Going the Distance 5-1-2008

Olympic legacy: Atlanta’s
Olympic Park, adjacent to
the city’s convention center,
continues to be a popular
spot for special events.

While all major convention destinations have sports facilities available for off-site gatherings, when it comes to meetings business, some cities have used athletics more strategically than others.

In Los Angeles, for example, the addition of the Staples Center arena instantly enabled the city to capture high-profile events, such as the Democratic National Convention in 2000, and its success has paved the way for the rest of the L.A. Live entertainment district, now a major asset to the convention complex.

St. Louis leverages its NFL stadium as auxiliary exhibition space for its adjacent convention center and uses other stadiums to lure groups. Even in smaller cities, such as Providence, R.I., which has connected its convention center to the neighboring sports arena, and Hampton, Va., which is adding a new sports complex with meeting space, sales teams are focusing on sporting events or meetings to pad the convention calendar.

But for the following four cities, sporting events or venues are not simply added amenities but, rather, key pieces of a larger strategy to grow convention and meetings business and the local economy as a whole.

Sportingevents like the annual
Cheersportcompetition and
associated meetings helped
Atlanta rebound after Sept. 11, 2001.

ATLANTA

The 1996 Olympics were invaluable to the city of Atlanta, for both the development the games spurred and the awareness they generated, says Bob Schuler, vice president of sales and services for the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau: “We called ourselves the capital of the South, but I don’t think that really fit until we hosted the Olympics.”

As did Lake Placid, N.Y., and Salt Lake City, two other Olympic hosts, Atlanta experienced a development boom in the run-up to the games, particularly in the hotel sector, that subsequently has benefited convention business and sparked additional development downtown. The games “left a great legacy and inspired Atlanta to take advantage of the many new stadiums, downtown improvements and transportation projects that were required to host a prestigious event,” says Mark Vaughan, executive vice president of the CVB. Today, for example, Centennial Olympic Park, at the east end of the convention center campus, continues to be a popular venue for special events, from black-tie affairs to barbecues.

But Atlanta’s strategic use of sports goes beyond the Olympics. The city is one of a select few in the United States that has a professional football stadium directly adjacent to its convention center, capable of serving as overflow exhibition space or as a general session venue for large events. The proximity strategically positions Atlanta to attract major sporting events that have associated meetings or public events and that require convention center space, thus boosting the center’s bookings.

The Georgia World Congress Center Authority, which operates both the convention center and the Georgia Dome, currently is finishing up a $43 million renovation project at the stadium, which was sidetracked temporarily in March by storms that caused some damage.

Atlanta also used sports as a lifeline after 9/11, as part of its plan to target business unaffected by the slowdown in corporate travel. The directive to book amateur sporting events allowed the CVB to net the Cheersport National Cheerleading and Dance Championship in 2002, and the event has remained in the city ever since. Hosting 30,000 young competitors also does public relations work for the bureau: No official marketing campaign speaks any more convincingly to the city’s safety, Schuler notes. And, he believes, the young athletes’ fathers and mothers, who have been exposed to Atlanta’s meeting product as a result of the competition, have encouraged their companies and organizations to book meetings in the city. Free media coverage doesn’t hurt, either.

“Anyone out there who is not putting the sports arena -- amateur, collegiate or professional -- at the top of their marketing efforts is missing a great opportunity,” Schuler says.

Atlanta sports venues:
Centennial Olympic Park, www.centennialpark.com
Georgia Dome, www.gadome.com
Philips Arena, www.philipsarena.com

Beyond ball fields:
Charlotte’s sports venues
include the U.S. National
Whitewater Center.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Sports are so tightly integrated with Charlotte’s meetings business that NASCAR is expanding the Charlotte Convention Center. When the NASCAR Hall of Fame opens there in 2010, it will include a 44,000-square-foot ballroom connected to the existing convention center, plus other galleries that can be rented by groups. The extra space not only gives groups more venue options, but it allows Charlotte to land conventions that otherwise would be too big for the convention center. Already, the National Rifle Association (spring 2010) and the National Sheriffs’ Association (summer 2013) have booked future meetings in Charlotte as a result of the planned NASCAR facilities.

On the connection of sports to conventions, Jeff Hewitt, the senior director of sales for Visit Charlotte, the city’s CVB, says, “It’s pervasive, it’s part of who we are.”

The planned addition of the
NASCAR Hall of Fame, attached to the
Charlotte Convention Center,
already has helped Charlotte
land big meetings.

The Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which runs the CVB, also operates the convention center, the 20,000-seat Charlotte Bobcats Arena and the 10,500-seat Cricket Arena, and the agency will manage the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Groups using any combination of those facilities will receive one master account for their meeting.

Visit Charlotte has leveraged its unusual mix of sports offerings to lure meetings. Bentley Systems Inc., based in Exton, Pa., for example, booked a leadership event at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway after the company’s meeting planner attended a familiarization trip with a sports focus two years ago. (In fact, the sports-and-meetings FAM proved so successful, the CVB intends to make the trip a continuing element of its marketing efforts.) For private groups, the Speedway can arrange driving or other racing-related activities for attendees.

Richmond Heights, Mo.-based Panera Bread was attracted to Charlotte recently because of the U.S. National Whitewater Center, which has a manmade river with rapids for rafting, canoeing or kayaking, rock-climbing facilities, and 11 miles of trails for running, hiking or biking. An official U.S. Olympic training site, the center has a 500-seat outdoor amphitheater, multiple areas for tented events along the river and a 2,400-square-foot conference center for groups. The center is both a workplace and a playground.

Hewitt says Charlotte’s more traditional sports facilities have helped the city’s convention business by hosting major religious conferences that meet at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena and fill up dozens of hotels throughout the city.

