Latest / PCMA Convene Podcast / Convene Talk on the Impact of Convention Centers: How Modern Design, Community Impact, and Sustainability Are Transforming Communities
Transcript
- Convene Talk, ep. 57/Jan 31, 2025 *Note: the transcript is AI generated, excuse typos and inaccuracies [00:04] Magdalina Atanassova: This is the Convene Podcast. My name is Maggie, Digital Media Editor. Welcome to another episode of the Convene Talk. I wanted to bring back a topic we started a few weeks ago on convention centers. Our regional discussion touched on the New York Times article from November which questioned why cities are still spending on convention centers. The author said that cities are spending more than ever to land the biggest events, but companies have long pulled back on spending for annual conferences and attendance has dwindled. However, our argument was that convention centers are important as they become part of the fabric of the city, while also they have a way of introducing meeting participants to the city and thus offsetting for the costs associated with their upkeep. And now that we are back from convenient leaders in Houston, I wanted to ask you what were your observations and has your mind changed in any way since the last time we addressed the topic? Anyone want to kick it off? [01:16] Michelle Russell: This is Michelle. I can recall going to, and I don't know how many years ago it was being at the George R. Brown Convention center and just seeing this vast expanse of nothingness outside the doors. It was either a parking lot or, or it was just paved over and it was just remarkable. Going to convening leaders to see how Discovery Green is really a part of the community and vibrant. So you could look out the window during the conference and you could see people ice skating on the rink. You could see people and, you know, families with strollers walking through the walkway. It just was a really, it was obviously a vibrant part of the community, which is what I think has been the trend in recent years. Certainly the Dallas Convention center or the actually the K. Bailey Hutchinson Convention center in Dallas has really big plans to renovate and add on to the existing convention center. But it's also the plan involves becoming more residential in terms of attracting people, making it walkable, making it more of like a district is I think, what we've heard from other destinations call that neighborhood in the community. It's a district with restaurants and attractions and just things that make the convention center feel like it's a hub in a community. So that has struck me. I also take issue with the idea that all conventions are dwindling. That's certainly not what we've heard where we've heard in certain instances of meetings surpassing their 2019 attendance levels or just, you know, showing that there's more of an uptick toward those levels because that's a lot of a lot to recover. This was an industry that was decimated during the pandemic and it takes a while to work back up to those levels. And things have, you know, there have been changes in society and expectations. So it felt like that article was a little kind of shallow. It didn't really. Didn't really talk to people in the industry. And I think part of that is our own fault. We don't do a really good job of articulating our message in terms of being an economic driver and also being essential to community, local businesses. What does anybody else think? A lot of people nodding. [03:56] Barbara Palmer: Yeah. You know, you make me remember I was recently in Seattle, and they have built a new addition to their convention center campus that's called the Summit. And on the ground floor, it's completely open to the public. They have restaurants that open out into the street. It's in the middle of downtown Seattle. They call that ground floor the mixing zone, which is where community and the participants in conventions are mixing together. That story, to me, seemed like it was reflecting something that I think is really the past, which is when convention centers were built more like kind of fortresses to keep people out with big blank walls and you couldn't even find the door. And it was locked if you could find the door. And that is. That is not the reality now. Convention center design has changed so much to open up the center. I just pulled up a page, and when you talk about the benefit to cities, this new Summit in Seattle was a $2 billion building, but there were 93 million of that funding went back into the city for improving public spaces. They have public artworks. The convention center has regular tours of the almost $2 million in public art that's there. It's just a different model than it used to be. I just recently saw data from a company called Placer AI about convention center patterns, and they recognized that overall, from the peak of 2019, it's down about 10%. But one of the places that convention center traffic is moving, the needles going up is. Is on weekend visits and community visits. And I think that that's an evolution. Not every city and every convention center is connected with the community, but I think some of the most successful convention centers in the country are. Casey, what's on your mind? [06:35] Casey Gale: Thanks, Barbara. What you were just talking about, about the very close link between the community and weekend events and