The Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center is nearly finished with an overhaul that sought to use cosmetic renovations to completely change its feel and functionality.
“Like most convention centers, it was very utilitarian,” says Steve Goodling, president and CEO of the Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The promenade walkways from the meeting rooms to the exhibit halls were light and bright, all glass with the sun shining in, but there wasn’t a lot of ambience inside. We got feedback from clients that they wanted more of a contemporary environment in which to network and talk, to share the experiences and thoughts that they were gaining at their conventions.”
Instead of doing actual construction, the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center brought in new carpeting and wall coverings, upgraded the bathrooms and green room, and bought some $500,000 worth of Steelcase furniture to create “seating areas much like you would find in upscale lounges and lobbies of large hotels,” Goodling says. “If you want to sit down with a colleague, we wanted to make it easy, so you didn’t have to say, as you do in most convention centers, ‘Let’s go back to the restaurant or snack bar and grab a seat.’ ”
The result has been very popular with both planners and attendees, says Allison Lesser, vice president of sales for the CVB. It also helps the destination overcome the fact that Long Beach does not have one giant anchor hotel at the convention center, but rather a group of small to mid-sized properties that work together to accommodate large groups, she adds. “We’re creating an environment in the center where attendees don’t have to leave the center to continue their meeting or networking with a client,” Lesser says.
Aside from a custom carpet still being manufactured, that work is all done, Goodling says. A project to make the attached, 13,000-seat Long Beach Arena more usable as a ballroom and special event venue is in the wings, awaiting a final approval vote by the city council that Goodling hopes will come this month.
“We’re creating a curtain that can be dropped to create a perimeter around seats,” he says. “That creates a 45,000 square foot space with no sightlines to [the facility] seating, so you don’t feel you’re in an arena.”
The extensive truss system for lighting and sound will also be height adjustable, creating a kind of ceiling that will prevent the feel of being in a cavernous space. At the same time, it will more than double the size of the Convention and Entertainment Center’ largest existing ballroom, the 20,500 square foot Grand Ballroom.
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