Combined, the sports offerings bring exposure to Charlotte, which helps the convention sales pitch. “We recognize that a lot of people out there really don’t know our destination,” Hewitt explains. Sports are “a great way for people to get a feel for the total destination.”

Charlotte sports venues:
Lowe’s Motor Speedway, www.lowesmotorspeedway.com
NASCAR Hall of Fame, www.nascarhalloffame.com
U.S. National Whitewater Center, www.usnwc.org

In tow: The NCAA moved its offices, meetings and the Hall of Champions, above, to Indy.

INDIANAPOLIS

Perhaps no city has been as visionary as Indianapolis when it comes to recognizing the reciprocity of sports and conventions. “The city’s hosting of the Indianapolis 500 every year showed people here in the community and showed corporate and political powers that bringing people to Indianapolis for sporting events had short-term benefits and long-term economic development implications,” says Robert Bedell, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association, who will retire next month.

In 1979, the not-for-profit Indiana Sports Corp. was formed and lobbied successfully to build a football stadium connected to the Indiana Convention Center, even before the city had an NFL tenant. When combined with the convention center, the Hoosier Dome (which opened in 1984 and was later renamed the RCA Dome) more than doubled the amount of available exhibit space, instantly transforming Indianapolis from a small-time meetings destination into a player for national groups.

Indianapolis also set out to become the country’s amateur sports capital, building sports complexes and convincing sports organizations to relocate their headquarters to the city, which, in turn, brought more meetings to town. The crowning achievement of the initiative was snaring the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which opened its headquarters here in 1999. As part of the agreement to relocate, the NCAA promised to hold half of its annual committee meetings locally. Additionally, the NCAA pledged to hold, on average, one major basketball tournament or its annual convention in Indianapolis every year from 2011 to 2039 -- a major boon to convention business, because several groups hold meetings in conjunction with the tournaments. As an added benefit, the NCAA also opened a Hall of Champions museum, which groups can rent for special events.

Other associations followed the NCAA’s lead, including Black Coaches and Administrators, which had never held a meeting in Indianapolis but booked its annual convention in the city five times in the first eight years after relocating. Indianapolis is now home to two dozen sports-related organizations, which Bedell says are a key market segment for downtown hotels.

Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium,
due to open this summer,
will have 43,000 square feet
of dedicated, field-level exhibit space.

The sports and meetings connection continues to strengthen. Late this summer, the city will open the $700 million Lucas Oil Stadium, connected to the convention center complex. The new football stadium will include 43,000 square feet of dedicated exhibit space for trade shows and events. The old football stadium is being converted into an expansion of the convention center. All told, when construction is complete in 2010, the new complex will have more than 1 million square feet of meeting and exhibit space. Four new hotels, including a 1,000-room JW Marriott, are being constructed as well.

“The sporting events Indianapolis has hosted over the years are just part of the mix,” Bedell says of his meetings strategy. “But it’s been a large part of how downtown development has come together.”

Indianapolis sports venues:
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com
Lucas Oil Stadium, www.in.gov/iscba
NCAA Hall of Champions,www.ncaa.org/hall_of_champions

Games and growth:
All three of the
Salt Palace’s expansions
in the past 12 years have
been driven by sports.

SALT LAKE CITY

Any group that has enjoyed meeting at the Salt Palace Convention Center in the past dozen years has sports to thank. Two of the past three times the center has expanded, in 1996 and again in 2006, the reason has been to satisfy the needs of Outdoor Retailer, a biannual Nielsen Business Media trade show of outdoor sports products and apparel. The two Outdoor Retailer markets draw nearly 40,000 people each year, or about a quarter of the total attendance at Salt Lake City’s citywide conventions in 2007.

The other Salt Palace expansion was motivated by the 2002 Winter Olympics, which also spurred hotel development and the creation of nearby Utah Olympic Park and Utah Olympic Oval, which continue to attract groups.

The convention center’s growth has enabled the facility to attract large, nonsports-related business that otherwise wouldn’t have fit, including Rotary International, which was displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Kenji Haroutunian, show director for Outdoor Retailer, says he believes Salt Lake City has the greatest wealth of outdoor sports -- skiing, hiking, climbing and watersports -- within striking distance of downtown of any city in the country, of central importance to his members as well as other meetings.

Becoming an outdoor sports
mecca has helped Utah’s
meetings business.

“The state of Utah and greater Salt Lake have very aggressive plans to make Utah the center of the universe for outdoor sports,” Haroutunian says. The recreational opportunities are a major reason Outdoor Retailer stakeholders have decided to keep the show in Salt Lake at least through 2010, despite the fact that the event has, once again, outgrown the convention center. The summer version of the show now uses exhibit space at an adjacent sports arena, the EnergySolutions Center, and some other temporary structures.

Another reason the show is staying in Salt Lake -- and motivating the city’s devotion to its organizers -- is the fact that many key exhibitors have opened up corporate offices locally, in large part as a result of the event. The influx of the likes of Black Diamond Equipment, Peregrine Outfitters, Rossignol and Salomon USA has lifted the local economy and added to the overall number of meetings the city attracts.

The Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau is so committed to the sports market segment that it has hired a salesperson jointly with the Utah Sports Commission, Jason Badell, specifically to secure athletics-related meetings, conventions, and events that bring in visitors and generate publicity for the city. But a larger goal is to compound the impact of the sporting events by growing convention business overall.

“People associated with sports are maybe involved with a medical group or a cultural group,” Badell says. “They come here once and love it, and they want to come back again.”

Salt Lake City sports venues:
EnergySolutions Arena, www.energysolutionsarena.com
Utah Olympic Oval, in Kearns, Utah, www.olyparks.com
Utah Olympic Park, in Park City, Utah, www.olyparks.com