Baltimore Area Convention

Awards Atlantic Scaffolding and Atlantic Plant Services, units of Columbia-based Atlantic Industrial, received 10 Meritorious Safety Awards for Contractors from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. Software engineering firm Datatel Inc. presented Villa Julie College in Green Spring Valley with its 2007 Partner In Excellence award. Contract The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association signed a contract to bring the Becker Pet Industry trade show to Baltimore for four successive years beginning in 2008.

BaltimoreOct. 12-14 Atlantic Cable Show, Convention Center. Contact: Jan Starkey. Estimated attendance: 4,000Oct. 20-23 Natural Products Expo, Convention Center. Contact: Kay Gazaway, 303-939-8440. Estimated attendance: 7,500Oct. 27-31 U.S. Sailing Association national meeting, Hyatt Regency. Contact: Wanda Goodwin-Tuck, 401-683-0800. Estimated attendance: 500Nov. 1-2 American Rental Association conference and product showcase, Sheraton Inner Harbor. Contact: Mary Slabon, 309-764- 2475. Estimated attendance: 1,000InformationThe Sun lists selected conventions of general interest or with exhibits open to the public from those provided by the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.

With the passage this month of legislation allowing lucrative tax breaks for downtown hotel developers, city convention officials are set to begin selling Baltimore in earnest.The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association plans to pitch the 750-room Wyndham International Hotel, now under construction on the east side of the Inner Harbor, as an enticement to meeting planners worried about Baltimore's inventory of hotel rooms. And convention officials are optimistic that the legislation will spur an announcement on a Westin hotel on Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor soon.

BaltimoreAug. 17-20 Rural Utilities national conference, Omni Inner Harbor. Contact: Ken Ackerman, 202-720-9460. Estimated attendance: 600Aug. 18-20 United Trout Farmers Association conference, Sheraton Inner Harbor. Contact: Mary Wiltshire, 304-728-2189. Estimated attendance: 200InformationThe Sun lists selected conventions of general interest or with exhibits open to the public from those provided by the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. This is not a list of all industrial, business or organizational conventions and meetings which are held in Baltimore, most of which are not open to public participation.

More than 200 guests crowded into the screening room of the ESPNZone at the Inner Harbor to celebrate the coming baseball season and to raise money for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum's planned expansion into historic Camden Station at Oriole Park."

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday rejected Comptroller William Donald Schaefer's recommendation that the state take over the Baltimore Convention Center, saying that booking numbers did not reflect poor management."

A conventioneer from New Jersey who was found dead in his room at a historic Fells Point hotel Wednesday evening was beaten to death, and his attacker might have stolen his dark blue truck, Baltimore police said yesterday.Investigators found no sign of forced entry to the victim's fourth-floor room at the Admiral Fell Inn on South Broadway. Officials said they do not know how the man, who had been attending a pharmaceutical convention, met his attacker.Police said last night that more than 24 hours after the killing, detectives were unable to locate the victim's relatives.

BaltimoreAug. 23-27 Healthcare Financing Administration national CMD meeting, Sheraton Towson. Contact: Loretta Champion, 301-270-0841. Estimated attendance: 250Aug. 25-28 Cremation Association of North America, Renaissance Harborplace. Contact: Stacy Broviak, 312-644-6610. Estimated attendance: 500Sept. 9-11 P.E.O. Sisterhood, convention center. Contact: Anne Pettygrove, 515-255-3153. Estimated attendance: 3,000InformationThe Sun lists selected conventions of general interest or with exhibits open to the public from those provided by the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.

BaltimoreSept. 9-11 P.E.O. Sisterhood, convention center. Contact: Anne Pettygrove, 515-255-3153. Estimated attendance: 3,000Sept. 11-12 Maryland RV Show, Maryland State Fairgrounds, York and Timonium roads. Contact: JonTancredi, 215-592-8601. Estimated attendance: 8,000Sept. 15-19 National League of Cities, children's and families conference, Holiday Inn, Lombard and Howard streets. Contact: John Kyle, 202-626-3030. Estimated attendance: 600Sept. 16-18 Malibu Pilots Association, Renaissance Harborplace, 200 E. Pratt St. Contact: Bill Albert, 843-785-9349.

BaltimoreJan. 3-6 Northeastern Weed Science Society, annual meeting. Hyatt Regency, 300 Light St.Contact: A. Richard Bonanno, 987- 682-9563. Estimated attendance: 300Jan. 5-7 Mid-Atlantic Nurserymen's Association, trade show. Convention Center, Pratt and Howard streets. Contact: Carville Akehurst, 410-882-5300. Estimated attendance: 8,000InformationSelected conventions of general interest or with public exhibits, as listed by the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.

