Cost model: Convention centres

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Who needs a conference centre?</FONT></b>An international convention centre enables a city to break into the lucrative market of business tourism. Despite the explosive growth in global telecommunications, the need for organisations to gather at conferences and conventions continues to rise.
Meetings and conferences punctuate modern working life in fields as diverse as commerce, public service and academia. The demand for specialist meeting space has grown as organisations increasingly invest in staff training at awaydays and staff conferences. Meanwhile, commerce and sales continue to be driven by human contact rather than e-commerce.
As the need to communicate face-to-face has grown, so too has the availability of cheap international travel. The result of these twin developments is that conferences and conventions are on the increase, and with them international business tourism. Because business tourists are big spenders, they are particularly prized by competing city economies.
Despite the prestige of international conferences and the events that they host, convention centres themselves are not usually profitable, as the market for them is highly competitive. However, spending by exhibitors and visitors can provide a significant boost to the broader local economy.
The additional revenue brought by visitors from outside the local economy is often the basis of the business case for a convention centre scheme. The public investment in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, completed in 1995, has yielded an estimated return to the broader Edinburgh economy of 12 times the original investment.
Because of such economic benefits, local authorities are often closely involved in the development of convention centre schemes.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>The marketplace</FONT></b>Convention centres provide a dedicated and distraction-free environment for meetings, exhibitions and other large-scale events. The key services that they provide are an appropriately equipped environment, a dedicated team of trained support staff and a full range of facilities such as staging, catering and technical support for entertainment.
The core market sectors in which these centres compete are the larger conferences and very large convention-type events. Expensive to build and to operate, convention centres need to sustain high levels of use to keep up the return on investment. Flexibility must therefore be built in to enable them to accommodate a wide range of complementary uses, from concerts to trade shows.
A specialist type of building with acoustics designed for international conferences, a convention centre typically features a large, raked hall for plenary sessions – a space which must be suitable for spoken communication – flexible break-out rooms with a total capacity equal to the main hall, and extensive multiple-use exhibition spaces to host associated events.
Large corporate conferences and sales meetings usually require a hall capacity of more than 500, together with associated space for catering and entertaining, and adjacent accommodation for delegates. Conventions are also centred on a large, tiered hall for plenary sessions, but require more extensive break-out areas for concurrent events, together with exhibition space and accommodation for catering and other services.
The most successful convention centres not only provide the specialist space required for large conventions, but can also compete for smaller events against the conference facilities of hotels, training centres and civic facilities such as theatres. These smaller events are often more profitable than the grand conventions for which the centres were originally designed. It is therefore important to ensure that the facility has the capacity to diversify and compete in a range of local and international markets. The flexibility of the building and its services is crucial for the centre’s long-term success.
The main challenge in developing a conference centre is the economic provision of adaptable space. Other issues that require particular attention are circulation, acoustics and services provision, together with the design of communication and audiovisual installations. But convention centres compete not only on the basis of capacity, location and cost, but also on quality of service. As with hotels, the design of the facility must support the quality and efficiency of the service.
If a convention centre is to compete effectively in a global market, the host city must also provide an appropriate infrastructure of hotels, restaurants and attractions to cater for the convention audience.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Building-in flexibility</FONT></b>Flexibility is provided by readily divisible space and comprehensive services distribution. In the USA, this approach has been taken to an extreme with the development of the “flat floor” model. This approach creates a totally flexible space on a single level without permanent walls or seating, rather than a fixed-tiered auditorium with separate exhibition halls. When a tiered auditorium is required, it is created using acoustic partitions and mobile raked seating and staging.
This approach maximises the number of possible configurations and so broadens the market that the centre can serve. However, there are disadvantages: these include high initial costs, compromised acoustic performance and the need for extensive storage space for mobile partitions and seating units when they are not being used.
In the UK, convention centres tend to be designed around a fixed auditorium and a column-free multipurpose hall that can be subdivided using acoustic partitions. The Edinburgh International Conference Centre has an auditorium that can also be split: it has sections of 200 or 300 seats that rotate to subdivide the space with reversed sections of the rear wall of the auditorium.
In designing exhibition halls for multipurpose use, careful consideration must be given to providing easy access, appropriate subdivision and a comprehensive range of services:

• <b>Access issues</b> Where appropriate, floor loadings should permit unrestricted access by an exhibitor’s vehicles for direct unloading and loading operations. An additional dedicated public entrance to the exhibition hall allows it to operate independently of the auditorium.

