Local Spots Offer Eventful Spaces For Events
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GETTING TOGETHER: There are many unusual meeting venues, including those pictured, from top to bottom: EcoTarium, Higgins Armory, Wachusett Mountain, The Hanover Theatre and Central Rock Gym.
From the annual meeting to taking a shot at teambuilding, any corporate event takes a lot of planning, perhaps more than it should.
And the most important thing is the location. Apart from making the event accessible to employees, maybe it should also be held somewhere unique and fun.
In that spirit, we’ve compiled a short list of unique meeting venues that offer a change from the usual hotels and meeting facilities.
Central Rock Gym, Barber Street, Worcester
The folks who started the Central Rock Gym knew from the beginning that it would be a place for corporate events.
Ed Hardy, one of the owners, said, “That’s the nature of the sport. You have your members who come in daily and it’s their sport and their lifestyle; you have your day users and you have your events for companies, schools, churches.”
Central Rock sees at least a couple corporate clients each month and the place can handle groups as large as 150. But be prepared to move. This place isn’t necessarily for a sit-down meeting.
“It builds confidence, people work in pairs with one climbing and another controlling the rope,” Hardy said of one of the gym’s activities. “It builds camaraderie. We have relay races, blindfolded climbing. It allows you to be social and to scream at each other not in a work setting.”
For the less active types, just watching others climb can be inspiring, Hardy said. “People really like to just watch the climbers. We have speed climbing where you go 45 feet as fast as you can.”
Wachusett Mountain, Princeton
If you’ve watched the Winter Olympics, you may have heard commentators during the snowboard competitions say the competitors must “go big.” If you’re event needs to go big, you might consider Wachusett Mountain, which can accommodate up to 4,000.
“It’s an ideal venue for a large audience,” said Tom Meyers, Wachusett’s marketing director. And not only because the place is huge, but there’s a lot to do.
The “anchor activity” for corporate events is the sky ride, which will take riders to the top of the mountain.
Meyers explained that the majority of the corporate events Wachusett hosts take place in the “off season,” that is, not ski season, although a skiing-involved corporate event is not unheard of, he said.
“There are smaller events in season, and skiing does definitely play a role,” Meyers said.
The lodge itself is broken up into a variety of useful meeting spaces. So, before the skiing and the going big, a CEO can address an entire company or break it up into teams or groups with ease.
EcoTarium, Worcester
What corporate event wouldn’t be made better with the addition of a Polar Bear? And for the toughest of CEOs, the bear could be used to scare a workforce straight during a particularly lackadaisical meeting.
At the EcoTarium on Worcester’s East Side, closeness to nature is a strong selling point when it comes to corporate events. The facility can accommodate groups of about 180 and can host events during open hours or after hours.
And after the meeting, or during breaks, “you can wander the museum and walk the grounds and experience it. It’s a little different. It’s not like wandering the halls at the Crowne Plaza,” said Tracy Dill, the head events planner at the EcoTarium.
Corporate clients “love the fact that they can take a walk.
We have 55 acres here, and a lot of groups feel like they have to go see Kenda,” the museum’s Polar Bear.
The EcoTarium will also put on 25- or 45-minute planetarium shows for corporate clients.
“Not only are they getting away from the office building, they’re doing something different,” Dill said.
Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester
Want to give your next meeting the weight of a courtly roundtable? Want to make employees feel as if they’ve been summoned to decide strategy for a military city state? Have it at the Higgins Armory Museum.
The museum is fashioned after the castles of medieval Europe and can accommodate up to 250 for cocktail receptions and seat 120 for dinner. It has an auditorium that is being renovated.
Clients can choose to have guests greeted by a knight in armor. The knight will also mingle with guests during cocktail hour, according to Joanne Roy, the museum’s coordinator of special events and venue rentals.
Getting your CEO to don the suit of armor may take a bit more convincing, and the suit might be a difficult fit for some, but Roy said CEOs have in fact addressed their serfs while wearing armor helmets.
Roy said clients have told her that when the company books a venue as interesting as the museum, attendance is higher.
The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts, Worcester
All of the venues here have a story to tell, but few have the kind of riches-to-rags-to-riches tale told by the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts.
At the very least, that story makes the Hanover an intriguing place to hold a corporate meeting or event.
But on top of that, the place is a beauty and can probably give even the most mundane meeting a Broadway shine.
Now, speaking of Broadway shine, we’re told by Troy Siebels, the Hanover’s executive director, that companies that feel the need to make the big time can use the theatre itself for performances during meetings. How’s that for corporate culture? Et tu, Brute?
Since the theatre opened a couple of years ago, no companies have actually put on skits or plays as part of their meetings, “but they should,” Siebels said.
Apart from that, the theater is the perfect place for a corporate presentation. “That’s what it’s designed to do,” Siebels said. Plus, the theater can accommodate meetings of up to 300 people on stage.
“It’s looking out at the audience, and that’s a perspective that’s different than what people are used to,” he said.
The theater can also accommodate up to 500 for informal receptions in its lobbies, so after the main performance, the stars can mingle.
“It’s unique. It’s not for everybody, but the people who do have events here love it,” Siebels said.
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