The producers of the Cleveland Auto Show, the Great Big Home and Garden Show and other longstanding consumer events are fed up, after a year of uncertainty about the future of the I-X Center and what it means for their shows.
Now they’re speaking out, sharing details about behind-the-scenes efforts to keep events at the I-X Center for the next few years — and complicated real estate negotiations that, at this point, make a compromise seem unlikely.
“We’re at the end of our rope. I think we feel a moral obligation, and … if we didn’t say something now, we would regret it forever,” said Tom Baugh, chairman of Marketplace Events, the Beachwood-based company behind the home and garden show, the Cleveland Home and Remodeling Expo and Christmas Connection…