The real down side of this convention center is the truck parking situation. There are only 2 docks. Period. The way they are situated, if you put any trailer longer than 45' to one of the docks, you will effectively cut off the parking lot from anyone with a vehicle larger than a Honda Civic. You can place two trailers at the dock and still be able to access the parking lot if you squeeze them together towards the exhibit hall side. You can not leave a tractor hooked up to the trailer on the outside and you still don't want to bring a 53' trailer here if you can help it. If the ceiling doesn't get you coming down the ramp then the parking lot will. 

There is another good reason for wanting to keep your trailer size limited. To get into the convention center docks, you must back in off of the street, down a long fairly steep ramp. As you approach level ground, your eyes will begin to adjust from going from sunlight to darkness through your mirrors. You must then keep your ass-end pointed towards the middle of the ramp or your trailer will hit part of the overhang from the wall. You can see what I'm talking about by looking at that overhang. It has been hit at least a thousand times before.  Then it is still very difficult to jack yourself into the docks. I would never ask a van line driver to put his rig into the docks here.  They should be used exclusivly by the Contractor (with a single axle tractor) or other smaller freight carriers. Plan on ground loading/unloading van liners. 

As for unloading, you may back trailers (van liners) straight down the ramp until they are close to the freight door. They are then close enough to load or unload. I have backed two van liners down the ramp side by side but this really puts a crimp on the rest of the operation. It blocks the exit ramp and makes it very tight to move around. So the majority of the loading and unloading is done on the street at the top of the ramp. The problem there is that you are driving a freight loaded forklift a long way up the hill.

Another problem with loading on the street is that the local police are unforgiving when it comes to writing tickets on trucks. Whether the truck is attended or not, they will write a ticket. I have seen some pissed off drivers leaving the facility because of  local traffic enforcement. Don't think that just because we are the General Service Contractor that we are exempt from the harassment. Wrong. we have been cited also. One time that I can remember, one of our drivers was sitting in his truck in the center divider waiting his turn to get down the ramp. The police came up on him but didn't tell him to move, they just wrote him up. If you ask me, that is pretty unfair. The city wants the center to hold events to help create revenue for the city and then tickets the people that must bring the products and displays to those events. Something is shady there and ought to be looked into.