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Why does ANA refuse to have its convention in the Washington DC area?

29 posts in this topic

If the Washington Convention Center is too big, then there is appropriate space at National Harbor in close-in PG County. The area is filled with free things to do and places to visit, lots of historical sites and world-class restaurants. (Sorry Charmy - none of them serve cats!)

 

Anyone who will admit to being on the ANA Board out there to respond - or does the Board even care?

 

Or...is it because of fear of getting cooties from all the befuddled politicians running around?

 

The ANA has been asked several times in the past few years. No research and analysis response has ever been provided.

 

Opinion's are appreciated.

 

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Why not ask the ANA?

 

My guess is that it's cost prohibitive and/or impractical in one or more ways. And the tone of your post probably won't encourage board members to want to bother to respond.

 

I don't recall the particulars, but remember hearing that a number of seemingly good locations weren't realistic options, due to cost, unavailable convention space (since the ANA is quite small, relative to other conventions), lack of hotel rooms or the local tax situation. In other words, the ANA doesn't just refuse to hold conventions in good locations, for the fun of it.

 

 

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Basically this is the situation that has been discussed many times. And it was discussed at the Anaheim board meeting.

 

It's not where the ANA wants to have the shows, it's which convention centers want the ANA. Within some broad parameters (air access and favorable tax treatment being two).

 

Why don't they want us? We don't buy enough catering and hotel nights to make it profitable for the centers.

 

A 3 day doctor's convention of 800 participants sells 2400 room nights, 1400 meals. The ANA sells half that and zero meals.

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The ANA does not have to use the DC Convention Center. There are other venues in the city and close-in suburbs. The "Chicago" show is not in Chicago - only a suburb. As noted above, the tax argument seems bogus. Using National Harbor, which is in Maryland (similar tax situation as Baltimore) and just at the end of the Wilson Bridge, seems like an alternative worth investigating.

 

If the ANA is a small generator of hotel and restaurant business, then why does ANA avoid smaller cities - places that would love to have the business?

 

I suggest that ANA produce a collector-friendly analysis of location sites and clear explanations of why certain major economic areas are ignored or accepted. (Of course, this assumes ANA management wants to do better outreach and wants more collector involvement, and that the Board is more than a gaggle of newly hatched ducklings.)

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Are there sales tax issues or business restrictions that make DC undesirable ?

 

Business restrictions? Yes, there are. You are not allowed to protect yourself or your business by carrying a firearm. The bad guys are not aware of this law though.

 

Paul

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The inability to carry a gun in your underpants is not a valid reason. Further, National Harbor is in Maryland and so is Baltimore -- there is little crying by 'wild west' advocates about Baltimore shows.

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Nice animation! Looks like the ANA conventions have regressed from that national character. Washington has had one ANA convention in 75 years.

 

(This is not a personal concern -- Baltimore is as convenient as Washington and they both are in the eastern Megalopolis.)

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The inability to carry a gun in your underpants is not a valid reason. Further, National Harbor is in Maryland and so is Baltimore -- there is little crying by 'wild west' advocates about Baltimore shows.

 

I would certainly never suggest that YOU carry one.......Oh my......

 

Paul

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Actually, Paul, I have a permit; and also occasionally hunt deer. (Around where I live, there are so many deer that there is no sport to hunting, so I have not been out in years.)

 

But you offer no valid reason of not having an ANA convention in Washington.

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Nice animation! Looks like the ANA conventions have regressed from that national character. Washington has had one ANA convention in 75 years.

 

(This is not a personal concern -- Baltimore is as convenient as Washington and they both are in the eastern Megalopolis.)

 

In my opinion, I think the ANA has just gotten lazy in their push for diverse locations. Chicago, NYC, Florida, and Southern California are convenient options for the committee, since little work or effort is required.

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I understand Roger.

 

I was just suggesting that this inability would be a 'business restriction' for me.....

I used to hunt , as a kid, but I never really cared for venison. If I wasn't going to eat it, I wasn't going to shoot it. I did like pheasant though. Now those, you don't see like you did 40 years ago. So I would leave them alone today.

 

Paul

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Nice animation! Looks like the ANA conventions have regressed from that national character. Washington has had one ANA convention in 75 years.

 

(This is not a personal concern -- Baltimore is as convenient as Washington and they both are in the eastern Megalopolis.)

 

In my opinion, I think the ANA has just gotten lazy in their push for diverse locations. Chicago, NYC, Florida, and Southern California are convenient options for the committee, since little work or effort is required.

 

I know they have considered several other locations, which, as I mentioned previously, did not turn out to be practical. It had nothing to do with laziness.

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If the ANA is a small generator of hotel and restaurant business, then why does ANA avoid smaller cities - places that would love to have the business?

 

That's the 2nd criteria - access.

 

if you want a national convention with national dealer representation, then the dealers have to be able to get into the site. That means air travel for many and that means they need to be able to bring two suitcases on-board the aircraft for safety/security reasons.

 

This means any city primarily served by turbo-props or small RJs is out...

 

And it also requires more than 1 or 2 flights a day.

 

So take the legacy carriers (AA, UA, DL, SW) and the big regionals AS (Alaska for those who don't know the codes), HA (Hawaiian) (maybe). Throw in a few others with major market jet presence (B6 - JetBlue).

 

Generate the list of cities they serve...

 

Or go the other way, pull a list of airports with mainline jets, more than just a token # of daily flights.

 

That list of 20 or 30 or 50 cities is your starting point.

 

Then ask who wants us...

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In my opinion, I think the ANA has just gotten lazy in their push for diverse locations. Chicago, NYC, Florida, and Southern California are convenient options for the committee, since little work or effort is required.

