Without Prejudice

As the dust continues to settle about the duel between Comdex and Enterprise IT Week during the week of November 17 in Las Vegas, I want to warn all trade show operators about the perils of working with the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas.

I have been in the trade show business for nearly 30 years. And during that time I have never come across an organization that treats a trade show organizer as shabbily as MBCC treated Jupitermedia.

Jupitermedia is going to take legal action. My hope is that when the papers are filed that all trade show operators including the IAEM (a trade association devoted to the trade show industry) will see that the MBCC is a place to stay clear of if you are planning a function of any type in Las Vegas.

The main gripe is that MBCC blatantly undercut our efforts to sell hotel rooms for Enterprise IT Week. We were given a convention rate of $199 per night per room. The norm in the trade show industry is that the show rate is a better rate than what the hotel will offer to the public and other parties.

Unfortunately the MBCC and hotel decided to compete with the supposed "best" rate and almost immediately upon signing the contract began offering rooms at the Mandalay Bay hotel at rates ranging from $99 to $139 during the period we were being forced to sell hotel rooms at the higer rate of $199.

To the uninitiated, a trade show organizer, if fortunate, can get the show space essentially at no cost if it is able to sell its block of rooms. Of course the MBCC decided to make sure we could not achieve the "no cost" level by making sure that very few if any attendees would book at the $199 rate.

Now we will take this matter to court and make sure that trade show operators understand what they might be up against if they decide to do business with the MBCC and related hotel properties.

If anyone has questions about this situation, please contact me for more details. In the meantime, we look forward to our legal action and beware of doing business with any Mandalay Bay property.