Outdoor retailers weigh S.L., Vegas

It's Sin City versus Salt Lake City.

On Wednesday, the Outdoor Industry Association will make a recommendation on whether the huge Outdoor Retailer trade show — worth an estimated $32 million annually in direct spending — should continue to make Salt Lake City its home or should move to a more accommodating market.

If one city could steal away Salt Lake City's biggest annual convention, which draws about 20,000 people for its summer show and 15,000 for its winter show, it likely could be Las Vegas, with its endless skyline of hotels, miles of convention space and all-night entertainment.

You won't hear Frank Hugelmeyer, president of the OIA, based in Boulder, Colo., and whose members make up 60 percent of the show's display space, disagree with that assessment.

"They're built for conventions," Hugelmeyer said Friday. "You have to realize the natural assets are one of the unique features of Salt Lake City, but going to a trade show is about doing business. It's about entertaining clients."

It's those kinds of comments that keep local business and government leaders unsettled.

"At this point I couldn't tell you what is going to happen," said Leslie Reberg, Salt Lake County's director of community and support services. "We made our proposal and have been going back and forth with them on some particulars of our proposal. I usually have a good gut for these things, and right now it's 50-50. I just couldn't tell you."

Three other cities on the OIA's short list for a possible new location are New Orleans, Denver and Orlando, Fla.

To keep the show in Salt Lake City, where it has been continuously since 1996, local leaders offered a $45 million to $55 million expansion plan for the Salt Palace that would add 145,000 square feet of contiguous space, with an additional 70,000 square feet to be placed on top.

"We feel we've given them a very, very compelling proposal that would accommodate their growth," said Dianne Binger, president of the Salt Lake Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We have a lot of intangibles that our city offers that no other destination can offer — our proximity to mountains and proximity to the outdoors."

An expanded Salt Palace also would do away with the show's need for an outdoor tent exhibit, which was ravaged by the tornado that swept through downtown Salt Lake City on Aug. 11, 1999 — exactly five years before Wednesday's scheduled announcement.

Yet even with the added space, Salt Lake City is still dwarfed by Las Vegas, which commands an annual $177 million budget in marketing and promotion, compared to Salt Lake's $9 million.