Dynamic personalities have shaped many of the cities of Southeast Texas, leaving legacies that spring up in public spaces, airports and attractions. We remember Davy Crockett’s role at the Alamo in San Antonio; find a flourishing music scene in Austin, whose venues gave rise to Janis Joplin and Willie Nelson; and tip our hat to Sam Houston, who helped make Texas a state.
The buoyant spirit that has shaped Southeast Texas continues to attract and amaze hundreds of groups each year from Austin and the Hill Country to the cities along the Gulf Coast.
Houston TO GALVESTON: Creative Construction
Following the exuberant example of the late politician Sam Houston, who led Texas’s transformation from a Mexican territory to an independent republic to the 28th state in 1846, the city of Houston continues to charge ahead, reinventing itself at every opportunity.
In the downtown convention district, recent developments in the works will benefit attendees in a big way. A new Marriott Marquis with a Texas-shaped lazy river is scheduled to open in June 2016 on the north side of the district’s focal point: the 1.8-million-square-foot, silver LEED-certified George R. Brown Convention Center. It will be a companion to the Hilton Americas/Houston, which is connected to the center’s south side.
This fall, construction is slated to begin on the Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage, a 70,000-square-foot museum that is expected to open in 2016 next to the convention center. Another downtown project is GreenStreet (formerly Houston Pavilions), an entertainment, office and retail area with new green space and a courtyard for special events as well as favorite hot spots like the House of Blues and Lucky Strike Bowling. In addition, the 225-room Hotel Alessandra is expected to open on-site in 2016 with 10,000 square feet of meeting space. A few blocks north is the new JW Marriott/Houston Downtown, scheduled to open in August within the historic and recently renovated Samuel F. Carter Building; plans include 328 guest rooms and suites and nine meeting rooms.
Also near the convention center is the two-year-old BBVA Compass Stadium, home to the Houston Dynamo Major League Soccer team. The nearby Toyota Center, home court for the NBA’s Rockets, can seat upward of 18,000 fans and welcomes special events of up to 2,000 in its 12 event spaces. Additionally, downtown’s Minute Maid Park, where the Astros of Major League Baseball play, can host up to 42,000 people.
South of downtown is Reliant Park, a 350-acre campus with 1.4 million square feet of exhibit and conference space. Planners can choose from Reliant Stadium, which can be configured to offer 125,000 square feet of space; Reliant Center, with more than 706,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space; the 5,800-seat Reliant Arena; and the Reliant Astrodome, which can accommodate up to 65,000 people.
At the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the 30,000-square-foot Hall of Paleontology has been popular for receptions of up to 650 since it opened two years ago, while the entire museum can accommodate up to 2,000 for events. The nearby Children’s Museum of Houston can host events of up to 2,500. And at the Downtown Aquarium, many groups book the 6,000-square-foot Nautilus Ballroom. For an out-of-this-world affair, events can be held at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, southeast of the city. It offers private function space for up to 5,000 people.
West of downtown Houston, the 37-acre CityCentre attracts groups to the Norris Conference Center, which has 18,000 square feet of event space, and to the Hotel Sorella/CityCentre. Also nearby is the Studio Movie Grill, a 40,000-square-foot, eight-screen venue. Just north of downtown, the expanded Saint Arnold Brewing Company offers event space for up to 300 guests.
Near George Bush Intercontinental Airport is the Hilton/Houston North. And about 25 miles farther north, in The Woodlands, is the Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center and the Woodlands Resort & Conference Center.
With all these options, it’s no surprise that hundreds of groups meet annually in Houston. More recently these have included the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, the National Black MBA Association, the National Recreation & Park Association and the National Precast Concrete Association.
It’s a one-hour drive from Houston to the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Island. But before reaching the coast, consider the meeting opportunities in Pearland, just seven miles from Houston’s Hobby Airport. The Hilton Garden Inn/Pearland is a popular choice for groups. Other choices in town include the brand-new Reflection Bay Event Center, which offers more than 7,000 square feet of space for groups of up to 400, and the Southwyck Golf Club, which recently renovated its 2,200-square-foot banquet room and offers two additional spaces for meetings of up to 130 people. And many of the 140 local restaurants have received wide acclaim.
In addition to the sunny sands of both Galveston Island and the city of Galveston, attractions include the Historic Pleasure Pier, revamped two years ago; Moody Gardens, filled with animal and plant exhibits, rides, a water park, an aquarium, a ropes course and a seaside golf course; and the Moody Gardens Hotel, Spa & Convention Center. Another sizable venue is the San Luis Resort, Spa & Conference Center.
BEAUMONT & PORT ARTHUR: GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES
Northeast of Galveston, Beaumont attracts a wide range of organizations—the Texas Society of Professional Engineers, the Texas District Pilot Club and the Texas Apartment Association, to name a few—with its varied meeting venues and free-time options. The Event Centre, which opened downtown in 2012 and overlooks a lake on one side and a park on another, offers a 16,000-square-foot hall, outdoor space and a stage. A few blocks away, the Beaumont Civic Center can seat up to 6,500 people or accommodate up to 188 trade-show booths. On the southwest side of town, the Ford Park Event Center is home the 14,000-seat Ford Pavilion; the 8,500-seat Ford Arena; the attached Ford Exhibit Hall, with 48,000 square feet of space (83,000 when combined with the arena); and the nine-acre Ford Midway, with 70,000 square feet of space.
