They used to be gripping affairs full of political horsetrading in smoke-filled rooms, but modern US party conventions have evolved into back-slapping parties to crown a predetermined nominee.
That said, recent conventions have not been without moments of drama. At the Democrats' last gathering in 2004, a little-known politician named Barack Obama hurtled on to the national stage with an electrifying speech.
This time round, when the Democrats gather in Denver from August 25 to 28, Obama will be formally elevated as the party's standard-bearer for the November presidential election against Republican John McCain.
McCain's moment in the limelight will come in the first week of September at the Republican convention in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St Paul. By tradition, the party in control of the White House gets to go last.
In a show of party unity, Obama has agreed to a symbolic nominating vote for his defeated primary rival, Hillary Clinton. But both he and McCain will enjoy convention coronations.
"Once the parties eliminated the uncertainty and one might say the excitement of the extended roll-call votes, the conventions became much more strategic affairs," commented Michael Traugott, a political scientist at the University of Michigan.
"The (television) audiences were never very large but there was some news value in the uncertainty. Now, TV networks are keen to get back to their prime-time coverage as soon as possible," he added.
It was not ever thus. Prior to the 1970s, backroom politicking among party powerbrokers was the norm, especially among opposing factions vying to get their choice of vice presidential nominee onto the ticket.
The last time the actual White House nominee was selected at a "brokered convention" was in 1952, when Adlai Stevenson emerged victorious as the Democratic champion. He lost the election.
The Democrats also gave us the most chaotic convention of the last century, when, in Chicago in 1968, police and protestors fought running battles at the tumultuous height of the Vietnam War.
But the days when deals were done by party elites in the thick fug of tobacco are gone -- and not just because of smoking bans in place today, including in this year's convention states of Colorado and Minnesota.
The modern primary process has ensured that one candidate has emerged on top well before the conventions -- although Clinton's dogged challenge this year prolonged the Democratic race into June.
McCain was assured of the Republican nomination way back in March, when his last serious challenger dropped out.
So absent any doubt over the nominee's identity, the conventions have become showcases of what image the parties want to project to the nation, and an excuse for a week-long orgy of partying mixed with debate about pet causes.
What drama that does remain can center on the platforms adopted by the parties. In recent years, conservative Republicans in particular have used their convention to battle for the party's policy soul.
"We haven't heard very much this time about the Republican platform," Traugott said.
"We don't know how controversial that's going to be on hot-button issues like abortion, religion and taxes," he said.
But in general, Traugott said, both parties' conventions have become "highly stylized" and follow a well-thumbed script that climaxes on the last night with a biographical video of the nominee and then his acceptance speech.
One twist will see the Democratic convention move from its venue in Denver's Pepsi Center to Invesco Field, home to the Denver Broncos American football team, for Obama to address 75,000 supporters on the last night.
Usually, each nominee enjoys an immediate bounce in the polls following the convention. But this year the calendar is compressed, in part because of the Beijing Olympics, and Obama will not have much time to bask before McCain's big show starts.
