The strategy spelled out in that article strikes me as an absolutely terrible idea:
There are a gazillion private organizations out there that plan events and conferences. I'm sure many of us get unsolicited emails inviting us to conferences x, y, and z in our work inboxes all the time. Why does Barros think the MCCA -- funded by our tax dollars -- will be better at this than all private players who make this their business?
If this plays out it would also be significant scope creep for the MCCA.
Ehhh? I've been to enough of these things that I agree in principle that MCCA probably shouldn't be organizing everything, but I think there's some nuance to that. Firstly, if they're thinking to attract small-midsize conferences? A lot of those are the ones that currently end up outside the world of convention center authorities, and end up in private convention centers, resorts, and the like that can offer a "turn key" event - Just look at the various Vegas Casino convention centers, or any of the larger Orlando area resorts, or the Gaylord Resorts... I don't actually think we have a reasonable analogue in the boston area.
Going to several of these annually, and having dealt with some of these planners, it's a thing for them to keep everything under one roof, one contract so as to keep things tidy and manageable for the miniscule permanent staff at those private organizations that market and assemble these things - their focus is the 362 days of the year they're not actually hosting. They care more about organizing exhibitors, selling sponsorships, arranging speakers, marketing to attendees. I just got back to Boston from a 5-7k person event at a Gaylord - the organizers permanent event staff is 3-4 people, most of whom are in sales and marketing. They just won't want to deal with the logistics and risks of signing room blocks with 20 seaport hotels, or arrange a caterer acceptable to the MCCA to serve their attendee lunch, book a bar for karaoke as networking event or find a convention logistics company to receive booths off site and deliver assembly. The big event people plan in their daily lives is a wedding, so using that as an analogy... You can walk up to the Omni Parker House and say, One wedding package, with Flower package A and Menu B in the ballroom - it's not super inspiring, its expensive, but it's really nice and effectively seamless. that's what something like what the MGM Grand can offer. Or you can DIY it at the Saunders Castle, arrange your own florist, cake, caterer, DJ, lighting, hotel block etc - it's a lot of work managing your vendors and risk something not quite working out. That's what the MCCA offers currently - they're just the venue, and you bring everything else. I think it's reasonable for them to basically step into the role of wedding planner, where they take on the burden of finding room blocks, negotiating with hotels, clearing up any issues that may arise on the day, and managing a collection of vetted outside vendors to provide all that. The groups that can fill the BCEC on their own don't need that level of hand holding - they'd have the scale and experience, but smaller groups who might not have considered the MCCA venues previously might.
Besides... Someone other than local taxpayer is presumably going paying for that. My understanding is the MCCA only gets tax dollars from its hotel tax on rooms in designated cities - the rest comes from being paid to provide services - turn key conferences would be a service by which the MCCA could both earn more revenue from providing more "value" and by increasing utilization of its facilities.
Also, if the MCCA can identify a niche that does not already have an established conference scene, or can successfully differentiate one? It's a captive customer and therefore a guaranteed booking in Boston and the MCCAs spaces. San Diego derives much of it's weight in pop culture from hosting its comic con, now the biggest by sheer weight of its own reputation, not the other way around. That sums up a lot of professional events. There's more consumer device shows than just CES - but CES is the one to be at. There's more Fashion Weeks than New York, Milan and Paris - but no one really cares about Bostons or Ottawas. I actually think Women's Professional Sports is a great example of a potential opportunity - there's no established national conference for that industry, and it's specialized enough yet broad enough that you could attract a broad base of interested attendees and exhibitors. Women's athletic wear, panels on broadcasting challenges for women's leagues, scheduling against mens sports, sports nutrition... Endless gobs of panels and breakouts and derivative conference possibilities. MCCA is honestly probably better suited to inaugurating something like that than a newbie non-profit that may not have the buy in of a big enough chunk of the industry. It's possibly a risk, but a small and calculated one in terms of exposure... They're likely creating events to fill a space that would otherwise sit empty, so it's still marginal revenue for the MCCA and hotels to absorb otherwise excess capacity.
Keep in mind that as a general rule governments also are event planners like any major industry - OSD hosts MassBuys at Gillette, MassDOT's Transportation Innovation Conference was at DCU, the AG hosts the national cyber crime conference... It's hardly unheard of for government bodies to plan and host events, be it for other organs of government or for industry. Even if nominally funded by attendee money, why shouldn't those dollars be spent at the MCCA instead of another outside event planner or facility?
I also think something like a conference or convention is also a relatively cheap way for government to boost local industries - every state already has a menu of programs to boost local businesses, be it employment incentives, tax breaks, or direct investment. it's why we as a state have an office of International Trade, why we have a state venture capital fund, etc, etc. MassMEP, MassCEC, MassDOT aeronautics all already hosts some manner of event to do so.