 

• <b>Divisibility</b>  To allow the exhibition space to be easily divided, it should ideally have no columns or fixed partitions. Track-free suspended partitions should be used to avoid interrupting below-slab services distribution. Where the principal exhibition space is designed for subdivision, all associated spaces, circulation, foyers and break-out space should also have a similar capacity for reconfiguration.

 

 

 

 

 

• <b>Exhibitor services</b> Building services provision in the exhibition space is often what marks one centre out from its competitors. A fixed below-slab services grid is necessary to provide a universal standard of provision across the exhibition floor. A distribution grid of 4.5-6 m is common, with below-floor ducts to provide power, water, drainage and communications.

A flexible power supply is an important concern for exhibitors, so both single-phase and three-phase distribution are required. Just as important as the overall capacity and distribution density is the ability to concentrate capacity to supply abnormal loads. The briefing process should consider the need for an uninterruptible power supply and full back-up supply using standby generators.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Designing circulation space</FONT></b>Circulation spaces are very important in convention centres, not only to deal with large volumes of people, exhibits and goods, but also to provide an appropriate setting for informal meetings and social interaction outside staged conference events.
The design of foyers should focus on the creation of attractive spaces that can withstand high levels of use without showing excessive wear. Issues critical to the design of circulation space are capacity, orientation, architecture and segregation.

 

 

 

 

• <b>Capacity</b> Foyer spaces need to be generous in order to accommodate the peak flows associated with conference registration, plenary sessions and so on. The density of occupation can change rapidly, so the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system must respond quickly to rapid load changes, providing consistently comfortable conditions throughout the centre.
• Because of the large aggregate capacity of the centre as a whole, fire escape requirements can be onerous. Adopting a phased evacuation plan, which takes each of the centre’s main components separately, reduces the number of escape routes needed. This will improve the overall efficiency of the development.

 

• <b>Orientation</b> Many of a centre’s users will not be familiar with the building’s layout, so it is important that circulation routes are direct and contribute to a centre’s legibility. They should make it easy for users to orient themselves and to identify clear routes from one facility to another. Crossways should be avoided on main circulation routes.

 

• <b>Location</b> Circulation spaces are best located at the perimeter of the building, taking advantage of the natural light that is excluded from the auditorium, exhibition hall and meeting spaces. Natural light provides a valuable contrast to the artificial environments required in the working spaces.

 

• <b>Segregation</b> The segregation of front- and back-of-house routes must be considered carefully, to ensure effective physical and acoustic separation and to optimise back-of-house operation. There should, for example, be direct links from exhibition spaces to loading bays, including lifts that can accommodate the largest potential exhibits.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Acoustic considerations</FONT></b>Although convention centres should be designed to facilitate spoken communication, they also need to be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of conflicting uses, such as concerts and sports events.
As well as eliminating potential noise interference between spaces, problems with noise from outside also need to be considered, particularly for exhibition halls with a lightweight external wall construction.

 

 

 

 

• <b>Auditoria</b> The ideal layout for a convention centre auditorium is a fan shape, which provides good sight lines and a suitably dry acoustic. A combination of absorbent panels and some reflective materials such as timber will provide an appropriate acoustic. Designing an auditorium specifically for speech could limit its potential range of uses, so measures must be taken to provide an adjustable acoustic. Acoustic panels, reflectors over the stage platform and electronic systems all add acoustic flexibility.

 

 

 

 

 

• <b>Flexible space</b> Acoustic conditions in the divisible areas of the exhibition space and break-out areas are highly dependent on the performance of the movable acoustic partitions used to divide them. Demountable partitions are incompatible with top-quality acoustic performance. Partitions should be designed to a high specification, particularly as they rarely live up to the acoustic standards certified in laboratory conditions. Break-out rooms are best isolated from potentially noisy exhibition hall activities by means of communal, acoustically controlled circulation and lobby space.

