Conventions Flee Chicago

The trickle has become a torrent of convention business fleeing the city:

• A premier medical trade show is dropping Chicago for its 2012 gathering and heading to Las Vegas instead, citing the high cost of labor at McCormick Place, a source familiar with the decision told the Tribune.
  
  The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting, which held its first show at McCormick Place in April, is a choice piece of business for the city. It draws 24,000 delegates and generates about $52 million in spending locally.
  
  The annual show rotates between several cities, and 2012 had been the next time it was scheduled for Chicago.

So not only are they canceling, they're canceling three years in advance. And this is one of the good sized ones - smaller conventions have been gone for years now.

We saw a media piece just the other day - the cost for a 24-pack of Pepsi at McCormick Place? $100. That isn't a typo. They're charging conventioneers one-hundred-bucks for a case of soda you can get at Jewel for $7 on an off day. Tie that into the ridiculous work rules and sky high tax rates and it's amazing there are any shows still willing to come here. Vegas is reducing the cost of square footage at their convention centers just to get people into town and then raking in mountains of cash at the casinos and shows.

The wheels are coming off the city's economic engines, Shortshanks is fiddling and Chicago is burning.