Who's coming to town? Upcoming meetings and conventions in Indiana.

• Author: Kapp, Jennifer
• Position: Meetings & Conventions

More than 15,000 businesses in Indiana depend on visitor spending garnered from the state's 53.8 million visitors a year, according to the Indiana Tourism Council 2002 Annual Report. Indiana's visitors travel for business (30 percent) or pleasure (70 percent), and they spend more than $6 billion a year.

Many of Indiana's visitors will spend time at conventions, meetings, perhaps one of the 1,100 festivals on this year's calendar throughout the state. This year, communities are gearing up to host visitors who like martial arts or video games, need to network and learn industry information or simply want to come together to commemorate the lives of their heroes or the humor of a Hoosier cartoonist.

Communities around the state this year will host meetings attracting a nationwide--and often international--audience. Indianapolis is hosting a relatively small but important convention this month. The annual convention of the American Bus Association is expected to draw 2,200 attendees to the most prestigious national conference for tour operators, who organize some 774 million passengers travel by motorcoach each year. When a motorcoach spends time in a community, its passengers infuse $4,500 per day or $11,200 per overnight into a destination's economy.

Throughout the coming year, Indianapolis will host conventions attracting thousands, from emergency-response workers and electronics installers to auto racers and video gainers to software developers. The Fire Department Instructors Conference will draw 22,000 firefighters and emergency personnel to Indianapolis from March 31 to April 5. Ranking among Trade Show Week's Top 200 is the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association international show. The home theater, light, security and HVAC event will bring 20,000 to Indianapolis Sept. 3-7. Performance Racing Industry's 16th annual trade show, also making the Top 200 list, will take place Dec. 4-6 in Indianapolis for the sixth year. The event features 1,000 motorsports manufacturers and equipment dealers. It will draw 39,000 attendees.

The largest annual consumer sci-fi and adventure game convention in North America, Gen Con Game Fair, will take place July 24-27, bringing 25,000 to Indianapolis. COMMON Users Group, the world's largest group of PC-based information-technology users, will hold its biannual meeting March 9-13 in Indianapolis. Some 4,000 information technology educators and product developers will attend. And Kiwanis...