| May 2007 • Volume 27 • Number 5 • The Meeting Professional |
Feature
Connection Centers
Convention facilities are offering groups seemingly unlimited wireless access and massive bandwidth to keep up with demand for the latest in connectivity.
By Rowland Stiteler
At a medical conference at the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center last year, the breakout rooms became surgical theaters. Attendees watched live surgeries conducted by some of the best doctors in the world, and, just as in surgical theaters located within major hospitals, the attendees could ask the surgeons questions while the operations were in progress. But one key detail was different: the patients and doctors performing the surgeries were not actually in the building, but in hospital operating rooms around the globe.
These were virtual surgical theaters made possible by the convention center’s sophisticated broadband Internet capabilities. Five years ago, that type of global demonstration would have been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. But today it’s the type of event that can be put together with relative ease in the world’s top-tier convention centers.
Meeting Consumer Demand
The described level of communication capability represents a standard that major convention centers must achieve in order to be competitive, according to Michael Waxer, Washington Convention Center chief technology officer.
“In fact, if you can’t set up that level of communications in your convention center nowadays, there are a lot of groups that may not even consider you,” he said.
Genuine technological “wow” was on display at a medical conference held last year at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC). A surgeon inside the facility performed a heart procedure on a patient in an operating room in Milan, Italy, using a robotic device guided by a signal carried via the Internet.
“That is the type of thing that definitely doesn’t happen every day,” said Steve Snyder, the convention center’s chief information officer. “But it clearly represents what’s out there on the leading edge and where things are going.”
James E. Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (which manages the BCEC), says centers and their customers are increasingly redefining what constitutes the leading edge of technology.
“It essentially gets redefined every day by the imagination of the people who use the technology,” he said. “What we have now is an incredibly powerful tool—a flexible resource for which people are continually finding new uses.”
Rooney says that when the BCEC opened in 2004, a major component of its construction was installing the best electronic technology, which included ample fiber-optic cable in the building’s communications “spine,” the wiring system that carries signals throughout the facility. And in the two years since its opening, technology upgrades have been a regular function.
“The technology is constantly evolving, and you’ve got to keep up or fall behind,” Rooney said.
The BCEC prides itself on helping clients keep up with technology, Rooney added. Many groups only tap the surface of what they can do with electronic technology because they find it somewhat intimidating.
“We realize that the technical aspects of the Internet and communications technology in general can be a little foreboding to the average person, and we want to make it approachable and understandable so our groups can start to realize the potential of what we have to offer,” Rooney said.
To accomplish this, the BCEC offers onsite guidance from a tech staff eager to translate every aspect of the technical process into understandable language. Many other major convention centers use the same strategy.
“While lots of groups are extremely tech-savvy these days, there are also a lot who are not,” said Michael Walker, information services manager for the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) in Orlando, Fla. “And if people don’t understand the technology that is available to them, they can’t use it effectively.”
The OCCC has an in-house technology staff that partners with the center’s contracted Internet and communications provider—Las Vegas-based Smart City—to provide customers with seamless, hands-on help from tech people well before the event starts until well after it’s over.
Wireless is Huge
The most consumed technological service at convention centers is wireless Internet connectivity.
“Five years ago, we made sure we put down a pad and a pen or pencil at every seat in a conference,” said Pieter Idenburg, chief operating officer of the Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre. “Now we want to make sure we have an Internet connection—often wireless—for every conference attendee so they can take notes on presentations and communicate with others through their laptops.”
The Suntec interior has a strong wireless signal that allows thousands of users to logon simultaneously, says Idenburg, who notes that Suntec was voted the third-most-popular wireless hotspot in Asia in a recent survey.
Wireless technology offers a great opportunity not only as a communications tool but also as a revenue source for groups, according to Alan Suppaya, information and communications technology manager for the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.
“Because wireless is so popular, groups can often get a sponsor who will pay to provide free wireless service for attendees,” he said. “When the attendees first go to the browsers on their laptops, they are directed to the logon Web page for the service, which can contain advertising from the sponsor. This is very popular at our center, and of course we also offer an individual logon option by which you just pay with your credit card. Because it is so readily available, wireless is the most popular technology service we offer.”
And wireless use in convention centers is going to grow even more popular in the next few years, according to David Langford, vice president of technology for Smart City, a major provider of convention center technology services.
“Handheld wireless devices are going to start offering the same types of tools you now turn to a PC or a laptop to use, so wireless capacity everywhere—especially convention centers—is going to need to increase significantly in the coming years.”
In fact, Smart City has experienced a flip in its technology usage over the past five years.
