Conventions happen all the time in Reno, and they're a major contributor to getting people to the Reno-Tahoe area, but more specifically getting people to stay in hotel rooms.
Reno Sparks Convention and Visitor Authority Communications Manager Ben McDonald says "room-nights," or one night of one room paid for, are one thing they track of to help measure some of the tourist traffic to the area.
"Roughly 550,000 room-nights a year can be attributed to conventions in Washoe County,"Â
McDonald says the RSCVA sales team works to sell convention room-nights for the future. He say typically plans are made two to five years in advance. For this fiscal year (July 2017- June 2018) their goals was 260,000 room-nights scheduled. Through the month of May, McDonald says they're at about 295,000 to 300,000 room-nights scheduled, a good sign for growth.
He says one of the benefits Reno has to offer with conventions, is the fact that hotel rooms are so close to the convention space.
"A lot of our square footage in convention facilities are located on our hotel property," McDonald says. "And most of them have between 50,000 and 200,000 square feet of meeting space, so a good percentage of the number of meaningful conventions we book here we'll book at the casino-hotels."
Thomas Price is originally from Reno but has been living in San Francisco. He's staying at the Grand Sierra Resort this weekend for Ragecon, which is held at the Whitney Peak Hotel. He says he likes to come up for Hot August Nights and the Balloon Races, but says Ragecon is another good excuse to come back and visit.
"Being able to come play games with new people that are just really nice, open, friendly and very welcoming," Price says.
It's convenient to have your bed and your convention in the same building, but Reno is the best of both worlds. There's the option if you want it, but you can also stay almost anywhere in the city without much hassle.
"Compared to the larger cities and larger conventions where it's packed and everything else is going on Reno is really nice and easy to get around," Price says.
