NEWS

Several destinations held news conferences at WEC. Let’s take a look at some new developments in Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.

Oklahoma City

The $288 million Oklahoma City Convention Center is on schedule to open in January 2021. The center will offer 200,000 square feet of exhibit space, 45,000 square feet of meeting space, a 30,000-square-foot ballroom and additional pre-function space. The venue will feature glass walls, making use of natural light with views of Scissortail Park. Narduli’s “Virtual Sky” will grace the glass atriums facing Scissortail Park. The artwork evokes Oklahoma’s beautiful skies and the state’s links to aviation history.

Omni Hotels & Resorts will open a 605-room headquarters hotel in January directly adjacent to the convention center with an additional 78,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, seven dining outlets and an expansive pool deck with event space.

The convention center complex offers expansive green space.

Indianapolis

Indianapolis, which hosted WEC in 2018, is expanding its convention center, adding 143,500 square feet of event and function space anchored by a 50,000-square-foot ballroom, the largest in Indiana. It will connect to a new, $300 million Signia by Hilton hotel on a site known as Pan Am Plaza. Construction is slated to begin in 2022, while the project is anticipated to open in 2025.

This expansion will increase the total exhibit hall, ballroom, meeting room and pre-function space at the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium complex to more than 1.1 million square feet while boosting the total number of hotel rooms directly connected to the center via climate-controlled skywalks to more than 5,500.

The convention center was sealed off from March until July while making $7 million in safety enhancements and now features hospital-grade filters that circulate fresh outside air 24 hours a day and machines that provide hospital-grade deep cleaning throughout the day.

The city welcomed 21 live events with 50,000 attendees from July through September.

Indianapolis was the first major convention city to offer zero attrition for all new business booked and held in 2020. The offer was extended to groups that contract and actualize in 2020 at 22 different hotel properties.

Photo courtesy Oklahoma City CVB