Small show with big influence

It doesn't have the Specialty Equipment Market Association's flashy cars or the cachet of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which attracts more foreign press than a prize fight.

But the people at the International Association of Exhibitions and Events show at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center are as important to Las Vegas as showgirls.

The Expo! Expo! event is the convention and trade show for the convention and trade show industry, a business that's worth about $8.2 billion annually to the Las Vegas economy.

With roughly 280 exhibiting companies and 2,500 attendees, the Expo is a just a fraction of the size of the biggest conventions in Las Vegas.

That said, those who do arrive are the ones who decide to put a big show in Las Vegas; or Orlando, Fla.; Chicago; New York; or overseas.

The current Expo runs through Wednesday and comes at a time when the future of the industry in Las Vegas looks a lot more bullish than the forecasts for other segments of the national economy. However, rising rates for fuel and hotel rooms -- two critical supplies for the industry -- are big concerns.

"We don't see it slowing down in Las Vegas," said Carrie Freeman Parsons, vice president of marketing for Dallas-based Freeman. With nearly $1.3 billion in revenue last year, Freeman is one of the most recognized trade show contracting and marketing firms and perhaps the most prominent exhibitor at Expo! Expo!

Parsons said the industry has managed to keep growing despite a slowing economy and an increasing focus on cost-cutting by companies. In the second quarter of this year, industry revenue was up more than 11 percent to $2.65 billion.

At this year's Expo, Boyd Gaming Corp. is scheduled to launch its sales and marketing effort to attract customers to the 650,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space it will open at its Echelon resort in 2009. One event already slated for Echelon is the 2011 IAEE event.

Gus Tejeda, vice president of sales for Echelon, says his goal is to attract new business to Las Vegas, not cannibalize the existing customer base. Since 1990, convention business growth has outpaced the leisure segment 3-to-1, Tejeda said.

"I sense the demand will just be escalated with our presence," he said.

By the time it opens, there will be about 6 million square feet of available convention space within one mile of Echelon, Tejeda said. That's more than what's available in New York City and Chicago combined, said Boyd Gaming spokesman Rob Stillwell.

The continued growth is due partly to the industry's efforts to remain relevant by making conventions easier to attend, more productive and using the Internet to build and maintain exhibitor-attendee relationships beyond the conclusion of a show.

"What (companies) realize is, at the end of the day, they have one marketing budget, they have one brand," Parsons said. "Exhibitions are expensive to produce, expensive to attend."

Depending on the profile of the show and size of a booth, it can cost anywhere from a couple of thousand to millions of dollars to participate in a trade show, Parsons said.

Although Parsons believes deeply in the power of focused, well-organized events to grease the gears of commerce, she acknowledges economic black clouds with the potential to undermine the industry.

Monitoring those dark clouds and positioning to avert them is especially important in Las Vegas, a locale with the highest concentration of meeting space in the country and in the midst of developing several new multibillion-dollar resorts that will increase the space inventory by millions of square feet.

"Is there a capacity?" Parsons said of the local trade show market. "You have to assume that there is at some point. I'm just not sure anyone knows what it is."

The price of fuel is among the leading threats to undermine the trade show market by making it too costly for companies to travel for exhibitions.

The price of diesel fuel nationally increased 80 cents per gallon in the last year. That's a critical expense in the trade show business. A small show such as Expo! Expo! accounted for 225 tractor trailer deliveries before it even opened, said Chris Schimek, general manager for Freeman in Las Vegas.

The three shows that make up automotive week, SEMA, the Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo and NACE, accounted for 1,500 truckloads of material, Schimek said.

Fuel prices also affect the price of airline tickets, a key factor in making trips to Las Vegas affordable.

Hotel rates and the cost of convention space also threaten to scare off business. The 36-year-old SIA SnowSports Trade Show recently made tracks to a more affordable destination.

In October, show organizers announced they would move their event, worth an estimated $28 million in nongaming economic activity, to Denver in 2010.

"It is a money thing," said David Ingemie, president of the trade association that organizes the event. "On a positive side, properties in Las Vegas are beautiful, well-maintained ... it is just getting expensive."

Ingemie said Denver's new convention center is more symmetrical and has fewer columns than the space they now use in Mandalay Bay, which means they will get more usable space.

"It is a much better trade show facility than the one we were in," he said.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@reviewjournal.com or (702) 477-3861.