 

 

 

 

 

• <b>Structure and services</b> Many conference and convention activities are highly sensitive to structurally transmitted sound, so structure and services must be designed to minimise this. It is particularly difficult to find suitable locations for plant at roof level.
• An effective solution is to collect together in a single, acoustically isolated unit both loud machinery, such as air-handling units and lifts, and noisy common areas such as WCs and serveries

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Procurement</FONT></b>Several key issues need to be addressed in developing the procurement strategy for a convention centre:

 

 

 

 

• As a landmark building, the centre needs high-quality architecture.

 

• Architecture, structure and services must be closely co-ordinated, particularly in relation to acoustics and other critical issues.

 

• High-tech specialist installations – communications and audiovisual systems – need to be procured as part of the main contract works.

 

 

 

 

 

• The local authority client requires absolute cost and time certainty because of restrictions on funding, and operating risks need to be minimised.

The two main procurement methods that can meet these requirements are develop-and-construct contracts and two-stage lump-sum tenders.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Develop and construct</FONT></b>Under develop-and-construct contracts, the contractor takes responsibility for completion of design and construction for a lump-sum cost. The main attraction of this procurement route to the client is the transfer of all design risks to the contractor.
Other benefits include greater co-ordination of architecture, structure and services, together with a single point of responsibility and simplified project administration. On complex projects such as convention centres, it can be beneficial for the original design team to be retained by the contractor.
In public buildings such as convention centres, quality is important not only in appearance and ambience but also for long-term operation and maintenance. Careful drafting of the employer’s requirements is vital, together with thorough monitoring of the contractor’s work during construction.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Two-stage lump-sum tenders</FONT></b>Conventional lump-sum tenders will provide cost certainty only if production information is sufficiently developed at the time of tender to satisfy the contractor’s full information requirement. Adopting a two-stage approach can involve the contractor in the development and co-ordination of the detailed design and production information. This enables the main contractor to review tender information issued to specialists to assess its completeness and co-ordination.
A properly constructed two-stage tender can deliver early cost certainty to the client. Furthermore, tendering work directly to specialists gives the client greater control over who does the work, while also ensuring effective competition at the level of the subcontractor.
However, the success of a two-stage lump-sum procurement route depends on the quality of the information and adherence to design release dates during the second stage of the tender programme. It is also crucial that the design team and contractor work together effectively during the second stage to ensure that the original concept can be secured on a sound contractual basis for the agreed lump-sum price.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>IT and AV installations</FONT></b>Convention centre communications installations need to be highly sophisticated, not only to support the presentation requirements of conference organisers and exhibitors, but also to enable exhibitors and delegates to remain in contact with the outside world.
Bandwidth is increasingly an issue of competitive advantage, as exhibitors need fast access to the internet to demonstrate web-based products.
As a minimum, voice and ISDN lines are required at points throughout the exhibition space and break-out areas, providing exhibitors with direct dialling. Voice-mail facilities are increasingly common, too. An internal data network should also be available, based on a fibre-optic backbone.
In the auditorium, seats should be wired up for simultaneous translation and voting. An infrared loop and local microphones for audience response are also required.
Presentation hardware must be comprehensive and compatible with all common operating systems. The equipment should ideally be mobile to enable rooms to be reconfigured, although that does make equipment more vulnerable to theft.

<b><FONT SIZE=”+2”>Cost breakdown</FONT></b>The cost model is based on a scheme with a 800-seat tiered auditorium and flexible exhibition hall, with associated break-out spaces. The project includes extensive kitchen and ancillary space at basement level, as well as a central services building that accommodates noisy activities and mechanical plant in a structure isolated from both the exhibition hall and the auditorium.
The project is in a prominent city-centre location and features high-quality facade and roof materials. All public spaces are air-conditioned. The project is fully fitted out and features extensive communications and audiovisual installations, together with stage engineering systems in the auditorium.
Costs are given at fourth-quarter 2000 price levels. Costs of site preparation, external works and services, professional and statutory fees and VAT are excluded from the breakdown. The pricing assumes competitive tenders for a develop-and-construct procurement route.
Adjustment should be made to the rates in the model to account for differences in location, phasing, specification, site conditions, procurement route, programme and the state of the market. The cost breakdown is based on a project in north-west England and should be adjusted by the location factors below for schemes in other regions.