Representatives of the Greater Pittsburgh Automobile Dealers Association last night announced that the 2007 Pittsburgh International Auto Show has been rescheduled for April 26-30.

The auto show, which originally had been scheduled for tomorrow through Feb. 18 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, is a popular fixture on the region's annual business calendar, generating sales for dealers and millions of dollars in revenue for the city.

The show was canceled Wednesday night after officials with the city-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority said the convention center would remain closed until safety inspections are concluded next week. A 20-foot-by-60-foot section of concrete flooring collapsed Monday during setup for the auto show.

Auto show officials said the new dates for the event are dependent upon the final verification of the convention center's safety and will be subject to approval by the authority.

"There are thousands of components that need to be put in place to make this happen and we are going to have to move fast," Denise Brennan, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the automobile dealers association, said in a statement. "But I want to make it perfectly clear that safety is still our top priority, and the final decision to allow the show to happen remains with the building officials."

Auto show spokeswoman DeeDee Taft said that having a five-day show in the spring instead of the usual 10 days in February might not be too much of a problem because the longer shows are scheduled in case there are problems with winter weather.

"Hopefully, we won't have that trouble in April," she said.

Jim Smail, of Smail Auto Group, said he was glad the show wasn't canceled and didn't think the change of dates would affect attendance at the show.

"The New York Auto Show takes place a week before ours, and it's the second- or third-largest in the country," he said. "I would hope that Pittsburghers aren't that different from New Yorkers in coming in and looking at cars."

Mike McWilliams, of West Hills Nissan, said the show's new date could work to its benefit because it will be one of the last auto shows of the season.

"Auto dealers are a resilient bunch," he said. "With all the things that come our way, we still manage to make our way through them."

In the meantime, two other group events that had been scheduled for next week at the convention center have been relocated.

Both events -- a four-day international conference for the Learning Disabilities Association of America and a two-day event for a group called Creative Memories -- will make use of hotel facilities, including ballrooms, meeting rooms and banquet areas.

Mary Conturo, executive director of the Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns the convention center, said the Creative Memories functions, scheduled for tomorrow and Sunday, have been moved to the Omni William Penn Hotel.

The other event, the 44th annual International Conference for the Learning Disabilities Association of America, had been booked for Feb. 14-17.

Mary-Clare Reynolds, meeting planner for the Pittsburgh-based association, said her group had been considering various alternatives all week and hammered out a plan during a five-hour meeting yesterday with officials from the convention center and managers of Downtown hotels.

"We're going with Plan D," she said. "We're fully relocating out of the convention center into the Westin and Hilton, with one event at the Byham Theater."

The conference, which is expected to bring more than 1,500 educators, parents and researchers into town, has reserved hundreds of rooms at the Westin Convention Center hotel and the Hilton Pittsburgh. Both hotels have cleared out as much ballroom space as they could, Ms. Reynolds said, to accommodate sessions that range from small meetings to daylong workshops.

"We're still working out the details, but we will be providing transportation," Ms. Reynolds said. "I think we're talking buses because of the number of people we'll be moving."

Ms. Reynolds said the travel costs, as well as a supplemental printing of updated information for the group's program book, will be covered by the convention center.

Representatives of other organizations with events scheduled at the convention center said they also are looking into alternative venues, though they hope they won't have to use them.

Joe McGrath, executive director of VisitPittsburgh, which books many of the events for the convention center, said he remains optimistic, but each day the center is closed presents more problems.

"We're starting to field inquiries from the trade press, which obviously is a concern to us," he said. "We're getting contacts from other cities. They've heard about it, and that means their sales people are out trying to market opportunity."

Asked if the situation is giving the city a black eye in the trade show community, Mr. McGrath said, "Yesterday, I would have said 'no.' Today, I'm getting more and more e-mails from people who [have heard]. ... We'll have a lot of fences to mend when this is over, telling people, hopefully, it was an isolated incident and the building is safe.

"We're going to have to go into overdrive to get our message out."