The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Gene Hallman needs to read this article:

<a href='http://www.hotel-online.com/News/2005_May_04/k.FWC.1115314365.html' target='_blank'>Convention business is declining but cities keep on expanding</a>

Quote from article:

Quote:Heywood T. Sanders, a professor in the department of public administration at the University of Texas-San Antonio, authored the study.

He has spent 25 years studying convention centers' impacts on municipalities.

"I have seen a large number of communities that have expanded their centers or have built entirely new facilities in recent years and not seen anything close to the anticipated and forecast new convention and trade show attendance," Sanders said in a phone interview. "And I don't anticipate that Fort Wayne would be the notable exception to that."

Here are some other things I found about conventions:

Quote:Steven Hacker: Visitors want a complete experience, when their work day is done they want something they can sample in the way of unique and usually colorful local environment. That means different things in different places. In New Orleans it means extraordinary food and cool jazz, in New York it means a Broadway show, in Miami it might mean a night in South Beach, you can go on and on.

<a href='http://www.wcpn.org/news/2003/04-06/0603convention_marketing.html' target='_blank'>Convention Center Marketing</a>

and here is some more:

Quote:Convention centers are a weird business because they hinge not on normal forces of supply and demand but on how much local governments want to sink into subsidizing them. Only a handful ever repay the massive taxpayer investments to build them. Nonetheless, 21 new convention centers are projected to open by 2006 while 87 more are expanded.

"Suddenly every city in America has decided they're not big league unless they have a big convention center," said Bill Peeper, president and chief executive of the Orlando/Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau. "So we face a glut of new space when growth of this industry even before the recession was flat at best."

Quote:It's part of the economic development strategy many cities use to invigorate their downtowns. Convention centers are supposed to spawn new hotels, bring new money to town and create new hotel, restaurant, transportation and event catering jobs.

But with so many cities playing, it's now a zero sum game. Experts see many cities stuck with white elephants.

"City after city claims it has no money to fix roads and sewers but has no trouble finding money for stadiums, arenas and convention centers," said Heywood Sanders, a University of Texas professor who studies such municipal amenities. "Convention centers rarely generate enough money to run them, much less pay any debt service. It's all a false market subsidized by the local government to create the illusion of a healthy and vital downtown real estate market. Yet as the convention industry gets worse and worse, these cities invariably will expand their centers because they fear losing market share."

The squeeze is worst in the second-tier markets where Tampa wants to stay a player. "The market today is atrocious," said Norwood Smith, head of convention sales for the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Some cities have lost business without even the chance of a counteroffer."

The quote from Bill Peeper fits the Birmingham mindset correctly.

Here is a link to the article:

<a href='http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/03/Business/Keeping_pace_on_conve.shtml' target='_blank'>Keeping pace on convention space</a>

Here is the link to a full-report on the convention business. It was published in Jan 2005. The link to the report is under the report title on the main page for the link below. It's in PDF format. Very good read.

<a href='http://www.brook.edu/metro/pubs/20050117_conventioncenters.htm' target='_blank'>Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy</a>

Here is a summary:

Quote:Executive Summary
To cities the lure of the convention business has long been the prospect of visitors emptying their wallets on meals, lodging, and entertainment, helping to rejuvenate ailing downtowns.

However, an examination of the convention business and city and state spending on host venues finds that:


The overall convention marketplace is declining in a manner that suggests that a recovery or turnaround is unlikely to yield much increased business for any given community, contrary to repeated industry projections. Moreover this decline began prior to the disruptions of 9-11 and is exacerbated by advances in communications technology. Currently, overall attendance at the 200 largest tradeshow events languishes at 1993 levels.


Nonetheless, localities, sometimes with state assistance, have continued a type of arms race with competing cities to host these events, investing massive amounts of capital in new convention center construction and expansion of existing facilities. Over the past decade alone, public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, increasing convention space by over 50 percent since 1990. Nationwide, 44 new or expanded convention centers are now in planning or construction.


Faced with increased competition, many cities spend more money on additional convention amenities, like publicly-financed hotels to serve as convention "headquarters." Another competitive response has been to offer deep discounts to tradeshow groups. Despite dedicated taxes to pay off the public bonds issued to build convention centers, many—including Washington, D.C and St. Louis—operate at a loss.

This analysis should give local leaders pause as they consider calls for ever more public investment into the convention business, while weighing simultaneously where else scarce public funds could be spent to boost the urban economy.

If DC and STL are operating at a loss with all they bring in then how bad do you think Birmingham will be in the loss column?

If you look to the right on the main page for this report you will see other links with a wealth of information on revitalizing downtowns, conventions, etc.

I agree with what I've read in your posts. It's extremely hard to turn a profit on convention centers and domes, unless it's in a place that's highly attractive to tourism. In most cases, they're what the industry calls a "white elephant" that will be a pricey burden for the local taxpayers.

Very good point, Sarahbelle18 - and Birmingham is NOT even close to being "highly attractive to tourism."

No one has yet convinced me that this is a wise use of public resources.

Consider all the things that, if they were repaired or improved, would also bring revenue to the city/county.

Hotpatch some the craters on University Blvd or 20th street.

Develop a functional mass transit system.

Clean/repair school buildings and facilities.

Properly equip law enforcement agencies.

I could go on.

If city/county/state gov't has the money for a domed stadium, it should do these things first.

Also, keep in mind that the civic center has never turned a profit, not even for one year. Currently the civic center is running at nearly a 12 million dollar annual deficit, a deficit that is covered by the city. That’s 12 million dollars a year that is taken from roads, from schools, from police and fire departments. These same people want an additional 30 million dollars a year for the next 30 years. Assuming that they meet their own pipe dream estimates and can run the dome in the black (something they have never been able to do with the civic center) then you are still looking at nearly 1.3 billion dollars in tax dollars spent on the thing over 30 years. The beauty of it is that the people who will be pocketing this money are on the radio saying "The civic center runs in the black, so will the dome. That’s because the city knows that the civic center will lose money and so budgets for it. This lets the Civic center count the nearly 12 million they are getting from the city as part of their operating budget and come back at the end of the year saying "See, we finished 200,000 in the black last year!"

Smaug, when you consider the fact that they didn't even have enough in the budget to run the police, fire and public safety departments for the last six months of the fiscal year, there are a lot of other things that should be the focus right now.


Wow, the Civic Center has to be subsidized? Don't tell the UA Board of Trustees. They'll have "Black Friday II" and try to shut them down.

It's kinda like the captain of the Titanic, upon seeing the icy water lapping over the deck, saying, "You know what this tub needs? A shiny new bell!"