Big show's return to Philly brings big smiles to the Convention Center
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm. It was like that on Monday at the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, where all conventions are equal, but some - Lightfair International, for example, - are more significant than others.
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"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm.
It was like that on Monday at the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, where all conventions are equal, but some - Lightfair International, for example, - are more significant than others.
Why Lightfair?
Because Lightfair, which announced Monday that it is bringing its show, with 29,900 attendees, to Philadelphia in 2017, was once dissatisfied with the Pennsylvania Convention Center's high labor costs. The show stands as a symbol of what the center had to lose and what it stands to gain.
"Getting a big piece of business is wonderful," said Jack Ferguson, chief executive of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau (PCVB).
"Getting a big business to return after being totally dissatisfied is just phenomenal," he said, and then, for emphasis, adding, "just phenomenal, just phenomenal."
Exhibitors and attendees will spend at least 25,000 nights in hotels during the show in May 2017 and generate $43 million in economic development, the bureau estimates.
For years, the PCVB had struggled, unsuccessfully, to woo Lightfair International, one of the world's largest architectural and commercial lighting shows, to Philadelphia.
New York had a lock on odd years, when Lightfair held its East Coast shows.
Then, in 2011, Philadelphia lured Lightfair here, and it returned in 2013.
"Our 2013 experience there was positive and productive," Lightfair official Jeffrey Portman said in Monday's news release announcing the group's 2017 convention in Philadelphia.
That's what the news release says, but after Lightfair's 2013 show here, "they were taking a pass on Philadelphia," returning to New York, said John McNichol, the Convention Center's chief executive.
A report by the show's producer comparing costs between Lightfair's show in 2009 in New York and its 2011 show in Philadelphia provides a clue to Lightfair's discontent.
In square footage, Philadelphia's 2011 show was 15 percent larger than New York's 2009 show. But it took 51 percent more worker-hours here to install and dismantle the show - 19,723 here compared with 13,055 in New York.
"Lightfair was one of the customers that shed a light on the problems at the Convention Center," McNichol said.
Since then, there have been significant changes at the center. Professional management was brought in, union work rules were simplified, and the carpenters' union - the source of some animosity at the center - lost the right to work there.
Center and PCVB officials have been on overdrive to lure conventions back to the center, which had been underperforming and losing business.
They have been selling a less hassled and less-expensive meeting spot in a city already popular with convention-goers because of its walkability and the proximity of hotels to the center.
To them, landing Lightfair is proof that their sales effort is working and that word is getting out about changes at the Convention Center.
Lightfair "is truly one of the Rolls-Royces of conventions," Ferguson said. "When they turn around and say they are coming back, it is like the seal of approval that we are ready for prime time."
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