Site Selection Part Two - Do You Want to Go to Reno?

When we left off part one I promised that I was going to dig through notes and share some thoughts. From our basic list of considerations that I discussed in the first part of this blog, the committee began listing cities of interest. Some of these cities are places I didn't want to go to (for previously discussed reasons), but there were many people on the committee, and these cities were all on the list of places we discussed; Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Toronto, and Washington, DC. This was just a list of early cities that members kind of said "that would be a neat place" and this list of dream cities was actually put together before we even had a real understanding of exactly what type of facilities we would need to host a successful GAMA Expo.

This list includes a few of my favorite places in North America; like Chicago and Toronto, and a couple of places I'd rather get punched in the face than ever be forced to go to (I'm looking at you Orlando). You'll also notice some cities on this list that never really warranted consideration for size reasons. Phoenix is a place I love (especially in the winter), but the Phoenix Convention Center is only 312,000 square feet of exhibit space, which would maybe make it okay in year one, but not at all useful in years two or five. The Charlotte Convention Center has been mentioned many times on the GAMA Member Page, and not forgetting that the state is unfriendly to all but the whitest and straightest of men, the exhibit hall is only 280,000 square feet, smaller than the one in Phoenix. It feels like we should quickly discuss why those cities were ever mentioned though, right?

The Committee was formed back in 2023, and wayback in August of 2023 (so many many years ago it feels like) we set out the initial list of requirements. I'm glad these exist in a note form because it's hilarious to look at how much this changed during the search, in large part because GAMA Expo keeps growing (some champagne problems we've got there, like the tariff on champagne...damn it). Let's take a quick look at those original requirements and giggle a little.

1,000 hotel rooms (this number has been modified upwards to 1,500 minimum now). The committee was split on how many hotels could be involved. I'm old, like old like the dirt is old, and I remember when GAMA Expo felt like a college campus, all of us in one place, learning together, working together, enjoying meals together. I liked that feeling, but during this process I discovered we're just too darn big for it now (seriously, it's hard to find a campus for this many people).

150,000 square feet of exhibit space. Please read that again and giggle hysterically. Way back in 2023 we were looking at wanting 150,000 square feet of exhibit space, we're now using (if my memory functions) 300,000 at KICC, and are out of space to grow. During the search process this requirement of extra exhibit space (which super damn exciting) began to, as I mentioned in part one, really limit the places we could go. There a literally thousands of convention centers with 150,000 to 200,000 square feet of exhibit space, and way fewer with 300,000 or more.

We wanted a transportation infrastructure that serves two purposes; ease of reaching the convention via air travel, but also drivable for the most possible people. I live in Chicago these days, and I'm not driving to Louisville, but I know some people from Chicago, or points further north, did drive to Kentucky for the most recent Expo. The truth is that most people in the United States live east of the Mississippi. I feel like a western Congressman arguing against my constituents here (remember my store is in the Denver Metro area), but if we want the show drivable for the largest amount of people, it simply makes sense to host the show where people live. This means we've got to also make it as easy to reach via air as possible for western attendees, which was part of that whole 'hub city' focus. I've attached a population density map for you, and you can see the dark colors mean 'people' and the light colors mean 'wheat' or 'corn'.

Food. Part of a great attendee experience is the availability of a wide selection of food at a wide variety of price points. This requirement never changed during the site selection work.

Costs - rental agreements, hotel rooms, F&B minimums, etc. Cost does matter.

Having laid out a list of basic requirements, the GAMA Staff got to work hunting things down, and in 2024 we began reviewing proposals from a variety of cities. Let's look at that list; Albuquerque, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (both Rosemont and McCormick), Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York City, Newark, and Washington DC had been sent RFPs based on a combination of the original requirements and the updated requirements. Albuquerque (which is very difficult to type) is a great place to visit if you haven't been, with a thriving art scene and great food. The convention center is also tiny AF, so I don't remember seeing their proposal, so while they were invited to early in the process, it became obvious it wouldn't work for us.