convention centers made me think of research I found for our trends forecast last year, which talked a lot about leisure. The combination of business and leisure travel, and 67% of leisure trips actually start with a conference on the itinerary. So I think it's Important to note in this conversation that convention centers are often kind of the gateway for new visitors to visit a city and then stay longer because they want to see the sites while they're in town. And we're seeing that as a trend that continues to tick up. People want to be able to make a trip out of their business trip for personal reasons or bring their family. And I think that's really a post pandemic trend that kind of supports the importance of convention centers in the community. Jen? [07:42] Jen Dienst: Oh, I was just gonna say that's a great stat. And I felt like, you know, reading that article, you know, the whole, the first part of it where he's trying to drive home this point that meetings have disappeared and no one's going to meetings anymore. And I'm like, where is he getting this from? Because I am seeing the opposite. I mean, we collect, we run a lot of stories about research about the industry, about business travel in general. And I, you know, pull a couple of stats that show the exact opposite. And I'm sure there are parts of the meetings industry that are, that are showing a decline maybe in certain types of meetings, but everything that I'm seeing is pointing in the opposite direction. We are seeing a slow build back. And yes, things look different, things are changing, but by no means are meetings going away. So I'll actually pull out one of those stats because I thought it was a really good one. This is actually from the trends report that we did in November. This is from the Global Business Travel Association Business Travel Index Outlook that was released in, I believe, like late 2024. And they said that when asked about their most recent business trip, the most common purpose of travel among all global business travelers is attending seminars and training followed by conventions and conferences, all of which are held in convention centers all over the world. So, yeah, I was just super disappointed by this article. It just kind of, you know, built itself on a faulty premise. And like you said earlier, you know, there's. There's, you know, there's just not a whole lot to go off of. But, you know, I think something that we are seeing change more and more and more. And I don't think this is necessarily new. I think this has been going on for a while is like, we're definitely seeing convention centers change in terms of how they're designed and their size. I feel like a lot of times when I'm seeing new convention centers being built, they might not be, you know, 2.1 million square feet, like the Orange County Convention center in Orlando, you know, There. It's true. There's not a lot of conventions out there that can, you know, meet or fill that entire space. But I am. I feel like we are seeing more and more facilities that are smaller, maybe a little bit more tailored to the types of meetings that are naturally attracted to that destination. So it's not just like one solution anymore. It's not just the same. We're not seeing the same type of facility over and over again. That's what I see when I travel and see convention centers in different cities. I don't know what you guys are seeing and thinking, but that's kind of, you know, what I've seen in the past few years. [10:37] Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. And I think you had a lot to say about renovation costs and how are these money being fueled into convention centers, and in a way that they disappear and serve no purpose, which I think was wrong. And ever since I've started In the industry 20 years ago, I've seen over and over again articles and stats that prove how much money attendees bring to destination. So I'm like, I don't get the connection there. There's definitely something missing in that part of his article. And also some of the quotes that he had from people in the industry felt very much taken out of context. Michelle, what do you think? [11:21] Michelle Russell: I mean, I don't know that we really have insight into the economics of running a convention center. And when. When you say it lost millions, but how was that offset by the economic activity in the rest of the destination? Is there any analysis of how many hotel rooms were filled, how the restaurants ran? Uber, you know, Uber and taxis and all of the other stuff? It's like that. What did not seem to be accounted for. So is it a loss leader in some destinations, like when you go to Costco and you can get a rotisserie chicken for $4.99, but you end up spending, you know, hundreds in the rest of the store? I don't. I don't know if that's a viable model, and I think it depends on the destination. But that seemed, as you said, Maggie, to be missing from the reporting of this story. [12:13] Barbara Palmer: Barbara, One thing I'm thinking about is the fact that these are such large buildings, expensive to run, and convention centers, people would not expect this. They really are leaders in sustainability, like many of them are. You know, they're. They're really trying to get their cost down. They are, for reasons of responsibility, you know, really leaders in cutting down on food waste. And it's a place