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136 137 Locatedwithin a fewhours’drive of nearlyone third of the nation’s population and 20 percent of the country’s business addresses,theACCC is easilyaccessible for convention,trade show, andmeeting attendees.It is connectedwith theAtlanticCityRail Terminal that runs theAtlanticCityLine fromPhiladelphia toAt- lanticCity.Jitneys,buses,and taxis queue at the front of the build- ing to provide service to other points within the city.Apedestrian air bridge links the Convention Center to the adjoining Sheraton Hotel. “It opened to fill a niche inAtlanticCityas gaming started to spread and the original convention center,BoardwalkHall,was aging,was 200,000 square feet,and didn’t have the support for breakout services asAtlanticCity’smarket changed,”explains Gary Musich,ACCC’s Vice President of Sales.“So,part of themaster plan was to build theAtlanticCityConvention Center about five blocks off of the boardwalkas part of a big,multi-blockdevelopment, a retail district,which is nowcalled‘Tanger OutletsTheWalk.’It’s THE ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION CENTER roughlya ten-square blockof stores and restaurants that con- nect theAtlanticCityConvention Center with the activities on the boardwalk.” TheACCC is owned by theAtlanticCityCasino Reinvestment & DevelopmentAuthority (CRDA).Its operational services and venue management are provided by the Spectra Corporation and its sales andmarketing services are provided byMeetAC.The facilitymainly hosts large association and corporate trade shows,meetings,and conferences–about 100 events a year.“Becausewe’re a destina- tion resort versus an urban building,we do a smaller number of consumer-related events,although our biggest shows happen to be consumer-related,”Musich says.“We do the second largest beer festival in the United States,next toDenver.We have a boat show that draws almost 40,000 people.So certain consumer events do extremelywell due to the nature of the destination,but those smaller things-high school graduations,small corporatemeetings, things like that-are the types of things you don’t see here asmuch