You'll remember that in part one I discussed hosting a convention as a thing where both parties have to consent. We can't just show up and do whatever we want, and some of the cities that we asked for proposals did not respond (RIP Milwaukee, which did not have dates available, or really enough space, they met the requirements we laid out in 2023, but not the ones we had to update after 2024 GAMA Expo), or their response was so funny it's doing a residency in Las Vegas. Some of the funny things; Mandalay Bay wanting $500,000 annually in Food and Beverage minimums (we currently have a $20,000 F&B minimum), one west coast convention center wanting half a million in rental fees, and one just saying 'you too small, you waste our time.' If you want a hilarious response in the other direction I present the proposal from Reno, NV. We were welcome to use the Reno Convention Center (not the Peppermill) for FREE. They would literally give it to us. The contract had no F&B minimum. The contract required no minimum room pickups. It didn't even come with a room block, we would have had to go out and figure that out and negotiate with hotels. I loved the Peppermill, and I miss that bath tub every single year I don't see it, but no, I do not want to return to Reno, even for free.

At the July 2024 meeting we had exactly five financially reasonable proposals to look at; Baltimore, Chicago (McCormick, Rosemont did not respond to us), Minneapolis, Columbus, and Louisville. Those last two cities have really not been discussed here at all, but let's touch on them quickly. Louisville is our current home, and I know that I am not alone in thinking it's at the gates of hell, but there are some things you just do to keep the peace. One of the things you do to keep the peace is let your current host city bid to extend their contract. We received their bid, and as a committee seeking to do the due diligence our membership deserves, we looked at the proposal. It was never seriously considered (by me).

We also looked at Columbus and asked them to bid. GAMA is already in Columbus, we've been using Columbus for Origins for something like 400 years or so at this point, and maybe taking our second show to Columbus could be financially beneficial. Ohio is on my list of states I don't want to be in, so I never seriously thought of Columbus as an option, but it also failed to meet other requirements. The ballrooms in Columbus are smaller than what we already use (which can make game night a challenge, or miserable, or both). Columbus is not easy to reach by plane, there are only direct flights to 48 cities in 27 states. This is well below the levels of the places we actually liked. GAMA staff did a little work on flying to the five places we discussed, and I've attached a screen shot of those prices, from a variety of cities, booked four months out from our 2025 GAMA Expo dates. You'll notice prices go down as get to bigger cities, and it's part of why the hub airline experience was important to us.

From these meetings we settled into the three cities you've all heard discussed, and we started talking about empirical data. Did you know that from ORD (Chicago O'Hare) you can get to 89 airports in 50 states with direct flights? You can also reach nine cities in Canada, 25 in Europe, and 13 in Asia. ORD is serviced by a whopping 46 airlines, and is a hub for two (American and United)...and it's just one of two airports in Chicago. We (and in many cases, the 'we' was just Andrew Zorowitz using his exhibitor brain) looked at the costs to ship a pallet to each facility, exhibitor costs in the convention center, the location of restaurants, coffee shops, museums, train stations, parking garages, and a billion other things.

I went out into the world and asked other retailers what was important to them as well, because while I try to know lots, it's actually frightening how little I know. :) From those conversations I armed myself with the requirements of other people, and then prepared for the actual site visits. Before we talk about those in a week, I'm going to leave you with one final spreadsheet, one that shows you just how easy it is to get to the three cities we were visiting (and how difficult it was to get to Reno).

The last image I'm going to leave you with this week is from a spreadsheet I built trying to figure out which cities were the most easily accessible by air. This sheet tells you how many cities can be reached with direct service from the airport in question. While Chicago is served by both ORD and Midway, I also give Baltimore credit for their own airport and Dulles. It's about 60 miles from the convention center, but offers nearly unlimited access to the world (and is the only airport on our list that offers service to African cities).

Now though, I'm off to a site visit of another kind, I'm going to the Dominican Republic via a big boat, so I will tell you all about our site visits in a week.