Has the Number of Conventions Booked for 2023 Reached pre-COVID Levels?

Has the number of conventions booked for 2023 reached pre-COVID levels?

It has. Or will.

Broadly speaking, Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli says that 2022’s convention business is 90% of 2019’s and that 2023’s will match pre-pandemic heights, specifically, those in years 2016 to 2019.

For more specific color, albeit restricted to the Las Vegas Convention Center itself, we turned to Kody Stover of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. He tells us that in 2019, the Convention Center hosted 85 trade shows and events with an estimated attendance of 1.6 million. As of the end of June 2022, the LVCC had hosted 43 trade shows with an estimated attendance of 525,000. For the full year, it has 87 bookings (two more than 2019), which are expected to bring 1.2 million attendees to town (25% fewer than 2019).

As for next year, the Convention Center has already booked 72 events whose estimated attendance will be 1.7 million, well above the pre-COVID threshold). With six months left in 2022 and 18 months before we close the ledger on 2023, it seems a lead-pipe cinch that Las Vegas’ convention business will return to the glory days of 2019 a year from now.

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Kevin Lewis Jul-26-2022

Gouge-proof

Since there is absolutely no price resistance in this field--attendees rarely pay their own way and companies write off the expense as "promotional" or "advertising" (including the hookers in the "hospitality suite"), the convention providers can charge what they want. And they will!

This is opposed to the inevitable slowdown in general Vegas attendance that is a certainty to hit next year, as people who got thoroughly rogered this year think twice about coming back.

Bob Jul-26-2022

The Magical Write off

Speaking to one convention I know about... This year's SEMA show (one of the largest for Vegas) Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai have indicated they will not be participating this year. and I'm sure other Mfg's will follow suit. BTW  If you expense a million dollars for "Advertising" it still shows up as a Million dollar Liability on the balance sheet. and is a million dollars that doesn't fall to the bottom line. yeah,it will change tax liability some but not a Million $'s worth!  " You own a business... Youn can write it off"

Question of the Day - 26 July 2022

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