The Fairfield Inn & Suites on West Washington Street downtown will open Wednesday. The hotel is the first of four comprising
the 1,600-room Marriott Place project to welcome guests.
Groups that committed in 2009 to hold meetings in Indianapolis in future years booked a total of nearly 688,000 hotel-room
nights, a number that exceeded ICVA’s goal by 5 percent.
The Performance Racing Industry Show has set its 2010 dates for Dec. 9-11. That means the International Motorsports Industry
Show held in Indianapolis will have Dec. 1-3 to itself.
The project will nearly double the convention center’s size and put Indianapolis 16th among U.S. cities in convention space.
The show held in Indianapolis Dec. 3-4 is picking up speed much faster than event organizers and local
convention and tourism officials expected. But the nation’s biggest motorsports trade show, Performance
Racing Industry Show, is considering competing with the local show head-on in 2010.
Indianapolis was up against Dallas, Las Vegas, Orlando, Atlanta and New Orleans to host baseball’s Winter
Meetings, which
will draw more than 200 media members from the nation’s top 30 markets.
The inaugural show opened Dec. 2 at the Indiana Convention Center, and is expected to draw more than
10,000 attendees.
The locally based Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association will bring its fall trade show back to Indianapolis
in 2011 and 2012—making good on a promise to return after a $275 million expansion of the Indiana Convention Center.
Behind every convention that rolls into Indianapolis is a tedious sales effort as intense and invisible as a riptide. Sometimes
the sale cycle lasts as long as six years.
A new task force formed this month is charged with recommending solutions to the financial problems of the Indianapolis
Capital Improvement Board and its related convention and tourism issues.
The Percussive Arts Society plans to open an interactive museum at Washington and Illinois streets downtown.
A company has started to organize logistics for trade associations and other groups that gather for conventions in Indianapolis
and want to "give back" to the city while they’re here.
Fort Wayne’s expanded convention center and a planned downtown hotel are proving attractive to conventions, including at least
four events long held in Indianapolis.
The financial condition of the city’s Capital Improvement Board, though improving, is still dire enough that employees
of the Indiana Convention Center could be subjected to more unpaid furloughs or layoffs.
The idea of the not-for-profit Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association taking out a loan was not warmly received by
city officials. And financial institutions were less than thrilled with the idea given the ICVA’s diminishing revenue
and increasing costs.
Indianapolis’ downtown has its strengths. But what are those smells?
The Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association said today the National Society of Black Engineers will hold its annual
convention here in March 2013.
The Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association is so desperate for more marketing funding, the organization charged
with promoting the city as a convention and tourism destination is considering taking out a loan. While that
would be the last resort, ICVA CEO Don Welsh said it is one he will have to consider if the money can’t be raised through
local taxes.
This week, reviews of new games found at Gen Con and a nostalgic misfire from Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre.
The Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association is putting together an all-star corporate consortium to make the city
a hub for medical and life sciences conventions, meetings and trade shows. The ICVA began running the initiative
full-speed this year and already has signed deals to bring 40 medical meetings to Indianapolis through 2015, including annual
meetings for the American Association of Diabetes Educators in 2012 and the American College of Sports Medicine and American
Chemical Society in 2013.
