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The state-mandated McCormick Place revamp moved into a second phase Wednesday with the launch of a search for a private management firm to run the convention center.
This comes on the heels of broad moves to cut exhibitors’ costs for electrical and food services and to give them greater leeway to do their own booth work. Get the full story »
Mayor Richard Daley says the International Manufacturing Technology Show, which has held its trade shows at McCormick Place since 1947, has decided to recommit for three more shows through 2016.
The group is one of six current trade shows that have recommitted to the city and three new shows that have signed on. Get the full story »
By Kathy Bergen
| Less than 24 hours after the McCormick Place overhaul package became law, the International Home + Housewares Show decided to pursue a new long-term contract at the convention center.
The International Housewares Association’s board voted today to move forward with the negotiations, said Phil Brandl, president of the Rosemont-based organization.
James K. McCusker, Viante Home Products Company, demonstrates his company’s new coffee maker at The International Home and Housewares Show at McCormick Place in 2009. (Bradley Piper/Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen
| Top executives with the International Home + Housewares Show fired off an email to Gov. Pat Quinn today, saying they could not recommend Chicago as the show’s venue for 2012 and beyond when their board meets later this week unless the governor signs the McCormick Place overhaul legislation.
“The lack of signature to this bill will ultimately send us and other vitally important trade show business elsewhere,” the email stated. It was signed by Phil Brandl, president of the International Housewares Association, and Mia Rampersad, the group’s vice president/trade shows. The association’s show has been a cornerstone of the city’s convention business since 1939.
Quinn is expected to make a decision on the bill within days. Sources expect he will sign it, but will try to attach some changes as well.
By Kathy Bergen
| Some of Chicago’s biggest trade show organizers emerged from a meeting
with Gov. Pat Quinn this afternoon expecting that he’ll sign the
McCormick Place overhaul bill. But they believe Quinn may try for some
modifications, perhaps in an add-on bill.
The bill, which passed both houses of the General Assembly by wide
margins, “is not anything we’ll see vetoed by the governor,” said Steve
Drew, a point person for the radiologists convention.
By Kathy Bergen | The agency that runs McCormick Place and Navy Pier could look to
corporate America and to the traveling public for additional revenue
streams — if legislators go along with proposals being discussed this week
in Springfield.
Lawmakers are considering letting the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition
Authority, or McPier, sell naming rights to its facilities.
Twenty-five percent of the proceeds would go into an incentive fund for
luring new trade shows, and 75 percent would go toward paying off
facility expansion bonds. An estimate on potential proceeds was
unavailable Tuesday afternoon.
By Kathy Bergen
and Ray Long
| SPRINGFIELD—Speaker Michael Madigan today easily pushed through the House a measure to study how to improve the financial position and efficiency of the agency overseeing McCormick Place and Navy Pier.
The measure, which sets up a legislative panel to come up with recommendations by April 30 on how to make McPier profitable, went to the Senate on a 113-0 vote.
