CTIA returning to New Orleans in 2012

CTIA Wireless will back in New Orleans in the spring of 2012, marking the first time the Big Easy has hosted North America’s premier wireless event since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city, destroying much of the conference infrastructure that had allowed the city to play host to big shows. After several years of shuttling the show between Las Vegas and Orlando, CTIA said that its premier conference is ready to return to one of its traditional homes.

The return to New Orleans also marks a significant change in timing for the event to early May. As CTIA has crept earlier in the calendar over the last few years it has started bumping up against Mobile World Congress, which has stolen a lot of the headlines once reserved for CTIA Wireless. The Consumer Electronics Showcase in January has also put more pressure on CTIA as vendors and operators have started using the Las Vegas mega-conference to unveil their showpiece devices and new services. By holding the CTIA Wireless between May 8 and 10, the operator association puts more than two months between its spring show and the Congress and five months between it and CES.

CTIA vice president of public affairs John Walls, however, said that the change in timing was more due to the industry’s business cycle than any competition between itself and the GSM Association or the Consumer Electronics Association. By moving to May, CTIA Wireless is now held closer to the back-to-school and holiday seasons when operators and retailers see their biggest sales and launch many of their products, Walls said.

“We’ve heard for a while that to get closer to the fourth quarter business cycle is extremely important to them,” Walls said, referring to CTIA’s members and the shows exhibitors and attendees. As for MWC, Walls said there’s plenty of room for two big wireless shows on the calendar. “Competition is healthy,” he said.

At this year’s spring event held March 22-24 in Orlando, CTIA expects 40,000 attendees, which would put it back to its 2008 levels, after two years of recession drove attendance down to 34,000. In 2010, attendance picked back up to 39,000, but even if CTIA were to return to its 2008 levels, there are signs that show’s star is fading. Many major vendors have cut back their on their exhibits in recent years, focusing their attention on MWC instead. This year, the country’s largest infrastructure supplier Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) won’t even have a presence on the show floor, eschewing the traditional out-sized booth for meeting rooms.

CTIA may be hoping that a change of venue will reverse that trend. Due to the show’s magnitude, there are relatively few cities that can host the spring show. New Orleans’ overhaul of its convention center and the rebuilding of its core hotel and restaurant infrastructure put the city firmly back on that short list, Walls said. New Orleans has a long history with CTIA, having hosted six CTIA conferences, including five of the main spring shows. CTIA Wireless was held in New Orleans as recently as 2005 right before Katrina hit.

“We like the idea of going back there,” Walls said. “We’ve loved the experiences we’ve had there. We think those experiences will only improve with the new venue.”

CTIA has committed only to one year so it has no plans on making New Orleans a long-term home of the event, but Walls said CTIA would like to put the city back in its regular rotation, along with Las Vegas and Orlando.