Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

KC topics that don't fit anywhere else.
earthling
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by earthling »

DaveKCMO wrote:new visitKC video targeting meeting planners with streetcar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjoCyyD ... ZdSjXud6AN
The free to use streetcar is great on many levels including essentially tying together all the hotels along the stretch. It may cause hotels to build along the stretch rather than huddle within walking distance of convention district. Building up that dependency could crash if streetcar no longer free. How realistic is it that streetcar will be free to use long term?
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by DaveKCMO »

Very realistic. The downtown TDD can accommodate it for eternity, assuming the world local economy doesn't collapse or the price or labor/electricity doesn't skyrocket overnight. The extension TDD could also accommodate it.

It's worth noting that there isn't event a provision for charging a fare on the downtown line, so even if someone wanted it tomorrow (which they don't) you'd have to procure and build the capability (which would probably take a year).
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by earthling »

Sounds good. Hopefully any extension doesn't require fare to maintain operation, would certainly be unusual as other streetcar systems go.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by flyingember »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:From a KC Business Journal article:
SkillsUSA ended a 21-year run in Kansas City in 2014. The conference, which was Kansas City's biggest, decided to move its convention elsewhere due to lack of space and accommodations.

Plus:
And from the following site:
http://www.skillsusa.org/about/louisville.shtml

?Our national conference and SkillsUSA Championships is the nation?s biggest and best showcase for career and technical education students and the skilled work force it prepares. We have an obligation to our members and sponsors to keep it growing,? said Tim Lawrence, executive director of SkillsUSA. ?We look forward to being back in Louisville. As we plan for our continued growth, we know we will need larger convention facilities and over 6,000 hotel rooms nearby. Louisville meets those needs
Maybe they're not the best example. Not a lot of conventions plan to grow dramatically in a few years to need to have available 1 million more square feet. Eventually they're going to be stuck to the big markets for conventions.

But we will hit a room number barrier before a space barrier for most we could gain.
There's room for 30k people worth of events downtown and only around 3500 rooms today. Even doubling up that's 4x capacity. And that would require the convention to buy up every room and impact tourism.

It looks like the hotel building scale up is going to be limited only by our ability to get conventions. I could imagine Visit KC having a system where they identify people wanting to build hotels in KC and a convention willing to commit to come if they can get big blocks of rooms. Give this hotel operator an exclusive for the convention's business up to X rooms and the convention signs a contract with KC in coordination with the hotel construction. So if the hotel will be open in 2019 the convention relocates starting in that year. I could imagine a hotel needing 4-5 of these deals to begin construction and KC works to fill them. Basically KC plays the part to help get good deals for everyone involved.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

Conventions want a sure thing when they book. They don't want to wait until there are enough commitments by others for a hotel in order to actually book. And the convention center doesn't want to tentatively hold space in case another convention opportunity comes along. Many of the large conventions book at least 5 years out. Walmart was an exception since they came in January which is usually a dead time for convention centers.
If conventions booked KC expecting to use a new convention hotel they would be in a big crunch time now. Conventions at least want to have ground broken for a hotel before booking convention center space. They don't book based on promises.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by flyingember »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:Conventions want a sure thing when they book. They don't want to wait until there are enough commitments by others for a hotel in order to actually book. And the convention center doesn't want to tentatively hold space in case another convention opportunity comes along. Many of the large conventions book at least 5 years out. Walmart was an exception since they came in January which is usually a dead time for convention centers.
If conventions booked KC expecting to use a new convention hotel they would be in a big crunch time now. Conventions at least want to have ground broken for a hotel before booking convention center space. They don't book based on promises.
That's funny, because I wasn't being hypothetical. We covered this already in the convention hotel thread.
There's clearly a model where demand an precede a hotel to show that the model can be changed if done right.
Do you think a convention would say no to a discount when booking a hotel that doesn't yet exist in exchange for the risk. Many certainly would.

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... -2020.html
This convention is the city’s largest booking in terms of room nights so far for 2020. The last time the Shriners held their Imperial Session here was in 1976. The Shriners acknowledged that the plans for the new Hyatt convention hotel helped Kansas City secure their return.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... 12876.html

I won't argue all four in the article but clearly some conventions look outwards more than a few years and when a hotel can be built well before a certain date it becomes an option.
The American Association for Laboratory Animal Science will hold its national meeting here in 2021, with about 4,500 attendees projected. This is the first time the group has selected Kansas City for its convention.

The organization “short-listed” the city once the convention center hotel was announced this spring, according to Visit KC’s announcement.

“As I’ve said before, the convention hotel is a game changer,” said Ronnie Burt, Visit KC’s president and chief executive. “Usually, this type of interest doesn’t happen until the shovel is in the ground.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business ... rylink=cpy
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

The convention hotel was, at least at the time, pretty much a sure thing in that it was announced it was going to be built. That is quite different than what you proposed, that is having one convention make a commitment to come and then the hotel developers waiting until the other 4 or 5 conventions are on board before actually making the decision to build which could be a year or more out. An announcement to build is much different than maybe it will or maybe it won't. We should be able to start building soon as opposed to we don't know when we will start, it just depends on when we can more conventions to sign up. In other words the decision to build was not dependent on conventions signing on ahead of time.
Having an additional 800 room hotel won't make that much of a difference for conventions that size. The current inventory of hotels can easily accommodate them.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by FangKC »

Visit KC says the city’s improvements show in convention bookings
...
Visit KC said that, in the first half of this year, it booked 17 major conventions for future years. The bookings are estimated to be worth more than $174 million to the area economy, according to a release.
...
Kansas City will get a chance to show off the new Loews Kansas City Hotel and other downtown improvements when the National League of Cities has its City Summit here in 2022, an event expected to bring 4,000 attendees and generate 15,500 hotel room nights.

