In the fierce contest for big-buck conventions, every major city is adding exhibition space, hotel rooms and other facilities. Though these are the meat and taters of convention planning, other factors have to be considered. Among them: accessibility, ambience, restaurants, night life, theaters, museums, shopping, sightseeing, sports and the degree of local cooperation. Thus New York City and Chicago perennially head the Top Ten convention cities in numbers of conventioneers and dollars spent, but the jostling runners-up reflect demographic change and civic ambition. The field:
New York is still the Big Apple, with...