 

That is a foolish statement (I'll redact the first several words that came to mind).

 

The then ANA staffer in charge of working on site selections was here (or ATS) posting on this very topic a year ago. He gave us extensive chapter and verse on how the process worked.

 

After the staff has done their work, including contacting venues and holding preliminary discussions, the board then gets a list of feasible locations.

 

If I remember correctly there were some additional issues between how far in advance ANA was able to make commitments and how far the venues needed it done.

 

Also remember that an otherwise feasible sites may already be booked or in discussion with lucrative meetings/conventions and not be able to hold space for ANA to decide over a protracted period.

 

If an otherwise perfect site doesn't have an opening in mid August for the year(s) that commitments are being made, then it can't be the site of the WfoM.

 

 

 

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Makes sense....

 

Has anyone seen published analysis documents by ANA that would help understand their decisions?

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Nice animation! Looks like the ANA conventions have regressed from that national character.

 

In the days before air travel, the big cities were not as big proportionally, conventions were both more important and were more regional. Rotating them around the country made sense to bring the ANA to the members across a much wider swath of the country.

 

With air travel (and higher population density focused in and around major cities), going where the people (members, collectors) are makes more sense. But does limit the locations.

 

AND this disenfranchises several groups of members, such as the Pacific Northwest (PNW). So the ANA has tried to rotate the smaller show (NMS). With predictable results - listen to the complaints about the ANA in Portland last year.

 

* It's so far away

* I can't drive there

* Nobody is going

 

There is an active and important numismatic community in the PNW, but it is a fairly localized one. Many of the members in my coin club had never been to an ANA show because they were always in California or the Midwest or East Coast. Portland, at just a 2 hour drive, was acceptable for maybe 1/4 the membership.

 

Even the big PNNA Portland show draws mostly from the 3 +/- state area (WA, OR, ID)... https://www.pnna.org/convention/spring/conv_spring_dealer_list_2016.html - out of 85 tables, 16.5% of the tables were from out of the area:

 

five from CA

two from NE (same dealer)

two from CO

one from WI, NY, MN, NV and LA

 

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Has anyone seen published analysis documents by ANA that would help understand their decisions?

 

I don't see the thread here in a simple search, so it was probably ATS. Even so, it was fairly general, a lot of the information is sensitive or proprietary and wouldn't be disclosed. But Jeff (I think that was his name) did a good job of setting out the limitations.

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I was at the last DC show, which I think was 1970. It was well attended

and I would think that the same would be true today. If Baltimore gets a

good turnout, why not Washington?

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Has anyone seen published analysis documents by ANA that would help understand their decisions?

 

I don't see the thread here in a simple search, so it was probably ATS. Even so, it was fairly general, a lot of the information is sensitive or proprietary and wouldn't be disclosed. But Jeff (I think that was his name) did a good job of setting out the limitations.

 

GregL ( Greg Lyons )

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Nice animation! Looks like the ANA conventions have regressed from that national character. Washington has had one ANA convention in 75 years.

 

(This is not a personal concern -- Baltimore is as convenient as Washington and they both are in the eastern Megalopolis.)

 

In my opinion, I think the ANA has just gotten lazy in their push for diverse locations. Chicago, NYC, Florida, and Southern California are convenient options for the committee, since little work or effort is required.

 

I know they have considered several other locations, which, as I mentioned previously, did not turn out to be practical. It had nothing to do with laziness.

 

 

There have been lengthy discussions on this on the PCGS board.

Problem I have with the excuses is that, how I read it (and it is written text and not verbal, so nuances are lost), is that some venues turn down the ANA based on different reasons (maybe not enough booking into local hotel rooms, maybe not enough catering, maybe not big enough), and yet, I don't think that the ANA tries that hard when that happens.

 

Take Seattle, for instance. There are plenty of times when the venue is empty. What I am hearing is that Seattle has given pushback on the ANA (not big enough of a convention) and that the ANA just said "ok. bye".

 

So, there is no real locational diversity that the ANA is doing. They are doing these conventions, with few exceptions, over and over in the same places.

Great for those on the east coast, and CA, but sucks for the PNW. Doing 1 in Portland, OR (1...just 1) doesn't cut it compared to all the rest.

 

The ANA's function is supposed to be to introduce the hobby to others and to further the hobby. Hard to introduce it to people in an area that is largely ignored.

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I was at the last DC show, which I think was 1970. It was well attended

and I would think that the same would be true today. If Baltimore gets a

good turnout, why not Washington?

 

Baltimore and Washington are 30 minutes apart. I don't see what the big deal is? The only major difference is that Baltimore is pleasant to visit, and both DC airports are abysmal.

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For discussion purposes, I created this animated GIF for another recent discussion on this topic.

 

ana_locations_zpsh7golx3z.gif

 

Wasn't there an ANA convention in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2001?

 

Possibly the smaller ANA show. These are the main convention locations.

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I was at the last DC show, which I think was 1970. It was well attended

and I would think that the same would be true today. If Baltimore gets a

good turnout, why not Washington?

 

Baltimore and Washington are 30 minutes apart. I don't see what the big deal is? The only major difference is that Baltimore is pleasant to visit, and both DC airports are abysmal.

 

What on earth are you visiting in Baltimore? There is far more history and things to see and do in DC.

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Baltimore and Washington are 30 minutes apart. I don't see what the big deal is? The only major difference is that Baltimore is pleasant to visit, and both DC airports are abysmal.

 

What on earth are you visiting in Baltimore? There is far more history and things to see and do in DC.

 

+1

 

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