Does your Convention Center Shake, Rattle and Roll? 

At first, it may seem fine to see these words associated with a convention center ballroom. That is, if we are talking about the people dancing and not the floor! Several facilities with long span ballroom floors, commonly found in convention centers because of their placement above exposition halls, have had some complaints and concerns about perceptible motion when people were dancing. Floor vibration has been known to make ceiling attachments sway, make drinks slosh and generally make people uneasy. To address this issue, SMG and Penn State University, with funding from the National Science Foundation, have teamed up to study the structural design of long span ballroom floors.

It is very important to understand that this is almost never a real issue of safety, but rather one of discomfort and perception. In other words, we are not the least bit concerned that floors with perceptible levels of vibration are going to fall down. We are very concerned, however, that people think they might! Presently, design methods do exist to check if a floor will be prone to excessive levels of vibration from dancing crowds. In the case of long span floors, it is nearly impossible to meet the available criteria for acceptability. When the criteria are satisfied, the result is often a prohibitively high cost for the structural system. The issue at hand is then cost verses performance and where to draw the line. Through a research effort, headed by Dr. Linda Hannigan, Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering at Penn State, we will attempt to better understand exactly where to draw this line.

The method of investigation will be by case study, and this is where SMG comes in, whereby every convention center under the management of SMG will be reviewed with respect to this issue. Facilities with long span ballroom floors will be identified and assessed with respect to design and perception. To do this, the researchers will need architectural and structural plans and in some cases, will need to make site visits to collect information and measurements. This will obviously take some cooperation on the part of the convention center operators. The end result will hopefully be a clearer resolution to this issue and better facilities for everyone to enjoy.

For more information and/or to participate in this study, please contact: Bryan Hayden, Executive Director of Operations Development, SMG, at 215-592-6635 or bhayden@smgworld.com. 

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