The Powerful Sway of Professional Staff
It’s 8:12 a.m. on a Tuesday in Las Vegas. You’re in one of the thousands currently converging on the Las Vegas Convention Center. Even in the best circumstances, you’re narrowly edging the show floor opening. But the ever-present city traffic cones are clogging your trip’s arteries; it will take a miracle to make it on time.
Once you arrive, you bob and weave through the tens of thousands of fellow attendees while furiously scrolling the convention app to locate your meeting spot in the madness. The techno womb of the show throbs against your eardrums. Your eyes dart wildly from screen to signage, unsure of which direction to go.
In the whirlpool of chaos, a pair of helping hands breaks the surface of your tension. A figure comes toward you, cutting through the salmon run of attendees. This show floor siren is armed with a calm, confident smile. They lean in and look at you like you’re the most important person in the world, and a wave of calm washes over you as they say five little words.
“How can I help you?”
The buoy in the middle of the chaos? The calm, friendly, and knowledgeable face of a professional staff is parting the sea of confusion.
Anchors to the City
The unsung heroes of the citywide convention are those logo-shirted professionals who frame the aisles, arm the desks, and stroll the show floor. Professional gig workers are more than a finishing touch to conventions. Their role is deceptively innocuous but critical to the show’s success and the experience attendees have with the destination. A more fitting moniker is to call them ‘city ambassadors,’ as they are the first, last, and most memorable impression attendees have of the convention and the host city itself.
Conventions come and go, but a citywide event can anchor a city’s projected pipeline. When the throngs of tens of thousands of people stream into a destination for a citywide conference, the tsunami of attendance is unlike any other wave. Economic impacts from titan shows like SEMA, ConExpo-Con/Agg, AWS re:Invent, Las Vegas Market, and CES generate a meteoric tidal wave of non-gaming revenue extending into the jaw-dropping millions. The financial ripple generated by SEMA 2023 alone was reportedly more than $250 million. Along with that influx of revenue came over 160,000 attendees from more than 140 countries. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of jobs resulting in income directly lining local’s pockets. While it may seem like simply a headline, the direct umbilical to the local community makes each citywide significantly more personal. Thousands of temporary staff fill critical roles when large conventions come to town. When it’s this level of spotlight, the locals need to be show-ready.
Aubrie Jones, CEO of HADCO Staffing Solutions, doesn’t skip a beat when she states: “Staff can make or break the citywide experience from the minute attendees step off the airplane.”
She would know. Prior to founding the seven-year-old staffing agency with her sister and HADCO President Sara Miller, she was a former meeting planner and professional entertainer who sold, produced, or starred in almost every role within the hospitality ecosystem. “I have even held a sign at the airport,” she grins. Having crafted hundreds of events from 30,000 feet, she has a personal understanding of what it takes to be successful from the ground level. “We hold some of the largest meetings in the world, and these buildings are huge. They can be very overwhelming and intimidating to people. Staff can truly set the tone of the event for an attendee. We train our team to approach people and offer help.”
Manpower Inc. of Southern Nevada’s Business Development Manager and Convention and Events Director, Doug Jones (no relation), agrees. he has crewed the staffing ship since 2000 and joined Manpower in 2015. He has helped connect tens of thousands of city ambassadors with incoming conventions and has a keen eye for talent. The Las Vegas office is the founding franchise of the well-known international organization and has been staffing conventions and citywides in Silver City for 54 years. He completely understands how one proactive person can change the tide for an attendee’s convention experience. “Not knowing where to go is a half-an-hour mistake. There are always new attendees, new exhibitors, and a new show floor. Their customers may or may not know this city. They’re stressed. Our staff walking up to someone and saying, ‘Let me show you where that is’ changes everything.”
That level of one-on-one is heart-warming, but when you consider the sheer number of physical staff needed to assist a deluge of hundreds of thousands of attendees, it’s mind-blowing to recognize how large the pod of professional staff must be to support a citywide. Staffing a show on the magnitude of a citywide takes months of preparation and weeks of training. Ambassadors need to be familiar with the show, the app, the venues, the schedules, and everything in between. The numbers for CES 2024 showed a blanketing of over 2.5 million net square feet of exhibit space, including 4,300 exhibitors. Hundreds of thousands of attendees poured through both terminals at Harry Ried International Airport, eddied across 17 hotels, and anchored in each hall of the leviathan LVCC. Peripheral hospitality events bubbled at all hours of the day and night. Every touchpoint of a citywide needs a welcoming heartbeat; this requires hundreds of skilled city ambassadors to school through the ocean of hospitality.
Professional staffing is a big gig business in places like Las Vegas. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Vegas ranks an impressive eighth-best for gig economy in the nation. “People make a professional living as gig workers. We have a database of thousands of people, and we employ hundreds of people every single week,” A. Jones shares.
D. Jones concurs: “Our weekly payroll can range from $500,000 to over a million.”
Professional staffing agencies are constantly recruiting to have a pool of that many staff. In most cases, those contact lists have taken years to populate, with eagle-eyed recruiters and word-of-mouth drawing new talent every month. But a citywide’s staffing schedule demands more than warm bodies. City ambassadors carry a special set of hard and soft skills that staff recruiters recognize immediately. Staff are hand-selected by the event’s team to ensure success across the board. “To this day, I still personally interview new hires,” confides A. Jones. “They are the core of our business.”
These recruiters aren’t just slotting names into shifts; they’re aligning personalities to environments, selecting staffers who reflect the tone and tempo of each show. And that takes more than a spreadsheet; it takes institutional knowledge and emotional intelligence.
“There’s a big difference between someone holding a sign and someone actively engaged with the convention,” states D. Jones knowingly.
Personalities and technical skills are stitched to the various positions with the precision of an expert matchmaker. “One of the most critical things to success is to not only find the right people, but to also put them in the right spots. If you don’t put them in the right spots, they won’t be successful and the attendees won’t feel the same impact,” A. Jones explains. “It’s the meeting planners in us. We strategically think about who we place where. Who are most vocal, engaging, friendliest people? They are going to those people right at the ramp because they’re going to be seen by the most people.”
Ultimately, the staff aren’t just running the event; they are the event. From badge pick-up to final departures, the staff represents the glue keeping it all together. They are the local personalities who bring the spirit of the city to the show floor, and they’re the face the city shows the world. “We want to convey the same energy our city exudes,” expresses A. Jones. “The people that are out here working and representing our city are proud to be here and do what they do.
That pride is contagious. It elevates the mood of an entire event. D. Jones underlines that influential significance: “When you’re talking about an event like a citywide, it’s a dramatic impact. Staffing touches everything from registration, directional, scanners, session monitors, and more. If you know your people, have attention to detail, and are selective in who you assign to what time, you represent the look and feel of the event.”
When you cut to the chase, the magic of conventions lives in the power of face-to-face meetings. At its core, conventions are fueled by the synergy of personal contact. “You can’t deny the power of face-to-face meeting. The value of people is priceless.” A. Jones says with conviction. When asked where the power of professional staff is felt the most during a citywide, she simply states, “Everywhere.”
This story originally appeared in the Q3 2025 issue of Exhibit City News, p. 74. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/exhibit_city_news_-_jul_aug_sept_2025/74.