where you can really scale the impact of sustainable measures. So I think that, that they look like, you know, you could make it look like a big drain. But on the other hand, there are, you know, it's public space that's being used in a, in a very sustainable manner in many cases. [13:11] Magdalina Atanassova: And that just brought the image of Vancouver Convention center right into my head because so integrated with the environment, with the green roof and just overseeing the water is first of all, it was so beautiful and second of all, super sustainable. There were a lot of lessons that they passed on to the attendees when I was there early 2020, right before everything got closed for an IAPCO annual meeting. And it's not a big event like hundred something people. And still, why not utilize a convention center? And I did not feel lost they had other events running in the meantime. So it was also a good showcase of how other events are using their premises and how they're recycling and the other programs that they're running, which I felt was great. Yeah, Barbara? [14:07] Michelle Russell: Yeah. [14:08] Barbara Palmer: To me, just a key word is warmth. I think that's what you see in some of the newer designed buildings that have a lot of, you know, natural light and art and elements. I did find the, the story in New York Times that one of the most impactful things were the images that they showed. You know, just a lone chair in a cavernous room. It kind of reminded me of like abandoned Ellis island. And, and I think that you certainly can find, that you can find an empty exhibit hall. But that's not the whole picture. [14:51] Casey Gale: That picture is actually hilarious, Barbara. I just pulled that up. [14:55] Michelle Russell: There are a couple of them like that. [14:57] Casey Gale: Very dramatic. [14:58] Michelle Russell: Yeah. [15:00] Casey Gale: I just like Maggie and Jen have said, I feel like the author kind of has a faulty premise here. I was also a bit surprised that he mentioned remote gatherings are becoming more standard and that's a reason why convention centers aren't doing as much business. I just based on the people we speak with, that's not true at all. Most of them do not have the, either the funding or the staffing to run hybrid conferences. It's very difficult to run a digital and in person event at the same time. And most planners really don't want to go all digital if they can. They want it to be in person and have been doing so, you know, since partway through the pandemic. As soon as we were able to meet again, people were meeting again. So I think that's kind of another faulty premise for this article. Michelle. [15:56] Michelle Russell: I found it ironic that it's the New York Times and they didn't have to. They should have looked at the Javits center because that to me is a really shining example of a convention center that has become more a part of the community and has a green roof. And now there's a subway stop there. It used to be when you went to the Javits center, you had a hard time finding a cab because it was just sort of this like pocket of New York City that was empty. But now there's a whole community that's been built up around it and they've done things to help to Barbara's point about being green. So the green roof and then also their windows used to be. Is where birds would go to die. They would just crash into those windows and they changed all of the windows so that, that, that doesn't happen anymore. So like they could have looked in their own backyard, these writers. Because I do think the Javits center is just a shining example. [16:55] Barbara Palmer: It's also connected to the High Line, which is this urban park that's built on abandoned freight lines that used to take all the freight into the meatpacking district. And it is just wonderful packed place to not only just enjoy the art and the greenery on the pathway itself, but, you know, every few blocks there's a way down. You can go to Chelsea, you can go all the way down to the meat packing district. It goes to art museums and, you know, so I think it. That's really, really good example of evolution. [17:40] Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah. And as a person who grew up with a convention center right in the center of my city, I've always had it as part of, you know, I've seen it as part of the community. There's always things happening there for the community and not only big events. And also now in new parts of the city we have new convention centers popping up and they're really revitalizing those parts of the city. They're making them matter and we see a lot of new things popping around them just because first of all, the convention center was built there. So it's really. Yeah. A narrow point of view for this author of the article. And I hope they actually get to hear our podcast and rethink their next write up of a story. [18:32] Michelle Russell: Yes. [18:34] Barbara Palmer: Come on and talk about it with us. [18:36] Michelle Russell: Yeah. [18:36] Magdalina Atanassova: Yeah, exactly. Thank you all for the great discussion. As usual. You'll find all the links in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, do give us a five star review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts for more industry insights. Visit pcma.org/convene. Stay inspired. Keep inspiring. And until next time.