IDDBA PICKS ORLANDO FOR DAIRY-DELI-BAKE 2006

ROSEANNE HARPER

MADISON, Wis. -- The International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association's 42nd annual seminar and expo, originally slated for New Orleans, will be held June 11 to 13 in Orlando, Fla.

IDDBA's board of directors voted earlier this fall to move the 2006 show out of New Orleans to give the damaged city time to recover from Hurricane Katrina. The timing for completion of repairs and reconstruction there is still uncertain. The dates for Dairy-Deli-Bake 2006 remain the same as previously scheduled.

"In a wonderful spirit of cooperation, several smaller groups that had had events scheduled in Orlando agreed to change their show dates in order to give us the space we need for 2006," Carol Christison, IDDBA executive director, told SN last week.

Christison stressed it was no easy task to move such a large convention as IDDBA's on such short notice. "I don't think people have any idea the negotiations that go into it when you have to have half a million square feet for exhibitors and sleeping rooms for more than 8,000 people [the number of registrants expected for Dairy-Deli-Bake 2006]."

All cities with large convention facilities, including Las Vegas, Anaheim, Calif., and Minneapolis were under consideration, Christison said.

The convention floor space in Orlando has been secured in the city's newest convention hall, a two-year-old facility directly across the street from the original one. Adequate hotel space nearby also has been reserved, Christison said.

Most of the hotels granting the IDDBA negotiated convention rates are within walking distance of the convention center and all of them are on the IDDBA shuttle-bus route. "We're extremely pleased with the cooperation the hotel communities and the convention centers [extended] in both cities," Christison said.

This will be the fifth time IDDBA has conducted Dairy-Deli-Bake in Orlando, including the 2002 show. The show will be held in New Orleans in 2008.