CONVENTIONS • Losses have a ripple effect
city’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee. “The longer the SDCC (San Diego Convention Center) is prohibited from hosting events, the longer it will take for the venue to recover financially, making it harder to retain its critical workforce.”
The San Diego Convention Center Corp. calculates that it now has cancellations of more than 100 conferences and events that in pre-pandemic times would have drawn more than 628,000 attendees, who would have spent nearly $708 million on overnight stays in hotels, dining and drinking, shopping, local transportation and visiting attractions. The estimated lost ripple effect on the regional economy pushes the impact to $1.2 billion, according to the corporation.
Since March, conventions as large as Comic-con and the American Society of Hematology, which draw tens of thousands of attendees, as well as much smaller meetings like the Biomedical Engineering Society, canceled their in-person gatherings, with some opting to hold virtual events.
Before more ground is lost, San Diego wants to get a definitive answer from the state so it can communicate that to the many groups deliberating whether to cancel or hold on for a little while longer, Cate said in an interview Friday.
“Right now, everything’s on hold, it’s not a priority for the state. Convention centers are lower on the totem pole of what’s being reviewed,” Cate said. “The rationale for the letter was to try and inspire the governor to take action now, given the fact we have all these conventions waiting to hear something before they pull the plug or move forward. If we could get these guidelines approved, there would be no ground loss.”
“Our best hope for a return to conventions is March.”
Newsom’s office did not respond Friday to emailed requests for comment.
The San Diego bayfront center still has a few conventions on the books for January and February, so the sooner an answer from the state is forthcoming as to when meetings can resume, the better chance there is of salvaging scheduled events early in the year, said San Diego Convention Center Corp. CEO Rip Rippetoe.
“In the meantime, some other destinations are capturing part of California’s market share,” Rippetoe said Friday. “For example, Philadelphia recently announced they’re looking at a February target for large events. We’ve got other destinations like Indianapolis and Orlando who are doing events and we’ve heard of a couple in Texas starting to. But Indiana has done 18 meetings in the last 40-day window with over 41,000 people.”
Leaders within the California convention industry have recently met with an adviser from Gov. Newsom’s office who has complimented them on the detail they provided in their suggested reopening guidelines, Rippetoe said. He added that Newsom’s office has asked the coalition of industry representatives to provide examples of how other cities outside of California are handling group meetings.
“They wanted to know what were the lessons being learned by these other places, so we sent them that information,” Rippetoe said. But so far there has been no timeline provided for a reopening in California.
The convention center continues to operate as a temporary homeless shelter, but it’s only funded through the end of October. It’s uncertain whether it will remain a shelter after that as the city seeks to move the homeless occupants into housing.
Rippetoe said that for now, the corporation can remain solvent into February by relying on its reserves but will need a still undetermined subsidy from the city after that.
lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com