In nearby Port Arthur, the Robert A. “Bob” Bowers Civic Center features a 4,000-square-foot lobby, a 20,000-square-foot main hall and additional meeting rooms, the largest of which can seat up to 80 people.
Corpus Christi, Laredo & The Rio Grande Valley: Natural Appeal
Scores of beach goers and birders flock to Corpus Christi each year to enjoy North Padre Island, and visiting groups benefit from the same scenic and sunny setting. Its main venue for meetings is the American Bank Center Convention Center, offering 76,000 square feet of exhibit space, 22 separate breakout rooms, a 25,000-square-foot banquet hall and a 20,000-square-foot ballroom. Other popular picks for off-site events include the Art Museum of South Texas and the adjacent Corpus Christi Museum of Science & History, each with space for up to 600; the Old Concrete Street Amphitheater, which has covered event space for up to 2,000 people; and the Texas State Aquarium, which welcomes groups of up to 3,500 people.
On nearby Mustang Island, Port Aransas offers a slower-paced setting for groups of up to 200. Attendees can relax on beaches, tee off at the Palmilla Beach Resort & Golf Club or go fishing or bird-spotting along this section of the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail.
About 140 miles west of Corpus Christi is Laredo, another destination popular with nature lovers. When it’s time for business, there are three major options: Laredo Energy Arena, with 32,000 square feet of open floor space and seating for up to 10,000 people; the Civic Center, with a 1,979-seat auditorium, a 24,470-square-foot exhibit hall and four meeting rooms; and Texas A&M International University, whose campus facilities include a ballroom for receptions of up to 800 people, a 186-seat theater and numerous conference rooms.
About 140 miles to the southeast, McAllen is one of North America’s prime bird-spotting locales. Wild birds can be seen in the gardens of Quinta Mazatlan, a 1930s country estate that is a popular site for weddings and events. Its facilities include a 10,000-square-foot mansion, an amphitheater, a hummingbird garden and a butterfly garden. Downtown, the McAllen Convention Center includes 61,500 square feet of exhibit space and 25,725 square feet of meeting space as well as a 2.4-acre outdoor park for events. Farther east, in San Benito, attendees can stroll around the 82-acre Los Ebanos Preserve before heading to an on-site event at Casa Los Ebanos, which welcomes groups of up to 100 indoors or up to 400 on its grounds.
At the southernmost tip of the state, Brownsville looks across the Rio Grande to Mexico. The Brownsville Events Center has space for up to 1,200 people, and the Jacob Brown Memorial Center features a 1,593-seat auditorium and 16,000 square feet of space, including a stage. To the east, on South Padre Island, the South Padre Island Convention Centre has 45,000 square feet of space.
San Antonio: Living History
The Alamo and legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett mark a milestone in history. Attendees can bone up on the facts of this famous battle in San Antonio at the downtown Alamo Plaza, which features event space for up to 500.
October saw the opening of the 58,000-square-foot Briscoe Western Art Museum, located on the downtown section of River Walk (formerly the site of the San Antonio Library). It adds a new dimension to the city’s cultural scene with a focus on the art of San Antonio and South Texas. Groups can hold receptions, sit-down dinners and presentations within the museum’s Jack Guenther Pavilion or the McNutt Courtyard & Sculpture Garden. And on the Museum Reach section of the River Walk, the city’s former municipal auditorium is being transformed into the $203 million Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. It is expected to open in September with a 1,759-seat hall and an outdoor plaza that can accommodate up to 1,000 people.
But the main meeting venue for the riverfront is the 630,000-square-foot Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, which is undergoing a $325 million expansion and improvement project. The center is adding more than 280,000 square feet of exhibit space, a new 50,000-square-foot ballroom and renovating 78,000 square feet of meeting space. The project is expected to finish in 2016 but in the meantime remains open with a variety of spaces including three ballrooms, 63 breakout rooms, 440,000 square feet of exhibit space, the 2,400-seat Lila Cockrell Theatre and an executive assembly room with interpreter areas for multilingual meetings. HemisFair Park, at the center’s back door, offers lawn space for events of up to 15,000 people. The nearby Hilton Palacio del Rio recently finished a renovation of its guest rooms.
Other downtown venues for events include the 65,000-seat Alamodome, with 160,000 square feet of contiguous space; the Institute of Texan Cultures, which can host receptions for 2,500 and has a 50,000-square-foot exhibit floor and a multi-screen dome theater; the Texas-style Buckhorn Saloon & Museum, with space for groups of up to 1,800; and Sunset Station, which has space for up to 20,000, including an outdoor pavilion.