“We provide both telephone services and Internet services to convention centers, and five years ago 70 percent of what our customers used was telephone service and 30 percent was Internet,” Langford said. “Today, it’s 80 percent Internet and 20 percent telephone.”
An Explosion of Bandwidth
The future of the Internet-convention center relationship is uncertain because of the onset of so many new applications. But most tech experts are sure that more and more bandwidth will be required. Centers around the world are in the midst of bandwidth and wiring upgrades.
“You are probably never going to reach a point at which the capacity of the ‘pipe’ can stop growing,” said Marty Smith, president of Benton Harbor, Mich.-based ethnoMetrics Corp., a company that works with trade show exhibitors and conference planners to fine-tune their products.
Smith’s company uses lots of cameras, which employ a convention center’s fiber-optic spine, to communicate with company computers. The computers can do everything from analyze foot-traffic flow in exhibit areas to count how many people in a demographic range touch or look at a product on display. Those applications require huge amounts of bandwidth.
McCormick Place, the massive Chicago convention facility, fine-tuned its taxi service after attendees complained they were waiting too long for cabs at curbside stands.
EthnoMetrics put cameras at the cab stands and determined the waits were not as long as the attendees said yet still too long. McCormick Place then employed an Internet-driven solution. Cameras were permanently installed at the cab stands so center management and taxi companies could monitor traffic, allowing for the dispatch of vehicles as customers queued.
At the BCEC, attendees can communicate in real time with convention center management either through their laptops or touchpad kiosks about the quality of service.
“I often monitor that feedback myself, and people are often surprised when they get an immediate response from the director of the center saying, ‘We are on our way to help you right now,’” Rooney said.
Another popular high-tech feature in convention centers are LCD screens around the building. Each screen can be programmed individually for use in everything from a static display of information to live broadcasts.
At Suntec Singapore, where there are three giant screens—or “E-boards,” one of which is about 45 feet across—advertising space is sold and can be mixed with information or entertainment programming. Suntec is also planning a system involving “interactive wayfaring,” by which attendees can traverse the center by asking for directions on a touch-pad screen.
The L.A. Live project adjacent to the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center is set to open in 2008 with a second phase in 2009. The project will make extensive use of technology, including multiple, 75-foot-tall, programmable LCD screens outside of the new Nokia Theater (similar screens are available at the American Airlines Center in Dallas). Fiber-optic cabling will link the new theater with the Staples Center, the convention center and new Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels. Live broadcasts can originate from any point in the new complex and be broadcast on big screens elsewhere in the facility or worldwide via the Internet. Los Angeles is one of several cities considering local area networks (LANs) that would tie into guest rooms in nearby convention hotels, allowing delegates to follow sessions without physically attending.
The beauty of the Internet is that it’s a two-way portal, according to Tom Paul, director of information technology for the Wisconsin Center District, which operates Milwaukee’s primary convention center, the Midwest Airlines Center.
“It’s reached a point at which live broadcasts that once required a satellite truck to uplink and send out can now just go out over the Internet,” he said.
But Paul likes to cite an old Will Rogers quote that may apply to the advancement of convention center technology in the 21st century.
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” TMP
ROWLAND STITELER is a freelance writer based in Crystal Beach, Fla.
SIDEBAR #1: Selecting a High-Tech Convention Center
A meeting planner seeking a convention center with high-tech capabilities should consider a combination of equipment, expertise and attitude.
That’s the opinion of John Malamazian, an Oak Brook, Ill.-based planner who recently organized a complex event for a major financial services company at the Vancouver (British Columbia) Convention and Exhibition Centre, complete with video walls and nightly change-out of principal meeting area configuration.
“It’s a must that the convention center have a staff with expertise that’s up to speed, but they also [must be] willing to work with your technical people to make things happen. That’s what made our event a success in Vancouver,” he said.
Don’t have technical people of your own? Not a problem. Smart City, a major provider of technology services and Internet and telephone access, has set up shop in many North American centers. Other major facilities, such as the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, offer in-house staffs with expertise in cutting-edge technologies.
The bottom line, according to planners who put a premium on event technology, is the same approach that makes sense for any service: ask questions early and often and create a game plan for an event’s technology uses well before it is held. Ask a convention center’s director of information technology if the facility has experience in providing exactly the kind of tech options desired.
In terms of hardware, it’s safe to assume that newer buildings have an advantage, because almost universally they were wired with state-of-the-art systems when constructed. However, centers don’t have to be new to have good high-tech equipment—many of them have been retrofitted with top-notch fiber optics and high-speed hardware.