by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
It’s always a sad thing to say goodbye to an old friend. It might be a coworker or a neighbor or a business partner or even a favorite pair of comfortable shoes.
As of Monday, Jacksonville will have said goodbye to two old friends who have both been coming for a long-weekend visit every January for more than a decade.
But the loss to the convention industry goes beyond mere friendship to the tune of an estimated $2.4 million in revenues that next year will be spent 89 miles south of Jacksonville.
The State Cheer and Dance Championship made its 13th trip to Jacksonville this month. The competition brought 260 teams, more than 5,000 participants and an estimated 7,515 spectators, many of whom were family members that checked in to area hotels with the competitors. That group was followed by the Fire Rescue East Conference and Expo, which is marking its 11th year here this weekend, hosting 265 vending companies and more than 10,000 firefighter and EMT attendees who work in cities and towns from Florida to Canada.
Both conventions will be held in 2009 at the new Volusia County Ocean Center in Daytona Beach because the events have outgrown Jacksonville’s Osborn Center.
Larry Scovotto, program manager for Fire Rescue East, said the show has grown exponentially since it debuted. The first edition, held 15 years ago, drew 230 attendees. Last year, Scovotto said, more than 10,000 public safety professionals visited the exhibits.
“The Southeast accounts for 98 percent of our attendees, so we’re considered a regional show,” he said.
Scovotto pointed out that the first time Fire Rescue East was held in Jacksonville 11 years ago, “We fit in the main hall and the ballroom. Since 9/11, the industry has gone from firefighting and EMT to covering all hazards, so now we need all the space in the building including the hallways, and we’re taking up half of the parking lot, too.”
Scovotto added, “We also have been turning away 20 or more vendors each year because we don’t have the space.”
In addition to the space limitations, the Osborn Center’s floor plan isn’t meeting the groups’ needs.
“The layout in Daytona is much more appealing to our vendors in terms of traffic flow,” said Scovotto.
The Osborn Center also doesn’t have enough meeting rooms, said Scovotto. In addition to the trade show, Fire Rescue East is also a conference and offers seminars and classes that qualify for Continuing Education Credits for instructors and fire safety inspectors.
The Ocean Center is near the end of a $76 million renovation that will almost double the amount of meeting space available from the original design’s 225,000 square feet to 452,491 square feet. Its largest contiguous exhibit space is a 94,695-square-foot exhibit hall, and there are also three ballrooms available that total 11,715 square feet.
The Osborn Center, by comparison, has a total of 296,000 square feet of space with the largest contiguous space the 78,500-square-foot exhibit hall on the west side of the building.
John Reyes, president and CEO of Visit Jacksonville, said while it’s sad to see two groups like these move to another venue, he understands the reasons.
“We don’t like losing a proven economic engine that comes here every year, but when we talk to conventions about coming to Jacksonville, we know they are looking for large exhibit spaces,” he said. “Most associations make about 65 percent of their annual budget from their trade show, and we need 150,000 square feet of exhibit space to be able to compete in that market.
“Visit Jacksonville is tasked with selling what Jacksonville has, so we have to change our way of thinking and focus on smaller groups,” he added. “That limits our market to those groups and makes us have to compete with many other venues for the business. It also gives our competition the ability to put doubt in the minds of meeting planners who might wonder how their event could grow if it’s held in Jacksonville.”
Even with a strategy to replace the migrating groups, Reyes said losing groups the size of the State Cheer and Dance Championships and Fire Rescue East also means losing a prime marketing opportunity for future, smaller-scale tourism business.
“Conventions are an opportunity to showcase all the things Jacksonville has to offer. We look at conventioneers as business today and business in the future,” he said. “They see the river and they enjoy our weather, especially in January. We know many of them return for vacations because of what they saw while they were here for a meeting.”
Large convention groups moving down the road will also have an effect on Downtown businesses, particularly those at the Landing. In particular, State Cheer and Dance and Fire Rescue East filled a gap in the cash-flow calendar.
“It will definitely impact us. It has been great for our merchants to have those two weekends in January right after the Gator Bowl lull,” said Rachel Nudge, the Landing’s director of public relations.
“The cheerleaders’ group brings the competitors and their families and that group eats and shops. Then the next weekend the firefighters are here and that’s great for our night-time business,” she added.
James Wile, executive director of the Florida Fire Chiefs’ Association, the organization that produces and manages Fire Rescue East, said the sad part for his group is that everything else in Jacksonville was in place.
“Jacksonville has great hotels and everyone at Visit Jacksonville is wonderful to us,” said Wile. “The convention center is the weak link.”
Impact of convention groups relocating to Daytona Beach
Room nights lost: 4,640
Spending lost: $1.4 million (State Cheer and Dance), $1.0 million (Fire Rescue East)
Total: $2.4 million
Source: Visit Jacksonville