Well-known local sports columnist Bill Benner is leaving his job at the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association to
become senior associate commissioner for external affairs for the Horizon League.
Seven months before the $275 million expansion of the Indiana Convention Center is complete, convention planners and local
convention and tourism officials are calling for an upgrade to the existing Convention Center space.
The project will create an event-friendly corridor from the expanded Indiana Convention Center to Conseco Fieldhouse.
Five years ago, the Indiana Pacers ownership was not included in discussions about a potential new downtown home for the Indianapolis
Colts, and now city and Pacers officials are paying the price.
Attracting the meeting is a coup for Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association officials who are trying to pull in
more health-related events.
Executives of Gen Con, one of the city's largest conventions, visited Indianapolis last week to get their first glance
of the construction of the Indiana Convention Center expansion. Local tourism officials are using such tours to market the
larger space.
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.
Indianapolis receives a dozen responses to its proposal to privatize management of Lucas Oil Stadium,
the Indiana Convention Center and, perhaps, Conseco Fieldhouse.
Ann Lathrop is the new CEO of the Marion County Capital Improvement Board, which oversees the Indiana
Convention Center, Conseco Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
A symbolic topping-off ceremony early this month to celebrate a milestone on the massive JW Marriott hotel project can’t
hide the anxiety felt within the construction industry.
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.
An aide to Mayor Greg Ballard says he hopes a private operator can find “operating and maintenance savings in the millions."
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.
Mayoral Chief of Staff Paul Okeson said the city isn’t sure it makes sense to privatize operations now handled by
the Capital Improvement Board, “but we’re obligated on behalf of the taxpayer to find out.”
Bob Bedell worked behind the scenes for months–if not years–to make the case for expanding the Indiana Convention Center
and building a 1,000-room hotel nearby. But someone else will have to fill both venues with visitors. The 60-year-old Indianapolis
Convention & Visitors Association president has said he’ll retire at the end of June.
