WASHINGTON -
That's because CUNA is moving the biggest credit union trade show to a new venue next year halfway across the Capital City-to the Washington Convention Center.
"We've just outgrown it," Mark Wolff, senior vice president for public affairs, said of GAC's home for all but one of the last 33 years. He noted how a few years ago, CUNA was forced to create an adjunct pavilion upstairs because too many vendors now clamor for space in the convention hall. Break-out sessions regularly spill out into the hallways. And the main ballroom is now overflowing with the 4,000 credit union executives, volunteers and vendors who want to watch the proceedings.
"We're really taxing the resources of the Washington Hilton," said Wolff, who has planned and organized the GAC for the past 15 years.
So the whole party is being moved down the street to the newly built Washington Convention Center. The site, at 801 Mount Vernon Place NW, is in downtown Washington in a neighborhood that will be recognizable to regular attendees to NAFCU's Congressional Caucus, held each year at the Grand Hyatt just two blocks away.
New Life For Neighborhood
Opened just two years ago, the Convention Center is in the heart of the newly gentrified neighborhood surrounding the Verizon Center, home to the NBA's Wizards and NHL's Capitals, and Washington's own Chinatown. The neighborhood has undergone a renaissance, of sorts, since the building of the Verizon Center 10 years ago, with dozens of new restaurants, clubs, museums and shops going up since then.
The Center itself will hold several times the 4,000 GAC-goers, leaving room for new attendees. CUNA President Dan Mica, for instance, has talked in the past of getting GAC attendance to 10,000 people. The exhibit hall will also accommodate many more vendors wanting to participate in the biggest credit union trade show. And conference rooms will also provide greater capacity for break-out sessions and receptions.
For convenience, the site is also closer to a Metro stop (Metro Center or Gallery Place), and to Capitol Hill, where most conference-goers will end up sometime during the GAC.
Accommodations will also be eased, with two large hotels, the Grand Hyatt and Renaissance Washington, and as many as a dozen other hotels within a few blocks walk. "There will be a lot of new places for people to experience, promised Wolff.
The change in venue next year will also bring a new format. The conference is scheduled for March 3-6 in 2008, that is Monday through Thursday. CUNA believes that the current schedule, Sunday through Wednesday, makes it more difficult for members of Congress, who often go home for the weekend and return on Monday night or Tuesday morning to participate.
