1.3M convention attendees expected to visit Vegas this year

The Convention Center added one key show to this year’s mix – the NAACP national convention in July, which in 2023 brought 10,000 attendees to Boston.

Despite construction disruptions occurring as a result of the $600 million renovation project in 2024 and 2025, the Las Vegas Convention Center will continue to host four massive shows – CES and World of Concrete in January, the National Association of Broadcasters in April and the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) automotive aftermarket trade show in November.

The four-day CES consumer electronics trade show, expected to attract 130,000 people to the city, kicks off Tuesday. While CES is bringing an estimated 15 percent more people this year than in 2023, the SEMA show is now the city’s largest trade show, bringing 160,000 attendees in 2023.

Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said Monday that the city’s trade-show partners and LVCVA staff have worked hard to bring major shows to Las Vegas despite the construction disruption anticipated as the North, Central and South halls are taken off line for six-month periods to bring those venues up to the same standards as the $1 billion West Hall that opened in 2021.

Hill discussed the city’s convention outlook before showing off the LVCVA board of directors new board meeting room that will be used for the first time Tuesday for January’s meeting. The LVCVA staff’s new offices will open next month adjacent to the board room.

Class A building

“One of our customers put it pretty well,” Hill said. “We are going to now have a class A building in a class A destination where in the past, we’ve had a class C or D building in the best destination in the world. Those two things need to fit together and once we’re done with this renovation, it will.”

The LVCVA was challenged with maneuvering construction schedules around major shows. The city didn’t want to be put in a position in which a customer looked elsewhere to stage a show, even for one year.

“We may trip over a couple of dirt piles along the way, but our customers love being here so much and we’ve got such a great relationship with our customers that they have committed to being here through that construction,” Hill said. “It’s going to be somewhat disruptive for them, but we’ve also taken some pretty extraordinary steps to work with them so that they don’t really have to experience much of the construction effect.”

Hill expects the number of conventions and trade shows to level off in 2024 and 2025, but once the renovation project is complete and the Convention Center has another 2.5 million square feet to fill on a regular basis, the number of conventions and trade shows will increase.

Hill said right now, the Las Vegas Convention Center is pretty much at capacity every year from January to May, but some of the smaller shows that haven’t been able to schedule will be able to do so when the additional capacity is added.

The city’s convention capacity is further complicated by renovation projects underway or contemplated at other venues in years ahead.

A three-year $188 million renovation of The Venetian Convention and Expo Center will begin in 2024 and the Mandalay Bay Convention Center’s $100 million renovation is expected to continue through the end of the year.

Top convention centers

While renovations haven’t even been completed yet, the Wall Street Journal named the Las Vegas Convention Center as the top convention center in the United States in 2023. The Journal designated The Venetian Expo as the nation’s No. 3 convention center and Mandalay Bay, No. 7.

Convention attendance is an important piece of Las Vegas visitation because travelers here on business tend to spend more than leisure travelers, according to LVCVA research.

Conventions in Las Vegas are beneficial to individual shows because research has shown they’re better attended when they occur in Las Vegas. Hill said shows normally get a 9-10 percent attendance bump when in Las Vegas.

“We think that that can go up if the experience is what they expect when they come here,” Hill said. “And that’s in a number of different aspects, from data to food experience in the convention center, but just to the feel and accommodation of the buildings themselves. They need to work and they need to be beautiful and it needs to match what we expect of all of Las Vegas, what our customers expect of Las Vegas, and that’s what we’ll have in two years.”

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.