Contribute to the Almanac#

The Convention City Almanac is an open reference. Entries are credited to their authors.

What We Need#

City profiles — Does your city have a convention center? What neighborhood is it in? What was there before? What happened after? We need profiles for convention centers worldwide, using the same structured format.

Financial research — Convention center bond documents, audited financials, lodging tax data. We normalize it into comparable formats.

Urban planning analysis — Theory entries connecting academic research to convention center placement. Diagnostic vs. prescriptive framing required.

Local knowledge — Walk the block. What does the neighborhood around the convention center actually feel like at 7pm on a Tuesday? Photos welcome.

How to Contribute#

If you use GitHub: Fork the repository, add your entry in the correct section using the templates below, submit a pull request. Your name stays on the entry.

If you don’t: Email ivan@conventioncityseattle.com with your contribution. Include sources for every factual claim.

Entry Templates#

City Profile#

Every city entry needs:

---
title: "City: Facility Name"
weight: 100           # sort order
date: 2026-04-01      # when you wrote this

# Key metrics
opened: 1988
exhibit_sf: 176480
walk_score: 97
centrality: "in-cbd"  # in-cbd | near-cbd | peripheral | remote
placement: "urban-core"  # urban-core | waterfront | edge-city | greenfield | island

# Context
prior_land_use: "What was on this site before?"
neighborhood_now: "What's the neighborhood like today?"
displacement: false    # Was a community displaced for this facility?

# Sources (every claim needs one)
sources:
  - label: "Wikipedia"
    url: "https://..."
  - label: "City planning document"
    url: "https://..."

tags:
  - convention-center
---

## The Facility
[Size, design, when opened, major renovations]

## What Was Here Before
[Prior land use, displacement history if any]

## What's Here Now
[Current neighborhood character, walkability, transit, retail, housing]

## The Transformation
[What changed because of this facility — or despite it]

## Sources
[Linked list of every document cited]

Standards#

Every factual claim needs a source. URL, document title, page number where applicable.
Neutral tone. The almanac describes; it doesn’t argue. Save the arguments for the Dispatch.
Date your entry. Things change. An entry written in 2026 may need updating in 2027.
Acknowledge what you don’t know. “Data not available” is better than a guess.

Credit#

Contributors are credited by name on their entries. If you contribute substantially to the almanac, you’ll be listed on the contributors page.

Questions? Email ivan@conventioncityseattle.com