In the city’s Latin District, La Villita is a historic arts village on the riverfront that was originally founded by Spanish soldiers stationed at the Alamo. It can accommodate receptions of up to 1,200 people. Groups that have recently convened at downtown venues include the Texas Music Educators Association, which brought 26,000 attendees; the American Farm Bureau Federation, which held its annual convention in town in January with 5,000 delegates; and the National Potato Council, whose 2014 Potato Expo attracted 1,700 people.
North of downtown, the San Antonio Botanical Garden welcomes group events of up to 800, and the nearby Witte Museum can host up to 1,500. And this summer in the northern suburb of Live Oak, construction is expected to begin on the Hilton Garden Inn & Live Oak Conference Center. Plans include 139 guest rooms and 14,000 square feet of event space. West of the city, in Westover Hills, SeaWorld/San Antonio has three spaces available for special events, the largest of which is a 762-seat theater.
Austin & The Hill Country: Meetings on a High Note
The city of Austin is so entertainment-driven, it’s now better known as the “Live Music Capital of the World.” And that’s a good thing for meetings: Austin has terrific conference venues, but all work and no play isn’t the most effective agenda, as Cindy Kirby, director of professional development for the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals, can attest. Her group has met in Austin for years—usually with more than 3,000 attendees—and is booked through 2019.
“Austin is a fun place, and you’ve got to let the delegates play,” she said. “There’s a lot of music here, and in the evenings, delegates can go out and enjoy live music just about anywhere.” This isn’t the only reason the principals choose Austin; the association has come to know Austin as “the birthplace of comfort, convenience and entertainment,” Kirby said. “We’re repeat customers because we are well served by the Austin CVB, by the Austin Convention Center and the area hotels,” she explained. Other groups that have met in Austin recently include the Texas Computer Education Association, the Texas Association of Water Board Directors and the Texas Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association.
The gold LEED–certified Austin Convention Center has 370,957 square feet of space in five contiguous exhibit halls, seven ballrooms and 54 meeting rooms. The adjacent Hilton/Austin supports the convention center with additional event space, and two new properties are set to open nearby in spring 2015: the JW Marriott/Austin, with 1,012 guest rooms and 112,000 square feet of meeting space, and the Westin/Austin Downtown, with 326 guest rooms and 13,500 square feet of function space. A 50-story Fairmont Hotel is expected to open in 2016.
At the University of Texas, the AT&T Executive Education & Conference Center caters to groups with IACC-approved meeting space. Also on campus are the 2,900-seat Bass Concert Hall and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library & Museum, which offers meeting space for up to 887. The Bullock Texas State History Museum, located downtown, offers several event spaces.
Several venues regularly host both musicians and meetings. Among the most notable are Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater, which can accommodate up to 2,700 people, and Stubb’s, a barbecue joint that welcomes up to 2,000. The city’s burgeoning arts district on the shores of Lady Bird Lake is proving its worth with both entertainers and meeting planners. In just a year, the new event space at the Zach Theatre complex has become a popular spot for events. Zach now offers eight spaces, including the 6,400-square-foot, open air People’s Plaza & Bobbi Pavilion; the adjacent, 420-seat Topfer Theatre; and the 3,200-square-foot Nowlin Rehearsal Studio.
Nearby is the Long Center for the Performing Arts, which calls itself Austin’s “creative home.” It offers event spaces to groups including the 2,442-seat Michael & Susan Dell Hall. South of downtown, the Circuit of The Americas has hosted the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix and can accommodate groups of up to 120,000 people.
Twenty miles north of Austin, in Cedar Park, the 181,640-square-foot Cedar Park Center is available for events. This sports facility and concert venue can seat up to 8,000 people and offers 24 private suites. Nearby, the greater Round Rock area has five golf courses that welcome group events.
Twenty minutes east of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport visitors can enjoy outdoor activities such as archery and horseback riding at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort & Spa in Cedar Creek. The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed 70 miles farther east, near Brenham. The exact spot is now the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, where groups can visit the Star of the Republic Museum. Meeting spaces include a 2,115-seat amphitheater and a 400-seat auditorium. Brenham is also home to the Washington County Fairgrounds, which has more than a half-dozen venues including a 2,500-seat arena and the 9,000-square-foot Commercial Exhibits Building.
West of Austin, Fredericksburg is the epicenter of the Texas Hill Country wine region. Many wineries and tasting rooms offer event space such as Torre di Pietra and Becker Vineyards in Stonewall, each of which can host up to 200 people. And the Fredericksburg Brewing Company has 12 private dining suites and a 4,000-square-foot meeting room.
Another favorite attraction with spaces for meetings, dinners and receptions is the National Museum of the Pacific War. Or groups may opt for the Hangar Hotel & Airport Conference Center, which isn’t far from the Gillespie County Fairgrounds. Southwest of Fredericksburg, in Kerrville, is the charming and newly renovated Inn of the Hills Resort & Conference Center.
Texas-Style ROI
As is fitting in a state of great dimensions, the cites of Southeast Texas have expanded their offerings to become some of the hottest spots in the nation for attendees to convene. With a rich history, a vibrant music scene and regional food and wine offerings, meeting planners can put together exciting events that produce a big return.