All posters are advised to read and memorize Janet’s posts, because they best reflect the reality of the convention marketplace. Yes, airport, etc., also matter, but OKC has a great airport–now.

Also, the city could never get private enterprise to build a hotel next to the convention building because it is not busy every day and its location is remote.

The convention industry is incredibly competetive. The ways you rise to the top in that cutthroat business are straightforward:

1) Build a space that functions well inside (nobody is currently debating here what makes for a good INSIDE, so we won’t go there)

2) Build on a location that gives convention-goers the easiest-possible route to and from the other places they will be, ie their hotels and quality dining/entertainment. We already have ready-made downtown hotels and entertainment, and are highly competetive in those areas. Currently, we also have a high-quality walkable location from the convention center to them. This allows our CVB to get bookings it probably would otherwise have no shot at, considering the inadequate building they are working with.

In other words, the walkable nature of the curent location makes us surprisingly competetive.

The people who book conventions place a very high priority on the convention facility, the hotels, and dining/entertainment being WALKABLE to each other. Providing this connectivity puts you at the head of the class for bookings. Not doing so means you drop off quickly and everything else (lack of direct flights, etc.) are looked at with that much more of a critical eye.

People flying in for conferences and conventions would prefer to avoid car rental, taxi fares, motorcoach rental, and other items dictated by a poorly located convention center. They don’t WANT a parking lot. They don’t want to park at all, or if they do, they want to park at their hotel and walk.

We now have a chance to build a convention center the way it is SUPPOSED to be built. Perhaps we shouldn’t squander this opportunity because of priorities that have NOTHING to do with maximizing the success of the convention industry.

Again, if you’re not going to build it right, why build it at all?

It matters not if we have corny bells and whistles, stick it in the middle of our downtown, next to a pretty park, or demolish all of downtown for a huge parking lot for the convention-goers. Those are not strategic considerations, they are SIDETRACKS. And when it comes to the convention industry, I think you can trust me, Janet.

Money spent by the visitors is what benefits the the city and locals, not the propping up of other development, at the expense of making the venue itself unattractive to groups.

Here’s an idea: let’s build one that first and foremost functions well as a convention center. Meaning, a place where thousands of people can easily circulate back and forth ON FOOT between the meeting place, their lodging and their off-hours entertainment options. If we build a place that’s not easily walkable to the hotels and to Bricktown, it fails as a convention center, groups won’t want to book it, and we’d might as well not build it at all.