Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette George Draskovic, an employee of M.K.D. Caulking, works on panels at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, yesterday. In the foreground are figurines that will be part of the King Tut exhibit at the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show that begins this weekend.

By Dan Majors
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Workers began moving this year's Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show into the David L. Lawrence Convention Center yesterday morning in preparation for the show's opening -- and facility's reopening -- Friday.

The start of the 10-day home show, which had been scheduled for March 2, was pushed back a week because of the Feb. 5 collapse of a 30-by-60-foot section of concrete flooring in the convention center, and the month of inspections and repairs that followed. Independent engineering experts have assured city and Allegheny County officials that the convention center is safe and ready for business.

John DeSantis, the home show's executive director, said the weeklong delay had resulted in only a few cancellations by exhibitors booked for the event.

"We've had a handful, maybe seven or eight," he said. "And almost all of them have been out-of-town companies that had other commitments that, because of our date change, bumped them into something else."

Mr. DeSantis said there are more than 1,500 exhibits for this year's home show -- about the same number as last year -- and more than 90 percent of those are being presented by Western Pennsylvania companies, the vast majority of them in Allegheny County. The delay for these companies, therefore, isn't as complicated as it might have been.

"And a great many of those folks rely on the show for a big chunk of their whole annual year," he said. "So they're just relieved that the show [is going on], even though it's a week later. The prospect of the show not going on, for them and their families, would have been unthinkable."

One problem that show organizers encountered, however, was that their new dates clashed with the convention of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, which was booked for March 12-15.

Mark J. Leahy, general manager of the convention center, said last week that the two events will share the facility during those dates.

"We normally occupy the five halls here. We lost one of those halls," said Mr. DeSantis, who saw his home show relinquish 100,000 square feet of space in Hall A on the second floor to the school officials.

"We've switched all of the show features [that had been planned for Hall A] into other areas. We've, of course, pretty much scrambled the whole floor plan. But it ended up working better than we had hoped. The good news is we managed to get everything in and the fit is very comfortable."

The home show relieved the pinch, he said, by moving some of the special features, such as the celebrity designer rooms and the King Tut museum, which is the big attraction of this year's show, from Hall A to some of the convention center's lobby areas. Only about 10 percent of the exhibits, he said, were affected, and they've been squeezed into the other halls.

"Frankly, the show is a lot tighter than it normally is," Mr. DeSantis said. "The Home & Garden Show traditionally is a spacious show. We have a lot of open space. This year, people will notice that it's a much tighter fit.

"But, you know, in the old convention center, it was a very tight fit. In fact, ironically, I have missed the feel of the old show, when we were in the old building. We're so happy to have the new building, of course, because it's more than three times as big, but in the old building, the show had kind of a coziness to it that has not been there in the new building."

But that doesn't mean he won't welcome back the space next year.

"No, we do like that open feel," he said. "But one year of the old tight, cozy feel won't be bad at all."