BlogWorld & New Media Expo West will be held in Los Angeles from November 3 to 5, organizers announced Tuesday morning. The event will take to the Los Angeles Convention Center, and a post on the group's own blog explained that the move from Las Vegas was prompted by the inability of Mandalay Bay to meet the event's space requirements, despite that fact that organizers loved the property. Mandalay Bay did offer some space, but the conference rooms were far removed from the exhibit area, which wasn't ideal. Other venues in Las Vegas did not provide a workable combination of date availability and space.
San Diego and Los Angeles were the finalist cities. "L.A. is the center of the music, TV, and film industries in North America, has a population of more than 10 million people, and the largest population of bloggers, podcasters and other new media content creators in the country," BlogWorld C.E.O. and co-founder Rick Calvert said in the post. "It was the obvious logical choice from a business perspective. We have always attracted new media-savvy individuals from traditional music, film, and TV, but by being in Los Angeles (and New York), we are going to see that participation increase significantly. That means more opportunities for content creators."
One possible drawback, as organizers saw it, was the convention center's downtown location, but a site visit changed their minds. "I have attended numerous events at the L.A. Convention Center including NAMM, E3, and the L.A. Auto Show. Honestly, I always thought the convention center was great, but there was nothing to do once you left the building," Calvert wrote. "That has changed drastically. Downtown Los Angeles is being revitalized. The multibillion-dollar L.A. Live entertainment complex is directly adjacent to the convention center. Several of the downtown hotels have just undergone multimillion-dollar renovations to compete with the new J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels (they are beautiful, BTW). There are tons of new restaurants, shopping, parks, and just cool city stuff that you (at least I) had never imagined of when I thought of Los Angeles. Oh, and don’t forget the food trucks."
