LOS ANGELES, California — As the 38th annual Small Satellite conference began this week in Logan, Utah, conference chair Pat Patterson announced Aug. 5 that the conference would, starting next year and for the foreseeable future, be held in Salt Lake City.
The announcement came as a surprise to Cache Valley Visitors Bureau director Julie Hollist Terrill, who told SpaceNews that conversations with conference organizers earlier this year led her to believe SmallSat would stay in Logan until at least 2026. She added that she, along with other community leaders, only heard the news a few hours before the official announcement. While Terrill expressed excitement that the conference, which originated in the college town, has outgrown Logan’s ability to house and support everyone who wanted to attend, she said that the town is now preparing for an economic blow in the absence of what she described as the largest event of the year.
Terrill shared with SpaceNews a slide showing the SmallSat organizing committee’s economic projections for this year’s conference. According to the slide, presented during a May meeting, organizers expected SmallSat to bring an influx of $6.4 million to the local area, driven largely by an expected $4.4 million for lodging and restaurants. The rest was expected to reach Utah State University, caterers, rental companies and “other services.”
Utah State University $880,000 Local catering and rentals $815,000 Lodging and restaurants $4.4 million Other Services $267,000 Total impact $6.4 million
“We are so sad to see SmallSat go,” said Terrill. “I’m not going to say [it’s] devastating, but it is going to reflect an enormous hole for that first week in August. So obviously, financially, it’s so sad, and it’s also sad for us to not be able to proudly boast that we are home of this really impressive international conference.”
Terrill added that the hoteliers and other business owners in town shared her disappointment.
“The first hotel [manager] I heard back from, all she sent to me was an emoji with a tear going down its cheek,” Terrill said. “So yes, they’re disappointed, and you know, it was a big source of income for them.”
Justin Hamilton, owner of Off Premise Catering, which in partnership with sister companies provided food and logistics for events throughout the week ranging from conference room meetings to an outdoor block party, said that his company has worked with the Small Satellite Conference for over a decade.
“You know, this is obviously one of the largest — if not the largest — events that we do in Logan in a single week,” Hamilton told SpaceNews. “And it’s been great for this community and multiple levels.”
He took an optimistic view of the departure, sharing that he intends for Off Premise Catering to continue its relationship with the conference organizers as SmallSat grows and evolves. “So we see [the move] as a good thing,” he said, “and we see that it’s going to be a great growth driver in multiple areas, rather than just looking at the one week that’s maybe transferring to Salt Lake.”
“We look forward to the next chapter, and hopefully we can continue to have a working relationship with them in the future,” Hamilton said.
Community leaders and business owners said it’s too soon to have a concrete plan in place for a future without SmallSat — but Terrill conceded that the writing had been on the wall for some time, and many in Logan were already bracing for impact. As the conference grew, housing became harder to find and the price of a hotel room reached what Terrill called “exorbitant” levels. Additionally, government employees found that the cost of lodging exceeded the per diem rates the employees were authorized to pay. Terrill says that the conference had to turn some would-be attendees away, and others found themselves sleeping in university dorm rooms.
She described meetings held this May with hoteliers to set aside blocks of rooms at three times the per diem rate — the maximum that government employees could pay if they demonstrate that nothing cheaper was available — in a coordinated effort to make sure “everyone would bear the burden equally” for next year’s conference, expected at the time to be held in Logan. When those meetings happened, she recalled, nearly all the hotel rooms for the 2024 conference were booked.
The move to Salt Lake City is intended to alleviate the economic pressures for conference attendees. Patterson told SpaceNews earlier this week that the move to a larger city center with far greater hotel availability will result in lower travel costs for guests and exhibitors alike.
Cache Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jamie Andrus told SpaceNews she understands that SmallSat must prioritize the needs of its attendees and exhibitors, which right now means finding a location with enough space and cheaper lodging for everyone. And, she said, SmallSat’s organizers will stay in Logan even if the event leaves.
“The [Utah State University] employees that run this big event will still live and work in Cache Valley,” Andrus said. “They plan to continue to use the local vendors for printed materials and t-shirts and those kinds of things. They’ll have them made and printed here. And then, of course, we live close enough that we’ll just commute down for the event.”
Terrill lamented the projected loss of revenue for the town and that future SmallSat attendees would miss out on Logan’s local culture, but also expressed gratitude for the conference’s past and future investments in the area, which may include for example contracting Aggie Ice Cream, a Logan staple, at future conferences.
“I hope they know how much the community appreciates the investment they have made in us and in our businesses and in our community, and I hope they know that we appreciate the efforts that they have made, that have been stellar, to keep the conference here for as long as possible,” Terrill said. “And we certainly wish them all the best in moving forward and plan to support them in any way that we can.”
