Every year since forever, the International Council of Shopping Centers holds a May convention in Las Vegas. This event hosts 35-40,000 participants and now fills up the convention center with massive booths, displaying new and existing shopping center projects. In the late 70’s, the developer’s booths were in the hotel suites along the Las Vegas strip. Back to back, rapid fire meetings were held for retailers looking for shop space, landlords looking to lease space and vendors selling their wares. I was working for developer, Melvin Simon and Associates, and for a couple of years was responsible for our leasing suite at the original MGM Hotel. I scheduled the food, drink, rooms and everything associated with almost 3 days of deal making, involving over a thousand people in our suite alone. We also had Ed McMahon present for several hours a day, serving as our corporate sp...