USA – The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is to bring its show back to Chicago’s McCormick Place following reforms that came into effect last year.
The HIMSS show, which attracts 30,000 international attendees and generates around US$33.6m from each event, upped sticks for Las Vegas after 2009 event and blamed soaring electrician costs at the Chicago venue.
“You expect higher costs in a more unionised city like Chicago, but it was not a difference in the hourly labour rates so much as inefficient and archaic works rules, slowness in how quickly work got done and the number of people it took to get work done,” remarked HIMSS CEO and president H. Stephen Lieber at the time.
McCormick Place’s high costs, propped up by the unions, saw many other organisers take their events elsewhere in 2009 and 2010. However labour activity and campaigning at a civic and managerial level have helped force changes in labour rules and pricing plans.
However the society said it had now received “positive feedback” from exhibitors since the reforms.
The HIMSS event is returning to Chicago for its annual conferences in 2015 and 2019, joining six other trade shows that have recommitted to Chicago, and three launch shows that have signed new contracts.
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