I.B.M. Never in Las Vegas

[Geno Munari]

I am just curious.
The IBM has has business and board meetings in Las Vegas, but why have they never had a convention in TBCOTA (in the best city of them all).

The airfares are cheap, the food is inexpensive, plenty of rooms, plenty of convention space, plenty of showrooms.

The S.A.M. has been here at leat thre times and are returning next year I believe.

It is a good place for other conventions as well.

Could it be that there are too many other conventions...I don't think so. So what prey-tell is the reason?

[Pete Biro]

When I was on the convention committee we respected the fact that Las Vegas was S.A.M. territory (as well as the DMS) and felt they derserved to keep their conventions there without any conflicts.

I don't know the current IBM committee's thinking.

[Earle Oakes]

Pete,
If Las Vegas is S.A.M.'s venue to be respected what is the I.B.M.'s that
S.A.M. treats in the same manner?
Earle

[Brian Marks]

Here is my question. Why are SAM and IBM always the same weekend? They are forced to fight over the same pool of convention goers and talent. If they were held on two different weekends, conventioneers could go to both.

[Pete Biro]

I can only speak about the 11 years I was on the IBM Convention Committee. I do not know what the current thinking is... following the crude and nasty takeover by Klosterman and his pals... argh.

Anway. Bill Wells was the site chairman and he discovered that the Major Hotels would give us a far better price for rooms over the Fourth of July (it is a dead week for travellers)... so the IBM "established" the fourth weekend and also tried to have the cities that had things for the wives and kids to do while the magicians were watching each other do double lifts!

Many times when the SAM and IBM conventions did not overlap I wanted to split the costs with the SAM to bring over from Europe and the Orient, expensive acts... acts that one group couldn't afford, but if we split the travel we could get them.

We found that the number of people that did both conventions was under ten percent... so if we had, say Fred Kaps at both conventions, only about ten percent would overlap, but who wouldn't want to see someone like Kaps twice?

So, this last one, where it was the SAM's 100th I would bet that if OUR COMMITTEE was in and the SAM folks had talked with us, early enough, we would have given way.

But, like I say, I cannot speak for the current committee.

I have been asked three times to come back, but as long as the political fools that screwed things up are still alive, I refuse to be involved.

Their total LIES and phoney promises are a travesty to the organization.

:mad:

[Pete Biro]

Forgot to complete a comment about wanting to split cost to bring over expensive acts... the SAM never would agree to that... too bad.