Alex Tisch, executive vice president of commercial and business development for Loews Hotels & Co. recently told the Business Journal that the company’s Kansas City property is generating more business interest than he’s ever seen for a project at this stage of its life cycle.
...
https://tinyurl.com/ybpt4zxs
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by FangKC »

Visit KC Reports Big Uptick in Bookings at Bartle Hall
Bookings at Bartle Hall are up 56 percent from the previous year, an encouraging trend as downtown prepares to check in more than 2,400 new hotel rooms over the next couple years.

At its annual Tourism Outlook 2019 meeting last week, Visit KC’s new president and CEO Jason Fulvi estimated the 295 total meetings booked by his organization in 2018 will add $330 million to the local economy.
...
In its 2018 annual report, Visit KC said the 295 meetings booked last year were up 11.7 percent from 2017. Those meeting will generate 444,763 room nights, up 16.5 percent from 2017.

The report said 53 of those meetings were booked for Bartle Hall, up 56 percent from the previous year. The number of room nights associated with those bookings was 329,274, up 35 percent from 2017.
...
https://cityscenekc.com/visit-kc-report ... rtle-hall/
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by normalthings »

NFL is expected to announce hosts for 2021-2023 NFL Drafts later today. A few articles mention KC as a top choice.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by KCPowercat »

While best I still can't fathom people traveling for that event. Seems like a local only your of thing.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by flyingember »

KCPowercat wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 7:12 am While best I still can't fathom people traveling for that event. Seems like a local only your of thing.
I decided to find out what the turnout would be and found this. Even if it's local only, watch the video.

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1121604 ... ba6191f2e6

I would call it yet another event that could draw people from surrounding counties to come downtown who might not otherwise.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by KCPowercat »

Yeah we all saw Nashville attendance at the draft. Don't expect that here.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by kcjak »

KCPowercat wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 10:09 am Yeah we all saw Nashville attendance at the draft. Don't expect that here.
Why not? This event has been growing since it moved out of NYC, and I bet there will be just as many people in Vegas next year. If reports are true and Cleveland gets it in 2021, there are six teams within a couple hours' drive and likely another big crowd. If KC gets it in 2022 after three years of large crowds and major buzz, there's no reason not to expect large crowds to show up.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by KCPowercat »

Because Nashville is the south party City now and Vegas is Vegas.

Did you see those people standing a half mile back in Nashville streets? Why? There is nothing to watch or do. I can't imagine going to this and I love the NFL
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by kcjak »

And given your opinion, you don't think anyone would've gone to Nashville because you wouldn't want to go? Probably half the people who would attend the draft party are solely interested in the party and not the actual draft. And yet there are plenty of opportunities in KC for fan fest-type activities at Union Station or Bartle, concerts or jazz bands throughout downtown and the Crossroads, etc.

I'd rather watch the World Cup at home with a few friends but I can still see the appeal of people (many of whom may not even care about soccer) wanting to be part of the party atmosphere watching at P&L.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by KCPowercat »

I can see people going because it's an excuse to party in Nashville. We don't have that atmosphere here so the draw has to be more the event which isn't even bearable on tv.

The planned location for day 1 is Liberty memorial front lawn. Not quite Nashville's Broadway.

Hey I've been wrong before and I'm happy to have it tried in KC I can just see a scenario where it's pretty much a dud here and not the best look for KC.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by normalthings »

Kansas City was selected as the preferred host of the 2023 NFL Draft. Announcement coming this afternoon after the official vote.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by KC_JAYHAWK »

KC won't have the turnout Nashville did and like KCP stated, KC just isn't a party town like Vegas, NO or Nashville. I wouldn't want that vibe downtown all the time anyway. Can you image if our Broadway street was lined with bars for 8-10 blocks...that would be a nightmare and I'm guessing a lot of people that choose to live downtown, probably wouldn't if it was a constant party spot.
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Re: Bringing Conventions to Kansas City

Post by bobbyhawks »

KC_JAYHAWK wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 2:07 pm KC won't have the turnout Nashville did and like KCP stated, KC just isn't a party town like Vegas, NO or Nashville. I wouldn't want that vibe downtown all the time anyway. Can you image if our Broadway street was lined with bars for 8-10 blocks...that would be a nightmare and I'm guessing a lot of people that choose to live downtown, probably wouldn't if it was a constant party spot.
Someone needs to get a few surface parking lots onboard (which hopefully there are less of by 2023) and invite folks for an American Royal-esque BBQ/tailgate event associated with the draft. People would absolutely travel from all over for that (the world's largest non-football season tailgate or something).
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