Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia ratifies a Customer Satisfaction Agreement.
After installing SMG as venue manager in December of 2013 and ratifying a new Customer Satisfaction Agreement last May, the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia has experienced a significant uptick in its bookings.
“The level of activity on the sales side since this announcement has been phenomenal,” said Bob McClintock, COO and senior vice president, Convention Centers, at SMG. “Not only are we getting new inquiries and opportunities, but shows that had impediments in the past are coming back and having a better experience overall.”
Prior to these changes, the venue’s bidding on events was hampered by a series of union strikes over the last decade and strict rules preventing exhibitors from working in their booths.
“All of this started because it was expensive to market our convention center relative to our competitive set,” said Lorenz Hassenstein, general manager of the Pennsylvania Convention Center for SMG. “After about five months of negotiating, we settled on work rules that were a compromise from what we wanted and what the union wanted. The goal was to get more hours for the labor unions, while creating more liberal exhibitor rights, so it was a win-win.”
Under the new Customer Service Agreement, which was signed by four of the six unions that worked at the convention center, the square footage in which exhibitors are able to work on their own space was doubled to 600 and these companies are now able to use battery-operated power tools and step stools, hang signs or graphics and install or remove audio/visual equipment.
This new agreement also developed a system to create a core workforce of union employees. As a result, exhibitors or convention center staff can call and request specific union employees to work with if they choose.
The previous 10-year contract with the carpenters (Metropolitan Regional Council of Philadelphia and Vicinity United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America), teamsters (International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 107), laborers (The Laborers’ International Union of North America, Local 332), riggers (International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, Local Unions 405), IATSE, (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Artist and Allied Crafts of the United States and Canada, Local 8) and electricians (the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 98) expired in August of 2013.
The four participating unions, including Laborers, Riggers, IATSE and Electricians, are now referred to as stakeholder unions and have 10-year contracts.
“One of the things we’ve heard from meeting planners is that they rely heavily on peer to peer recommendations,” said Julie Coker Graham, executive vice president of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The fact is that groups exhibiting here have had positive experiences at the end of 2014, and they’re sharing this information with their peers.”
Former customers also are being wooed back to Philadelphia.
“The convention center’s culture changed from running the building to servicing customers,” Hassenstein said.
Since May 2014, the convention center has booked 28 new meetings and more than 580,000 room nights were put on the books, which translates to $870 million in economic impact for new future business, Coker Graham said.
“Because of the changes, we were able to place several city-wides closer in,” Coker Graham said. “Typically, we book seven to 10 years out, but now we’re placing city-wide bookings into 2017, 2018 and 2019.”
The American Heart Association’s event in November 2019 is expected to bring Philadelphia $67 million in economic impact dollars, while the National Black MBA Association’s September 2017 event is anticipated to produce $19.5 million in economic impact money.
“This is particularly notable because the MBA Association moved its September 2014 conference from Philadelphia to Atlanta,” Coker Graham said.
The NBM Show, held by trade magazine publisher National Business Media, was set to move to Atlantic City in August 2015, but rebooked its show in Philadelphia for the second consecutive year after a positive experience last summer.
Other notable upcoming events are the 2016 Democratic National Convention, which has an anticipated economic value of between $85 and $150 million, and the first U.S.-held 8th World Meeting of Families, which features an appearance by Pope Francis.
“It’s a credit to the leadership of the convention center and community that the unions saw clearly what needed to happen, listened to customers and made important decisions,” McClintock said.
After choosing not to sign the Customer Satisfaction Agreement by the deadline, the carpenters and teamsters lost the right to work at the building. The unions have been staging protests outside the convention center ever since. On Feb. 7, the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority (PCCA) was granted a temporary restraining order against the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters after, what PCCA is calling, an organized effort to disrupt the Philadelphia Auto Show. According to the PCCA, exhibitors reported destructive behavior such as fuses pulled from cars and vandalism.
However, the Carpenters say they were exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully protest an unfair lockout from the Pennsylvania Convention Center. A spokesperson for the carpenters said over 200 union carpenters paid to enter the convention center and peacefully distributed over 20,000 flyers to Auto Show attendees. Moving forward, the PCCA could pursue potential civil and criminal charges, while the two unions continue with their unfair-labor-practice complaints filed with the state Labor Relations Board.
Interviewed for this story: Julie Coker Graham, (215) 636-3300; Lorenz Hassenstein, (203) 733-1325; Bob McClintock, (609) 576-7027