By Kathy Bergen and Ray Long | The General Assembly’s chief adviser on McCormick Place delivered a
sweeping blueprint for change Friday, calling for privatization of
convention center management and a state-imposed easing of restrictive
and costly show-floor work rules. An interim legislature-appointed
czar would oversee the transformation.
The proposal, if ultimately approved, would lead to the ouster of Juan
Ochoa, chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition
Authority, the state-city agency known as McPier that owns and operates
McCormick Place and Navy Pier. And it would reduce McPier to a
stripped-down caretaker role, reducing its payroll from 400 to somewhere
around 35 or 40 employees.
Filed under: Conventions
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State adviser: Privatize McCormick Place
Clinton, Bush biotech speeches closed to public
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in January, after news of the earthquake in Haiti. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
By Bruce Japsen | A much-touted Chicago appearance of former
Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will not be open to the public or the press after all. The appearance will be at a joint keynote address next
Tuesday at the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual meeting.
A separate keynote speech by former Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday
will also be closed to the public and the media. The speeches are sponsored
by some of the biggest pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the
world.
“The convention has never been for the general public,” said Jeff
Joseph, spokesman for BIO, a Washington-based lobby for the biotech
industry. “It is, and always has been a business meeting.”
April 29, 2010 at 2:49 p.m.
Filed under: Chicago executives, Conventions, Labor, Policy, Politics, Unions State mulls show-floor rules at McCormick Place
Union members sit in the audience listening as union reps and contractors testify in front of the Joint Committee on the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority in early April of 2010. (Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen | At a revamped McCormick Place, trade shows and their exhibitors could be
guaranteed a basic set of rights and show-floor work rules aimed at
cutting their costs, and the contractors and union workers who want the
right to work the shows would have to accept those terms.
At least that’s the legal concept behind the recommendations expected to
be issued this week or next by the state legislative committee studying
how to make Chicago’s convention business more competitive with
lower-cost rivals, according to a source close to the deliberations.
Panel weighs leadership shift at McCormick Place
By Kathy Bergen and John Byrne | The state legislative panel studying ways to revamp McCormick Place may recommend that an interim “trustee” take the helm for about 18 months while operations at the convention center are restructured, according to sources familiar with negotiations going on in Springfield Wednesday.
Whether the newly-named trustee would replace or work with the existing chief executive officer was unclear, the sources said.
Daley calls for major changes at McCormick Place
By John Byrne |
Mayor Richard Daley said Friday that government needs to get out of the
convention business and consider more changes to rules at McCormick
Place than those suggested by an interim board running the troubled
lakefront center.
“I believe you’re going to rent the space out.
You’re going to rent the space out, a person comes in, takes the space,
and he or she — that organization — contracts everything out,” Daley
said. “The only thing McCormick Place is sent is one bill for rent.
They’re responsible for all their contracts and subcontracts, and all
the workers that deal with that convention, and not McCormick Place.”
McPier board backs labor, contractor, food changes
By Kathy Bergen |
The board of the agency that runs McCormick Place voted to recommend
making its union workers public employees without the right to strike,
as a tool to try to wrest further changes in work rules that add to
customer costs and aggravations.
It also voted to recommend reducing the number of unions that work in
the complex and as well as to recommend giving the exposition authority
the right to review show contractor invoices to ensure that labor cost
reductions are passed along to customers.
McPier cost-cutting plan takes shape
By Kathy Bergen | Recommendations
on how to cut exhibitors’ costs for labor, food and electrical service
at McCormick Place began to take shape at a marathon session Sunday,
with a vote on a roster of issues expected late Monday afternoon.
The interim board of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority,
the state-city agency known as McPier that owns and operates the
convention center and Navy Pier, later in the week will forward its
recommendations to a state legislative panel that is examining how to
make McCormick Place more competitive with cheaper rival cities.
Surgeon general to speak at McCormick Place
By Kathy Bergen
| U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin will join a roster of heavy-hitters expected to speak at a biotechnology convention next month at the McCormick Place complex.
