March 11, 2024

The final tally that put Sioux Falls over the top is 35,415 people — the largest attendance not just for a South Dakota convention but for any city hosting the National Pheasant Fest & Quail Classic.

“We broke their record,” said Teri Schmidt, CEO of Experience Sioux Falls. “It was so crowded that if you wanted to go up and down the aisles, the only way you could do it was to just get in line and flow with the line. It was packed.”

On the busiest day, Saturday, March 2, Schmidt counted visitors from across the U.S. and Canada, from Florida to Texas and Washington, D.C., to Louisiana. People from 46 states entered a giveaway offered by Experience Sioux Falls.

“It amazed us,” she said. “They also sold more memberships in Sioux Falls at this event than they had ever sold at any other event.”

The event from the national habitat organization Pheasants Forever Inc., though, could have been even bigger.

“This year’s every used every inch — and I don’t say that lightly — every inch of the Premier Center, the Convention Center and the Arena,” Schmidt said. “We couldn’t have put one more anywhere.”

Not only that, the organization began turning away vendors a month before the show, and there were still inquiries two days before it started, she added. A breakfast for women sold out and could have drawn more with additional space.

So while the event was a clear success story, between the lines and still unwritten is a narrative of lost potential revenue because of the lack of room and of a future for hosting the event that’s less than guaranteed.

Pheasants Forever will consider a request for proposals to host the event in 2027 and 2028, and long term, “they want a facility with at least everything we have, plus another convention center full,” Schmidt said.

“With a hotel attached. Their own people, the top leadership of Pheasant Fest, couldn’t stay even stay on-site (because the Sheraton was full). And they do their banquet and big rally, which is two evenings, at the Ramkota because they can’t fit into the Convention Center. They were very pleased with the Ramkota, but it’s that concept of everything under one roof.”

You don’t build the church for Christmas as the saying goes. But as Sioux Falls considers a future Convention Center, potentially at the proposed downtown Riverline District, the demands of today’s conferences and trade shows will become top of mind.

“The industry overall is on a positive track,” said Charlie Johnson, president of Chicago-based Johnson Consulting, who has been hired by the city to examine the need and feasibility for future convention space.

Post-pandemic, many groups are back to meeting again, but the competition for that business almost always places Sioux Falls at a disadvantage by not having a building downtown, he said.

“With the way your convention center is located and its quality and age, it really demands a different position,” Johnson said. “I call convention centers the community’s living room … and your living room is a little off-center today.”

While “most communities have normalized themselves and have a convention center or expo center downtown,” Sioux Falls and a small handful of others have not, and “they’ve suffered ever since,” Johnson said.

“It just hasn’t created the vitality for the hotel supply and what you as a visitor want to experience. You’ve done some pretty extraordinary things in your downtown already. How does a living room not match the quality of your community? You’re missing out and sending the wrong message to the broader world.”

As Schmidt and Experience Sioux Falls are bidding for events, “we’re always against a downtown convention center,” she said. “And cities are adding onto those centers.”

The Sioux Falls Convention Center, which opened in 1996, regularly turns business away, especially during busy times like the recent stretch when the building was used by the Sioux Empire Home Show, The Summit League Basketball Championships and Pheasant Fest within a month of each other.

“The third week of January through May basically is a very busy period,” said Mike Krewson, the general manager for the complex. “I do turn business away during certain times of the year. We try to work with contracted clients and get leads from the CVB all the time, and we have to balance it out. Half the time, I do not have the space for big event leads that I get from them, which I know is frustrating for Teri and for me. Certainly, the echo is we need more space.”

And those are just the ones Schmidt and the Experience Sioux Falls team bring in for consideration.

In many cases, opportunities are in the marketplace to host events, but “we’re not even responding,” she said. “Because we just can’t do it. And at the same time the Convention Center calendar is full, and people want to come to Sioux Falls. They like what we are and where we are and what we’re doing here, but there’s no space.”

A convention center with an additional 100,000 square feet would mean “I wouldn’t have to turn hardly anything away, and some of these clients already that take everything would take any additional space I had,” Krewson said. “They’re crammed and don’t have anyplace else to do it and are limited because they can’t add booths.”

Altogether, the Premier Center complex can offer about 100,000 square feet between the traditional Convention Center and the floors of the Arena and Premier Center. That’s not an ideal setup for anyone, though. Arena floors hosting trade show booths aren’t available for concerts, sports or other events. And the Convention Center itself lacks the level and quality of ballroom and breakout space seen in more modern facilities.

“You have a very low ratio of meeting and ballroom space,” Johnson said. “It’s aged out, and it’s in the wrong place.”

The current Convention Center can be “repositioned to a sports venue or community center,” he continued. “There’s a role for a big building like that, but you’re not a normal city until you normalize, and downtown is the general location where you want your living room.”

The redevelopment concept being explored for the current Convention Center would involve converting it to flexible space designed for recreation that still would be able to accommodate some events that use multiple venues — a concert at the Premier Center that includes a pre-show dinner in the adjacent building, for instance.

Other facilities on the campus that need to be addressed include the Arena and Sioux Falls Stadium.

The Johnson Consulting process is moving forward, studying how much space Sioux Falls could support, what variety of events could be a target to fill it and what options might exist for funding the project.

The Sioux Falls Development Foundation has the option to buy the Riverline District land at 10th Street and Franklin Avenue, although it’s ultimately expected to be bought with city funds for about $8 million.

Schmidt suggests planning for the future could mean a facility that reaches 200,000 square feet — double the current maximum capacity.

“And we have to build for the future,” she said. “As we sit here trying to decide what to do, to take step one, our competitive cities are at steps three, four and five. It’s frustrating, and we have to get going.”

Riverline District vision: Move Convention Center downtown, renovate former site for recreation