Jun. 8--Sign up to have your meeting during the first six months the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center is open, and get your rent free. 

That's the deal the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority will make to bring customers to the $800 million facility, which has logged an underwhelming number of bookings for its first few years. It's due to open in June 2004. 

So far, spokesman Andy Antrobus said yesterday, the sales staff has tentative agreements from two groups -- he wouldn't reveal names -- for rent-free meetings in late 2004. He said that the authority would forgo an estimated $340,000 in rent for those two events, but that the 13,500 visitors who use the South Boston facility for four days would put more than $16 million into the region's economy, money spent on hotels, meals, and sales taxes. 

"We create economic activity by bringing people to Boston by the thousands, not by collecting rent," Antrobus said. "Certainly in the short-term years we're prepared to do that." The facility -- beset by a bad economy, fears of terrorism, and heavy competition from other cities -- has only 11 firm bookings in its first decade. Another 100 or so groups have reserved dates in Boston but are not committed. 

Antrobus said four additional "industry shows" will be coming to Boston and paying no rent, but that they would be hosted rent-free wherever they went. Industry events are made up of people who book conventions, and the attendees will be scouting Boston. 

He put the total value of rent forgiven -- for the two groups that would normally pay and the four industry gatherings -- at about $1.3 million. As at most convention facilities, nearly every booking is negotiated. 

The authority's board yesterday voted unanimously to reorganize its sales and marketing efforts by creating a private nonprofit group that will be assigned exclusively to book conventions and events for the 520,000-square-foot building. 

Antrobus and his boss, board chairwoman Gloria Larson, defended the offers of free rent, first reported in the Boston Herald yesterday, arguing that the deals are similar to receiving free minutes from America Online or Sprint if you sign up for service. 

What is charged in rent is less than half of what most conventions pay in total when they come to Boston, Antrobus said. So-called convention services -- including charges for electricity, water, labor -- are not discounted, he said. Nor are food costs. The authority gets 35 percent of the gross amount collected for food sold by its contractor, Aramark. 

But Charles D. Chieppo, director of the Shamie Center for Restructuring Government at the Pioneer Institute, said dropping the rent may become addictive. "It may be two now," he said, "but however many shows this place gets, I will guarantee you a large portion of them will be free." "It's a buyer's market," said Chieppo, a critic of the decision to build the convention center. "There are far, far, far more venues wanting shows than there are shows." 

He said the authority's own figures suggest conventioneers may not be paying for as many of Boston's expensive hotel rooms as the authority's managers think. 

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