Dr. Benjamin will focus on increasing diversity, both within the biotechnology work force and within the pools of participants in clinical trials. Her speech will be May 3, the first day of the four-day 2010 Bio International Convention, the show’s organizers announced today.
Madigan: No overhaul, no McCormick Place rescue
John Cullerton, left, and Michael Madigan confer before the start of the Joint Committee on the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority on April 7. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen |
Union leaders, the trade show contractors they work for and McCormick
Place management all called for a state subsidy of convention hall
operations at a legislative hearing Wednesday, but House Speaker Michael
Madigan said a rescue would not be forthcoming without significant
change.
“My position is the legislature is not going to move forward with any
extension of taxes, any restructuring of debt payments until we put in
place a good, workable business structure,” Madigan said.
Chicago’s convention center rivals are suffering
By Kathy Bergen
| While Chicago is singing the convention business blues, its two biggest
rivals — Las Vegas and Orlando — have reasons to howl even louder,
according to attendance data for 2009, when the deep recession kept many
conventioneers tethered to their home bases.
Attendance at McCormick Place conventions and trade shows tailed off by
nearly 7 percent last year, to 893,068 individuals, according to data
released Tuesday. The same year, the Las Vegas Convention Center
experienced a 30 percent dive, to 1.1 million attendees, and the Orange
County Convention Center took a 21 percent fall, to 781,740. The two Sun
Belt facilities also saw a decline in number of events, while Chicago
saw a rise last year.
Senate leader floats McCormick Place subsidy idea
Illinois Senate President John J. Cullerton speaking about McCormick Place on Thursday. (José M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen | One of the state’s most powerful legislative leaders on Thursday raised
the possibility of a state subsidy for McCormick Place operations, after
several representatives of key Chicago trade shows made it clear they
needed exhibitor costs slashed or they would consider moving elsewhere.
“Orlando and Las Vegas both provide subsidies for their operations,”
said Ill. Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, who chaired the
first legislative hearing on how to make McCormick Place more
competitive with rivals. Those cities funnel hotel taxes to pay for
operations, and Cullerton said Illinois could consider doing the same with its existing hotel tax revenues.
Trade-show organizers to kick off McPier hearings
A view of McCormick Place during the Chicago Auto Show. (Phil Velasquez/ Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen | Trade
show customers’ voices will be among the first heard by a legislative panel
opening hearings on McCormick Place operations Thursday morning.
The high-profile restaurant and housewares shows will provide testimony
as will representatives of major print and metal-forming shows and a
surgeons’ convention. Individual exhibitors also will speak at the 10 a.m. hearing at the Thompson Center.
Trade show organizers meet with McPier labor
By Kathy Bergen | Chicago
trade show organizers are meeting directly with McCormick Place labor
leaders this afternoon in a private meeting at the McCormick Place
Hyatt.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the government agency that owns and operates McCormick Place and Navy Pier, initially said it had no information about the meeting. Later in the day, a spokeswoman said Juan Ochoa, the agency’s chief executive, was in fact aware of the session, as were other managers. The Chicago Convention and Tourism
Bureau, which books business into the convention hall, also said it had
no information.
Mary Pat Heftman, point person for the National Restaurant Association’s
annual show here, was asked about who organized the meeting as she
approached the meeting room.
Jim Reilly to advise legislative panel on McPier
By Kathy Bergen | Chicago trade show industry veteran Jim Reilly has been tapped to be the lead adviser to the legislative panel that is expected to be formed to study how to make McCormick Place more competitive with convention centers in rival cities.
Currently chairman of the Regional Transportation Authority, Reilly previously served as chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates McCormick Place, and as head of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, which books business into the massive convention hall.
Trade shows balk at McPier legislation
By Kathy Bergen
| Some of Chicago’s most valuable trade show customers voiced strong opposition this week to key aspects of legislation aimed at making McCormick Place more competitive with lower-cost rival cities.
While those customers supported elements of the bill that would give financial relief to the beleaguered Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns and operates the convention hall, some balked at the bill’s proposals to grant the authority exclusive control over the labor unions, which they fear could hike costs to exhibitors.
