Conference boom keeps Manitoba convention facilities busy

As scores of events shift dates, Manitoba’s fall conference season — already busy with the Grey Cup — has gotten busier.

Riel Dion estimates he’s seen 20 summer conferences, at minimum, change course due to wildfire evacuations. He’s spent the past decade planning events.

“I have never seen this,” Dion said.

His company EventCamp operates software that groups use for conference registrations and sponsorship fees.

Several events have pushed their dates. Attendance sizes range from hundreds to upwards of 1,000 people, Dion relayed.

Moving is a large undertaking: host organizations must negotiate with hotels, ensure new transport for guests is available, reschedule activities. Contracts might be broken; it can be costly.

Finding new space is “definitely a challenge,” Dion said.

Both he and The Fort Garry Hotel’s owner have clocked a general spike in events post-COVID-19 pandemic. Last year was The Fort Garry’s best fall yet for event bookings, said Ida Albo.

“Does this year look better than last year? So far, it looks better,” Albo continued.

Roughly six conferences on The Fort Garry’s books required rescheduling this summer. Not all could be accommodated, Albo said, adding some have been penciled in for September, December and next year.

“Everyone — both from our side and from the customer side — worked really hard to try to rebook,” Albo said.

“(We did it with) a complete understanding that the priority was to free up space, when it was possible, to house people that were being displaced.”

The downtown hotel began housing wildfire evacuees in early June. The financial impact isn’t yet fully known; evacuees are still on site.

“Something terrible happened, and we just do what we have to do to make things work,” Albo said.

The number of conferences that have postponed their dates or switched to an online format hasn’t been counted. Nearly 7,300 evacuees were in Manitoba hotels as of Thursday; 2,615 hotel rooms were booked.

Last month, the Manitoba Hotel Association’s president told the Free Press he expected most conferences would be having conversations with their venues.

“In the Winnipeg context, it was already a fairly busy fall,” Michael Juce said in a Thursday interview. “This could add, (the) events being pushed back.”

In November alone, the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg expects to see thousands of people. Some 2,500 delegates should amalgamate for The College of Family Physicians of Canada’s Family Medicine Forum, happening Nov. 5 through 8.

The Canadian Football League’s championship festival, the Grey Cup, will occur in Winnipeg from Nov. 10 to 16. The convention centre will house concerts and a gala dinner, likely drawing thousands of attendees.

Another 1,600 people are slated to come for Indspire, a national gathering for Indigenous educators, Nov. 19 through 21. Four days later, the Association of Manitoba Municipalities’ fall convention is scheduled to draw roughly 1,000.

“Everything that we have on the books… (was) booked years ago,” said David Chizda, the RBC Convention Centre’s director of sales and business development.

National conferences and regular events like Comiccon lead up to November. One convention — the Indigenous History and Heritage Gathering — has moved from June to March 2026 to accommodate wildfire evacuees, Chizda said. (The RBC Convention Centre has hosted evacuees since July. It held 872 evacuees Wednesday night.)

“Our team is booking ‘27, ‘28 and ‘29 right now,” Chizda said. “I don’t see future wildfires as a concern.

“If they happen, we will deal with it as we did this year, but we’re just continuing to book as we always have.”

Dion will keep an eye on wildfire season trends.

“If I’m noticing after five years that July is forest fire season, then I would encourage the client to choose another month,” the event manager said.

Conference attendees’ spending spans accommodations, transport, restaurants and retailers, both Chizda and Juce noted.

In its 2024 report, Tourism Winnipeg estimated 76 future events and conferences it attracted would generate at least $53.3 million in direct spending. The statistic doesn’t include small hotel events.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com