The Las Vegas Convention Center is one of the busiest meeting venues in the U.S., and according to a new data-driven ranking by The Wall Street Journal, it’s actually the best.
But not by much. McCormick Place in Chicago ranks a close second, followed by The Venetian Convention & Expo Center in Las Vegas. In all, the WSJ put 30 U.S. convention centers through its ranking methodology to see how the country’s largest meeting venues stacked up against one another.
To come up with its rankings, WSJ researchers scored each center on 12 factors. Elements related to the venue's space, amenities, and convenience made up 70 percent of its score. They included the amount of exhibition space and meeting room space, distance from airport, hotel availability, and (perhaps oddly) the center’s distance from a dry cleaner. The other 30 percent of the overall score took into account the city and the venue’s surroundings, including food availability, meal prices, arts and entertainment, walkability, and weather.
After the Las Vegas Convention Center, McCormick Place, and the Venetian Convention & Expo Center, the other centers rounding out the top ten spots in the ranking are:
4. San Diego Convention Center
5. Orange County Convention Center, Orlando
6. Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta
7. Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas
8. Phoenix Convention Center
9. Seattle Convention Center
10. Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Dallas
For the full rankings, visit the WSJ article.
Interestingly, the WSJ’s data can be sorted by any of the 12 factors. So, if “distance from airport” is of special interest, for example, the rankings can be organized that way. While Cleveland’s International Exposition Center (I-X Center) came in 30th in the rankings overall, it’s number one in terms of the distance from airport.
