Convention season enters the era of flexible work

Key takeaways

  • Convention centers have been deploying flexible workers to deal with repeated peaks in demand for labor
  • These peaks may correspond to weather patterns despite conventions mainly taking place indoors
  • The most booked roles are low-skill positions like general labor and event setup/takedown
  • But convention centers are increasingly using onsite captains to ensure that shifts go smoothly, paying them $30/hour or more

The spring convention and conference season is wrapping up, and this time there was a twist: the enormous involvement of flexible work. Convention centers across the United States and Canada posted thousands of shifts on the Instawork platform, offering insights into patterns of demand and specific needs. Here's a sampling of what we learned.

Conventions are seasonal, too

Recently we wrote about variation in the timing of wedding season across the United States, which unsurprisingly had a lot to do with the weather. Conventions and conferences typically happen indoors, but weather still matters; people usually prefer to visit places where the climate is mild. But unlike weddings, almost every big meeting is a "destination" event, so some metro areas are more popular than others.

This probably explains the pattern of convention season in the Las Vegas area. Here's the week-by-week pattern of demand for flexible labor there since April 1:

21 Jun 2023 convention shifts Las Vegas

It looks like there was a pretty reliable peak near the middle of each month, though the peaks got smaller as Las Vegas started to heat up. (This week temperatures are hitting 100º!). The biggest events seem to be spread out, which could be by design.

The peaks were also spread out in the beautiful Seattle area, where they were also more frequent:

21 Jun 2023 convention shifts Seattle

Seattle seemed to host a big convention every two or three weeks, with peaks in demand of similar size to those in the Las Vegas area. And the peaks got higher as temperatures climbed into the 60s and 70s.

Metropolitan areas with bigger swings in temperature had bigger swings in demand, too. For example, Chicago is frigid in the winter but gets into the 70s in May, which is when demand ramped up:

21 Jun 2023 convention shifts Chicago

Demand for flexible labor at convention centers varied by the day of the week, too. In the New York and Los Angeles areas, the demand for flexible work was highest in the middle of the week. But in Las Vegas, demand was highest at the weekend.

With great responsibility comes great pay

Hourly pay for convention shifts also varies across the continent, and not always in obvious ways. Here are the average rates paid to our Pros in the most active metropolitan areas:

21 Jun 2023 conference rates

Hourly pay in Boston is usually among the highest in the nation, but it's only average for shifts at convention centers. In part that's because the most booked role in the Boston area – and also the highest-paying role – is a relatively low-skill position:

 Metropolitan area

 Most booked role

 Boston

 Event setup and takedown

 Chicago

 Event setup and takedown

 Kansas City

 General labor

 Las Vegas

 Custodial

 Los Angeles

 Event server

 New York

 Counter staff / cashier

 Philadelphia

 Concession / stand worker

 Seattle

 General labor

 Toronto

 Event server

Indeed, there are some shifts at convention centers that offer much higher pay rates:

 Metropolitan area

 Highest average hourly pay (USD)

 Role

 Boston

 $16.75

 Event setup and takedown

 Chicago

 $38.11

 Onsite captain

 Kansas City

 $23.00

 Line cook

 Las Vegas

 $30.00

 Onsite captain

 Los Angeles

 $35.00

 Onsite captain

 New York

 $20.56

 Counter staff / cashier

 Philadelphia

 $32.14

 Onsite captain

 Seattle

 $35.00

 Onsite captain

 Toronto

 $25.84

 Onsite captain

Our business partners are increasingly using onsite captains to supervise shifts at convention centers, ensuring that everything runs smoothly from clock-in to clock-out. These captains are among our most experienced Pros, and they're getting paid rates commensurate with their importance. We think they're worth every penny.

Realtime metrics

These metrics, derived from data aggregated across the Instawork platform, compare the two weeks starting 6/8/2023 to the previous two weeks. To control for the overall growth of the Instawork marketplace, only shifts involving businesses that booked shifts in both periods are included:

  • $0.16 rise in hourly pay
  • 0.5% point drop in share of short-notice shifts
  • 1.4 hours rise in hours per existing worker

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