Photo by: Don Cudney
DENVER MEETING AND EVENT PLANNERS may not know it, but they have a highly influential supporter on their sales team: Mayor Michael Hancock.
COM+E: What should every meeting planner know about this city?
MH: Denver did it right. We built what has become the fifth busiest airport in the United States, which offers great accessibility to get here via direct flights from more than 180 worldwide destinations. We’re building a 500-room Westin at the airport and direct rail service that will link the airport to downtown with fast, convenient and inexpensive transportation starting in 2016.
Once downtown, Denver is a lively, walkable, clean, safe and fun urban center with 8,500 hotel rooms and 300 restaurants, all within easy walking distance of the Colorado Convention Center-a facility that is consistently ranked by meeting planners as one of the top five convention centers in America. When you add that downtown is filled with art and history museums, bike paths, shopping, music clubs, brewpubs and three sports stadiums, we’ve got everything a convention needs.
COM+E: For meeting planners who have never considered Denver for an event, what places would you suggest as an ideal get-toknow Denver day?
MH: Red Rocks Amphitheatre & Park is unique. It is only 12 miles from downtown and offers spectacular natural beauty at the base of the Rocky Mountains and was picked by Rolling Stone as the best outdoor concert venue in the nation.
Denver Museum of Nature & Science has wonderful space for meetings with outdoor decks offering gorgeous views over City Park and the Denver skyline.
Denver Art Museum also has a variety of different meeting spaces in the amazing Hamilton Building, which was the first structure in the United States designed by renowned international architect Daniel Libeskind.
