish, that people would avoid hassling with airports and rental cars once it was possible to connect instantly from anywhere.
The opposite is proving to be true. The conference industry is booming, expanding more or less in parallel with the Internet. Conferences not only are getting bigger and more numerous, they are tackling more daunting problems. Topics have gone global — renewable energy, atmospheric warming, the plundering of the seas. The very way information is exchanged is evolving, different now than in pre-Internet days when events were less plugged-in and interactive — more limited to the so-called sage on a stage.
"Some of the best shows have an online component," says Bourquin, 44, who lives in Laguna Niguel. "You create a profile and upload your bio, your history, what you want to achieve, and other people can message you and set up meetings before the event." With registration costs alone running up to $1,000, Bourquin says he works hard to make trips pay off. He keeps a notebook listing sessions he will attend, ideas he's picked up. Occasionally he tracks down would-be clients who have failed to return his emails — and finds, generally, that after a face-to-face conversation the email channels open up.
"There's a trust that gets built," he says. "I'm no longer that faceless email that comes into them. It just kind of accelerates the relationship and brings it to a higher level."
GLOBAL EXTRAVAGANZAS
Historically, important ideas tend to become isolated in their own disciplines — locked in silos, to use a standard metaphor. Pharmaceutical knowledge remains in the realm of pharmacy, the quirks of the aerospace industry occupy a different place. Breaking down those divisions has become a goal of some of the fastest-growing high-brow events, such as the $7,500-a-head TED Conferences, which have been held in Long Beach and have spun off thousands of smaller TEDx events worldwide. Other examples include the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, founded by former President Bill Clinton to address some of Earth's most pressing social needs, and the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills.
The latter has grown from a modest, daylong economic forum 16 years ago into a vigorous, three-day idea fest attended by 3,500 speakers and guests — including heads of state — from 50 nations.
During Milken's run at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, participants observe and feel the energy of some of the world's richest and most powerful people assembled in a single spot. Lines of gleaming BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes fill the valet lane. News networks stake out the lobby, erecting makeshift booths and broadcasting interviews. Remaining spaces become packed with so many men and women in suits that it's difficult to move. At a cocktail bar adjoining a wing of meeting rooms, a din of conversation envelops groups and individuals talking, drinking, pecking at their laptops.
Panelists this spring discussed human longevity — could someone live to be 1,000? Down a hallway, tech experts examined the spectacular growth of the cellphone app industry, now worth billions. Microsoft founder Bill Gates joined former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss economic investment in Africa and efforts to eradicate polio. Larry King interviewed the world's richest man, Carlos Slim.
Every moment is filmed and posted online. But for all of the public banter, "some of the most interesting conversations go on in the speaker ready room," one of the many semi-private places where the alliances are formed, where plans are set in motion that literally shape the course of world events, says Michael L. Klowden, CEO of the nonprofit Milken Institute.
Medical-science discussions have led to congressional funding, Klowden says. Former Vice President Al Gore hooked up with a film director at Milken, and their collaboration led to the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," about global warming, helping to earn Gore the Nobel Peace Prize.
"Two things are happening," Klowden says. "Because of the incredible spread of information that's circulating around the world, people are better informed, in general, about what's going on away from their own narrow fields. And if they're not better informed, they want to be. There's a sense of the unsettled nature of the world and a feeling of necessity about getting together to discuss solutions."
BOOMING MARKET
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, conventions and events are expected to expand by 44 percent from 2010 to 2020, far beyond the average projected growth of other industries. Orange County, with its appealing climate and tourist attractions, is reaping a share of the windfall. Demand for conference space is up at the Anaheim Convention Center and at beachfront resort hotels such as the Montage in Laguna Beach and the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, site of a recent Brainstorm Green environmental conference.
The California Women's Conference, which achieved national prominence when former California first lady Maria Shriver brought in the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey, returns to the Long Beach Convention Center in May after a year's hiatus.
Just as television has entered an age of choices, with channels catering to almost every conceivable interest, the conference industry markets an intellectual smorgasbord, often presented against a backdrop of ocean vistas and trendy urban promenades — trips paid for out of corporate accounts, or at the very least tax-deductible. A zealous conference-goer could travel to a new city every week and never exhaust the movable feast of issues and ideas — about smart-grid systems, electric cars, mental illness, cloud computing, mathematics, farming methods, aging.
