cently, the Downtown Wildwood Byrne Plaza was com- pleted as a premier event and entertainment venue right in the heart of Downtown Wildwood. Located at Oak and Pacific Avenues, the Byrne Plaza offers an ideal location for concerts, festivals and events, outdoor movies under the stars and a weekly Farmer’s Market. The Byrne Plaza has been a catalyst for new business development in the heart of the Wildwood Business District.


Another major project now underway is the new Wild- wood Gateway Project, which will provide a spectacular grand entry into the Wildwoods complete with new streetscaping, large Marquee digital signs and beautiful landscaping to welcome all visitors to our island. In ad- dition, the project also will mitigate back bay flooding and street closures by raising the street and installing a pumping station to eliminate water resulting from storms and high tides.


What types of events are you looking to attract to the Convention Center in the future and which ones seem to come back to The Wildwoods most frequently?


The Wildwoods Convention Center is fortunate to have an over 95 percent rate of return business. This is not only due to the accommodating facility itself, but also the incredible service offered to all our customers by the entire Convention Center staff. Our main market is the SMERF market, as well as statewide conventions and youth sporting events. There also are a number of trade shows and consumer shows throughout the year. Our main area of growth will be the Monday through Thursday corporate meetings market. We are in the process of reviewing proposals from developers to build a first-class business hotel adjacent to the Con- vention Center, which will then allow us to go after that very important market segment. In addition to new meeting business, we are looking for promoters to in- crease our offerings of headliner concerts in our 7,500- seat Oceanfront Arena.


In addition to the Convention Center's growth, what else has helped the Wildwoods to blossom into a regional destination for these types of events?


We are fortunate to have a source of funding to help us to entice event and festival promoters to bring their events to the Wildwoods. The Greater Wildwoods Tourism Authority gives over $600,000 in event mar- keting support to promoters to market and promote their events in the Wildwoods, making it very attractive for them to hold their events here. This has helped the Wildwoods to grow events and festivals and fill the spring and fall months, thus extending our tourism sea- son. Currently, there are more than 160 events and fes- tivals in the Wildwoods each year - more than any shore destination on the East Coast.


What have been a few of the highlights of your career in the Wildwoods?


I would have to say that being a part of developing suc- cessful advertising and public relations campaigns that have garnered major awards, such as the New Jersey Tourism Excellence Award and numerous ADDY awards that have helped to increase tourism and convention center bookings would rank at the top of my list. Also, the many national awards and accolades we have re- ceived.


(The Wildwoods has received national recognition from many of the top news organizations and travel publica- tions in the country, including: Time.com, USAToday, Sherman’s Travel, Forbes Traveler, Smarter Travel, Na- tional Geographic and more. In addition, the Wildwoods recently have been named the #1 Destination On The Rise and The #1 Summer Hot Spot by TripAdvisor, and Among the Best Places to Travel by Expedia.)


Mid-Atlantic­EvEntS Magazine 75


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