By: Las Vegas Now Staff
The economy has taken a toll on conventions in Las Vegas — not only on the number of conventions, but the number of people attending them. Those numbers spill over into other areas of the economy and affect everyone.
The money attendees spend while in town for a convention is down nearly 24-percent, but conventions are still coming to Las Vegas. At the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Emergency Medical Services Expo is taking place this week.
While convention bookings are down slightly for the year, the number of people attending sharply decreased in August.
Last minute preps are underway for the largest EMS Expo in North America.
“It's a great backdrop to have it here in Las Vegas, and we expecting 5,000 people from all over the United States, but also from Hong Kong, Australia and Europe,” said Joe Covelli.
Covelli is in charge of the setup. While 5,000 attendees sound like a lot, they were expecting 7,000 to show up, “It's a tough market for Las Vegas, both on the leisure side and convention side.”
Terry Jicinsky with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority says fewer convention participants is a trend because of the economic turmoil, “The conventions scheduled to be in Las Vegas are still coming. It's the fact that they may not be bringing as many people as they brought in other years. So there is some concern about the number of total attendees at the convention, even though that convention is still being held in Las Vegas.”
He says the recent mining convention actually had more attendees than in years past, but others have suffered, “Other conventions, like Magic, are more retail focused, reaching the retail consumer. We're down a bit but all blended together about 3-percent.”
The numbers don't seem too concerning for convention goers who come back year after year.
“It's the over all experience whenever you do an event of this size — of this magnitude. You want your attendees to have an excellent experience and that's the experience we are after,” said Covelli.
Conventions that have come to Las Vegas for the first time this year have already signed on for years to come, a sign that Las Vegas is still attracting thousands despite the market meltdown.
