Las Vegas is betting on fairs to inspire revival

Thousands will flock down to Las Vegas next week, a city synonymous with overly hedonistic, to watch the cement dry.

Steve Hill attended his first World of Concrete event almost 40 years ago, but he has never been more excited than a fair. It’s not just about watching the latest mixer trucks or watching concrete finishing competitions; is that WOC 2021 will mark the return of conventions to a city on whose economy it depends and to an industry struggling to replicate its online attractions.

After decades in the ready-mixed concrete industry, Hill is now the executive director of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority, the body responsible for attracting visitors to the Nevada Games Center and the owner of the convention center that will host the directed program. by Informa. .

Last year, as the coronavirus closed casinos and showrooms, the total number of visitors to Las Vegas fell 55 percent to 19 million. However, although employment in the Strip has doubled since January to two-thirds of the usual level, the LVCVA has recorded the number of convention attendees at zero or “unavailable” each month since ‘April last year.

That is about to change. Las Vegas lifted restrictions on large meetings on June 1, and with more than 40% of the U.S. population fully vaccinated, event organizers who have spent the past 14 months struggling with online conferences feel safe enough to resume face-to-face trade fairs.

“The recovery has come faster than we would have thought or even expected,” Hill says. With few international visitors flying to Las Vegas and the event being delayed to the busiest time in the construction industry, attendance at WOC 2021 will almost certainly be below the usual 60,000 people, but it will be a first major show on a pipeline that Hill describes as surprisingly. fort.

After the Las Vegas Convention Center used the pandemic downtime to complete an extension of $ 989 million, the Hill venue now has more leased square space than ever for the year beginning July 1st. The planned events range from the nightclub and Bar Show later this month to the Water Quality Association convention in July.

Each will import into Nevada, which estimates the agreements contribute $ 11.5 billion in a normal year to a state with a gross domestic product of about $ 178 billion and to the best-known city, where the unemployment rate is 9%. second only in Los Angeles of the 50 major metropolitan areas.

Pre-pandemic, Las Vegas could count on leisure travelers occupying its casinos above 95% most weekends, but it relied on convention attendees to keep its 150,000 hotel rooms full on weekdays.

Hervé Sedky, chief executive of the Emerald events group, has planned 90 events for August, almost all in Las Vegas. From Pizza Expo to the Antique Jewelry and Clock Show, they will represent the largest number of events in the company’s history, he says, although attendees run between one-third and one-half of their pre-pandemic level. .

Las Vegas has followed the example of Florida and Texas, “which really never closed completely,” Sedky notes, and its reopening has encouraged it to follow other cities like Chicago and New York.

Manhattan’s Javits Center, considered the busiest convention center in the United States, became a Covid-19 patient field hospital last spring and has recently become the city’s largest vaccination site. However, in August he plans to re-organize events.

Cities ’eagerness to reopen at fairs reflects their need to stimulate economies torn down by the pandemic, Sedky argues. “Eighty percent more [our] customers are small businesses. . . Not having a fair is really problematic for them. As we think about reopening the economy, it’s important that these companies do business again, ”he says.

We had three people debating whether to wear the mask: we threw them away

Organizers like Informa and Emerald moved many of their events online last year to try to keep this business alive, but “virtual exhibits honestly don’t give the kind of value our customers are looking for,” admits Sedky.

According to him, the informative content of the virtual shows has been relatively well received, but “the part about the online reproduction of the fair does not work. I’ts horrible.”

Emerald plunged his finger into the waters of face-to-face events in January, with a show in Orlando, Florida, for the surfing industry. Attendance was about half what it had been before the Covid-19, but exhibitors gave him brilliant reviews, reporting that it produced important orders.

The 3,500 buyers who showed up “weren’t so happy,” Sedky admits, “His complaint was that there wasn’t enough to see.”

These experiments have allowed the industry to perfect security protocols that will reassure guests who are still nervous about the risk of infection.

Surf Expo had plexiglass screens in the cabins, a no-handshake policy, and health and safety “ambassadors” applying a zero-tolerance mask policy, Sedky recalls: “We had three people debating whether to wear the mask. : we threw them out “.

The local Hill has similarly introduced contactless registration and will present food differently, he says, although several nearby casinos have restarted the law firms that are synonymous with Vegas. However, World of Concrete 2021 will not require attendees to be vaccinated.

The pandemic hit the finances of many of the largest companies in the industry. Event revenue from RELX, the owner of Reed Exhibitions, fell from £ 1.3 billion to £ 362 million last year.

But Reed dit last month, the vast majority of its customers had launched their reservations for 2020 through 2021, and in March it attracted nearly 3,000 buyers and 170 exhibitors at the Miami Beach Jewelers International Showcase, 10% above normal levels. .

One pattern that is already emerging is that travel restrictions mean that national shows in the U.S. and elsewhere work better than those that depend on international visitors.

This dynamic is also driving a faster recovery of the Las Vegas tourism business, Hill says: with so few Americans flying overseas, more of them are taking breaks in Las Vegas. The number of visitors driving to the city to play, instead of flying, is now higher than it was in 2019, he notes.

With unemployment still so high in a city that is disproportionately dependent on visitors, Las Vegas is now stepping up efforts to withdraw more by announcing the risky escape with which the city has long provoked players and conference attendees. .

A new ad campaign published on U.S. television networks euphemistically invites visitors to adopt “the adult freedom that only Las Vegas can offer.”