Benchmark: convention center.

The convention center in center city philadelphia shockingly helps the city in many ways. Its a commonly forgotten place by many people within the city, and a hated place by many people in the city due to the fact it is trying to expand into their area. But expanding the convention center wasn’t a bad idea. This past weekend I happened to be down town and saw thousands of people flocking into the convention center I thought i’d check out what was going on.

Once I arrived inside I saw that there were thousands of people there playing yu-gi-oh. I myself play yu-gi-oh and would have never expected this many people in the city to play the game its a child card game and the convention center was filled with countless older men playing. 

So I went around and interviewed the the surrounding stores and interviewed the people that worked there. I went to two McCdonalds, and the gallery and I interviewed them and asked the managers at the McCdonalds about how there weekend has been going at that time they all said amazing because of the fact how many people where there opposed to the regular weekend. One of them said they have a list of events that the convention center has and what event it is, he said “I didn’t think a kids game would bring us so much business.” this was actually at the McCdonalds on 10th street which was 5 blocks away from the event.

The manager then went into that the events at the convention center actually bring all of the public businesses even the businesses in chinatown get more business so the convention center brings a lot of business to the city.         

While at the convention I actually met people from other countries. I made trades with these really nice guys from germany. They traded english cards for german cards which have more values and I actually made a lot of money in that day.

Overall the city benefits at least center city benefits from it, people fly in brining the air port money, places get more business because there are more people. The convention center is a great thing for the city.

What did you find most challenging about this project?

I found that the most challenging part about this project was finding a story.

How did you go about finding this story?

I actually just did what I usually do on my normal weekend and found something interesting that I enjoy.

Why do you think this story does not receive more attention?

People never actually talk about the good of it when people think of the convention center they usually think about how its trying to grow into chinatown.

Do you think this story will get more attention over the next few months?  Why?  Why not?

No. Because it’s not something people think about.

What did you learn?

That the convention center plays a big role in the city.