Top economists convene in Wyoming for the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, where last year Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a regular, made headlines addressing the looming fiscal cliff. Comic-Con, inspired by comic books, wrapped up its most recent extravaganza in San Diego. Christmasworld, the biggest event in what organizers call "the international festive-decoration sector," stages its next annual shindig in Frankfurt, Germany, in January. A whopping 30,000 visitors are expected.
The conference industry is big enough to have its own awards banquets and its own annual conference in Boston, which might be less surprising than the fact that Apple, Google and Microsoft have become conference hosts — with Samsung soon to follow, this fall in San Francisco. Tech giants are loath to divulge proprietary secrets, but putting on conferences enables them to hawk products and strengthen ties to members of their distribution chains. Corporate executives get a chance to raise their professional profiles, notes Trey Ford, general manager of the Black Hat tech security conference held in Las Vegas.
Black Hat — the reference is to bad guys — is essentially a conference of computer hackers that began in the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom, and has grown to more than 6,000 participants. In a topsy-turvy era of National Security Agency spying and purported sabotage from China, hackers have come to be seen as potentially valuable resources in the quest to shore up vulnerable networks. Speakers at Black Hat must go through a lengthy screening process.
"Getting accepted at Black Hat is more than a feather in the cap," Ford says. "It really is a rocket ship for researchers to get into the spotlight."
Sponsoring companies represent a who's who of high tech — Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, Dell, Oracle. Top-tier sponsorships sell for more than $100,000.
"The more that people are connected electronically, the more hunger there is to meet face to face," says Michelle Russell, editor of Convene magazine, published by the Chicago-based Professional Convention Management Association. Being friends on Facebook, or trading 30 emails a day, is not so much a substitute for personal contact but a tease, she says, making us want more.
The conference industry's many ups and downs include a boom during the easy-money 1990s, a bad period after 9/11, and another dip during the recent recession. The naysayers keep predicting a decline, but face-to-face marketing remains a major budget category, and successful conference organizers today can achieve 30 percent profit margins, Saef says.
RISKS AND LOGISTICS
Yet the risks are substantial; conferences are hugely expensive to arrange and require many months of planning for a jackpot that lasts less than a week. Saef helps to put on the annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association, a green-power event held this spring in Chicago. Scarcely a month after it was over, he was already at work on 2014. Saef flew to Washington, D.C., to sit down with officials from the trade group and go over what should be tweaked for next time.
Planners will have to refine next year's theme and undertake the long process of screening speakers. Promotional campaigns will follow. Near the end, event crews will invade a barren hall and rig it with electrical wiring and booths to accommodate 550 exhibitors.
Until a conference is well-established, organizers must grapple with weighty questions about what to charge and whether people will come. Is the venue right? Is it better to be in Southern California, a relatively pricey market, or Atlanta or Phoenix?
After two years of planning, global events firm UBM selected Anaheim for its Business4Better Conference earlier this year in part because Mayor Tom Tait arranged for free use of the Anaheim Convention Center. The goal was to hook up nonprofit organizations with corporations willing to support their work. Turn-out was fair — 1,600 people registered — but nonprofit groups far outnumbered their corporate counterparts, and the conference lacked the energetic buzz of, say, Milken, leaving program director Nina Brown to puzzle over fixes for 2014.
Drawing in new players is only one challenge. Post-conference feedback suggested there were too many speakers and panels and not enough time to wander the conference floor. Long aisles and high partitions impeded the chance for attendees to interact. Next year, Brown says, the straight aisles might give way to a broken oval.
"Maybe we don't need high walls," she says. There could be pods, tables with pop-up signs."
'ENGINEERED SERENDIPITY'
Conferences can take years to grow — if they grow at all. One spectacular model of success is the South By Southwest Music & Media Conference & Festival, better known as SXSW, in Austin, Texas. Since its launch in 1987, primarily as a music festival, SXSW has expanded to encompass film and digital media and attracts 30,000 people.
The event was a key launch pad for Twitter. Its economic impact on Austin is an estimated $190 million, says Chris Sonnier, a program manager for the private company that built the spectacle.
Why has SXSW exploded? Partly because Austin is a creative hotbed rife with music clubs and young people. What conference organizers succeeded in doing, Sonnier says, was introducing "engineered serendipity," a framework for bringing the right individuals together in the same rooms.
