"They have hotels in Vegas that have more meeting space than the Salt Palace," said Jason Mathis, director of communications for the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The MGM Grand has about 5,000 rooms, and in all of downtown Salt Lake there are 8,000 rooms. Vegas is sort of an entity unto themselves."

But Hugelmeyer said the OIA's 28-member board will not look at logistics alone.

"The reason Salt Lake City is even in the game is because there has been a more positive working relationship with OIA and its board of directors," Hugelmeyer said. "We are working with the state and the recreation task force that was started by Gov. (Mike) Leavitt and continued by Gov. (Olene) Walker. That has created in our minds a positive momentum and a relationship with the state that we desire and expect."

To members of the OIA, the biggest issue remains whether Utah will take a stand in protecting recreation and wilderness areas, thereby promoting the overall outdoor recreation industry, worth an annual $18 billion in U.S. product sales.

"You have some of the greatest landscape in the world," Hugelmeyer said. "We want a state, we want an administration that understands you have to preserve the recreation-based economy before you start your development, not after. You are not protecting that economy, you're exposing it. Make it at least an equal priority, not a tertiary one."

Once the OIA board reaches a consensus next week it will forward its recommendation to Outdoor Retailer, which is owned and managed by Virginia-based VNU Expositions Inc., whose parent company, VNU, is a research and media conglomeration based in The Netherlands.

Lori Crabtree, a spokeswoman for Outdoor Retailer, said the company will then decide whether to move the show.

"I just know that VNU, who owns Outdoor Retailer, does many, many shows in Las Vegas currently," Binger said. "So for them it could be an economy of scale."

Talk of moving the show began last year after a deal was struck by Leavitt and Interior Secretary Gale Norton. The agreement removed interim protections to potential wilderness areas identified in Utah after 1991. In turn, Utah dropped a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior.

"When all is said and done, if the space of the show is adequate, if the cost of the show is adequate, then all the intangibles start to come in," Hugelmeyer said. "And the OIA board looks at those, and looks at those very strongly."

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E-mail: danderton@desnews.com