For more than two decades, thousands of engineers, scientists and mathematicians have come to Baltimore for the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference - an annual economic infusion for the city's hotels and restaurants. It was an event the city's tourism industry could count on year after year, in its peak bringing in as many as 9,000 people and nearly $10 million in spending during the slow winter season. But conference organizers, lured by perks and incentives, plan to move the conference in February 2011 to Washington, when it will celebrate its 25th anniversary.

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP says it looks as if the city is a good bet to host the civil rights organization's national convention in 2012, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of the local branch. "It looks favorable," Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham said Wednesday, a day after he, Mayor Sheila Dixon and representatives of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association and the Baltimore Convention Center made a 20-minute pitch to an NAACP panel considering proposals for that year's gathering.

Baltimore will be host for global trade shows The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association has booked a global trade show for travel planners that will generate an estimated $15 million in spending and 50,000 hotel room night bookings over five years, the convention agency said yesterday. The Americas Incentive, Business Travel and Meetings Exhibition, which will hold its inaugural event in Baltimore from June 29 to July 1, 2010, and each summer through 2014, is expected to bring 3,000 attendees annually and boost the city's reputation as an international convention destination, BACVA said.

It's a promising start: 451,608 room nights in Baltimore hotels booked through 2017, business attributed in large part to that shiny new convention center hotel at the corner of Pratt and Paca streets. That's the assessment of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, which booked the hotel stays during a 12-month period that ended June 30. They should improve Baltimore's bottom line. Not only do these room nights translate into convention center business and companion stays at other area hotels, but robust bookings at the 757-room Hilton Baltimore should make good on city development officials' promise that the city-owned hotel could pay for itself.

With the opening of Baltimore's $301 million convention headquarters hotel a month away, city convention officials said yesterday they have booked a record number of convention room nights for future years. The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association said it booked 451,608 room nights in city hotels through 2017 during the fiscal year that ended June 30, an 18 percent jump over last year's bookings. The number beat the goal of 400,000 room nights - an achievement BACVA officials credited to the new Hilton Baltimore, a city-owned, 757-room convention headquarters hotel on West Pratt Street set to open next month.

You really couldn't ask for a better kickoff weekend to the Dew Tour than this one. Baltimore played host to the Panasonic Open, the second straight year the tour's first stop came here, and fans flocked to the Camden Yards Sports Complex on a sunny weekend. And it looks as if they will have a chance to flock there again next year. The Maryland Stadium Authority signed two one-year contracts with the Dew Tour for 2008 and 2009. Having the Dew Tour return next year is contingent on the Orioles' schedule, but it appears the Panasonic Open is here to stay.

The city should build a new arena in downtown Baltimore - probably on the site of the present one - and it should be large enough to accommodate an NHL or NBA franchise, major concerts and conventions. The men and women looking into this should take a serum against small-think and never-think. Baltimore deserves an arena that serves a future of big possibilities. I don't know if any member of the Baltimore Development Corp.'s arena advisory panel is under 35 years of age, but if not, it would be a good idea to add one or two who are - some young, future-minded, civic-minded sharpies who care about the emerging Baltimore.

Thomas J. Noonan President and chief executive officer, Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA) Salary --$185,000 Age --42 Time on the job: --Seven months How he got started --Before promoting Baltimore as the best location to hold a conference, he promoted Dallas for 18 years with the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau (DCVB). For eight of those years, he worked out of the DCVB's Washington office and fell in love with the Mid-Atlantic. When the opening for BACVA came up, he scheduled a video interview and became a finalist for the job, eventually securing it. He started in January.

Within two weeks after Restaurant Week ended last year, Nate Beachler started seeing patrons who'd been lured in by the earlier discounts come back for another bite at Oceanaire Seafood Room. "Maybe they waited for another paycheck," said Beachler, general manager and operating partner of the Harbor East restaurant that opened in November 2005. "For us, it was an incredible marketing tool. We've found that some people come in every single week after they had a chance to experience the restaurant."

Here, water is everything - the heart of the city's revival, the point of its main tourist attraction, the flavor of the hometown dish. There, the wettest things are the decorative fountains outside the convention center. It's dust, it's prairie, it's cows - it's Texas. Despite having nothing visibly in common, Baltimore and Fort Worth have become the nation's newest clique - business partners and instant mutual admiration society. Tourism boosters in each city are reaching across the country to join hands, hoping that together they can grab visitors' dollars that traditionally end up in other cities.