Even SXSW's own promoters would like to replicate the formula. Spin-offs include conferences on education and venture capital. SXSW Eco, a conference about energy, climate and related issues, holds its third gathering in October.
More than ever, conference planners augment their panels and keynote presentations by paying particular attention to the overall experience — the ambience, the physical spaces. Montreal's answer to SXSW, a conference known as C2-MTL — "C2″ is shorthand for commerce and creativity — debuted last year as a collaboration between an advertising agency and Cirque du Soleil, a master manipulator of the senses.
Set in a canal-side former industrial zone, the May conference drew 2,000 attendees who paid $3,400 apiece. They attended seminars in a specially restyled art institute and adjoining village of tents and cafes — all carefully arranged "to have people crash into each other," says spokeswoman Elisabeth-Anne Butikofer. The latest thinking, she says, is that "the environment where the conference takes place is just as important as the content," a philosophy derived, in part, from legendary creative spaces of the tech world.
At Bell Laboratories, the huge New Jersey facility that spawned innovations such as the transistor, the laser and cellular phone technology, visionaries of the 1930s purposely located offices at inconvenient distances from labs. "By intention, everyone would be in one another's way," writes author Jon Gertner "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation." One hallway was 700 feet long. "Traveling its length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas would be almost impossible," Gertner points out. "Then again, that was the point."
Jeff Swenerton of Center for Resource Solutions, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, notes a similar effect at Pixar, the famous animation studio, where Steve Jobs scrapped original architectural designs and insisted on a central atrium where he expected various units to mix — and where he located mailboxes and restrooms. Pixar's creative success comes to mind every year when the nonprofit selects a location for its Renewable Energy Markets Conference, Swenerton says.
"We think about it when we look at the hotels," he says. "We'll take the floor plans and spread them out and think about how the conference will ebb and flow."
AESTHETICS OF CREATIVITY
Some conferences embrace environmental beauty as part of the magic of creativity and stage their retreats at resort locations where you might go even if you cared nothing about ideas. Philip Lader, former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom and present chairman of London-based media giant WPP Group, founded an invitation-only conference held five times a year far from the public spotlight. Upcoming locations include Aspen on Labor Day, Napa Valley in the fall and Laguna Niguel next year, when guests will assemble at the Ritz-Carlton on a bluff high over the Pacific.
Bill Clinton attends regularly, as do several members of the U.S. Supreme Court, says Lader, who founded the Renaissance Weekends in 1981. Nobel Prize winners, astronauts and other nationally known figures join in candid discussions of topics ranging from race and politics to health and theology, shielded from media coverage, Lader says.
Aspen also is the setting for the Aspen Big Ideas Festival, founded nine years ago by the nonprofit Aspen Institute. Walter Isaacson, author of "Steve Jobs," the best-selling biography of the Apple founder, is president of the institute and former chairman of CNN. He envisioned the retreat as a three-ring intellectual circus, says spokesman Jim Spiegelman.
"A lot of sessions are going on simultaneously," Spiegelman says. "Some might want to hear (former Fed Chairman) Alan Greenspan hold forth on the future of the economy. At the same time, someone might want to go hear Yo-Yo Ma play the cello."
Aspen's landscape gives the conference a special allure, Spiegelman says. "There's no question you lose something in a building or hotel as opposed to being out in the Rocky Mountains."
Cynics might suggest the conference is secondary to the destination, that the ideas become an excuse to go somewhere interesting — to take a trip that wasn't actually necessary. But the nature of ideas, and of chance meetings, is uncertainty. The only way to know if a conference will be worthwhile is to be there, listening to the talks, making the connections. Nothing might pan out, or a sort of magic might occur, as it did once for Marc Freedman.
Freedman, the founder of Encore.org, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps people find second-act careers, is a sought-after panelist who attends 25 or 30 conferences a year. Early on, he traveled to Miami, brooding on the plane about tasks left behind at his office and fearing the trip was a waste of time.
In the conference audience he met an official from a major grant-making organization. After the meeting, Freedman's fledgling organization received a gift of $6.8 million — a boost critical to its growth. The conference turned out to be one of the most important meetings he ever attended.
"From a logical perspective," Freedman recalls, "I never should have gone."