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Public subsidies prop up conventions and trade shows -- and the tourism businesses that sell to them



Orange County’s mammoth convention center is, by the muted expectations of the pandemic, having a busy month: The American Kennel Club just wrapped up its national championships and now a national body-building competition, poached from Las Vegas, is happening this weekend.


One reason for the business? Orange County is often giving the building away for free.

Records show that Orange County agreed to waive all $835,000 worth of building-rental charges for the American Kennel Club, though the promoter of purebred dog shows did agree to pay $3,900 to rent some of the center’s parking lots and was responsible for cleaning up all the dog poop, according to its lease agreement.


Olympia Productions, the company behind this weekend’s “Joe Weider’s Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend,” isn’t paying any rent at all: Orange County agree to waive $124,000 worth of charges, according to its lease.


Dan Solomon, the president of Olympia Productions, likened the discounts to small stimulus packages that generate some business for the hotels, restaurants and attractions that the convention center is designed to feed — many of which are starving for customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.


The Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend, which was forced to cancel its Las Vegas show because of attendance restrictions in Nevada, is likely to draw less than 10 percent of its usual crowds of between 40,000 and 50,000 even under Florida’s looser limits.


“I think all of us are working together, and I think it’s important we work together to create as prudent and safe and as mutually beneficial an environment as possible,” Solomon said. “Obviously, right now there are people that are out of work and people that are depending on some baseline activity in order to continue to have jobs. To that end, we are all, I think, working together to provide some level of stimulus.”


The rent breaks are being handed out for events both big and small. When the International Drive Resort Area Chamber of Commerce reserved a lounge inside the convention center for an October board of directors meeting, Orange County waived the $3,000 rental fee and provided complimentary parking, according to the lease.


And when the convention center booked the Global Business Travel Association’s annual conference for next July — an event convention center officials project will fill nearly 18,000 hotel room nights — records show the convention center agreed to waive nearly $1.1 million in rent.


Read the rest of the story here.

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