National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium
Dubuque, Iowa
The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium campus in Dubuque, Iowa, covers 10 acres and features the Mississippi River Discovery Center and the National River Center. Outside, the Mississippi River Plaza connects the two buildings and features a pavilion that’s available for events.
Although the aquarium may add dedicated meeting and function space, it currently doesn’t have any, so most events happen after hours in the exhibit and gallery space, said Nate Breitsprecker, sales and marketing manager.
The Mississippi River Discovery Center is the most conducive for events and can host up to 200 people. In line with its name, the building’s five main aquariums tell the geographic story of the mighty Mississippi from north to south, starting with a backwater marsh through a flooded bottomland forest all the way to the bayou aquarium, where guests marvel at an eight-and-a-half-foot-long, 350-pound alligator.
Evening guests get to enjoy something daytime visitors don’t: two North American beavers that are “always active in the evening because they’re nocturnal,” Breitsprecker said. Another crowd favorite is the paddlefish exhibit because paddlefish, with giant oar-shaped snouts, are native to only two river systems in the entire world, the Mississippi River and the Yangtze River in China.
The National River Center explores the rivers of North America and the oceans into which they flow, including the massive Gulf of Mexico aquarium. The center also houses a 135-seat theater often booked by groups for presentations and employee movie nights.
Oregon Coast Aquarium
Newport, Oregon
When planners hold meetings or events at an aquarium or zoo, there’s “a lot more excitement” for guests, which usually means better attendance, said Jason King, events manager for the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon.
For daytime events, the 750-square-foot Gleason Room can seat groups of up to 60 people. The room’s glass wall offers views into the 1.3 million-gallon Passages of the Deep tank, and floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto the Yaquina Bay estuary. The room, which also has an attached patio, is equipped with audiovisual systems for presentations, although speakers find “their audience sometimes get distracted by what’s going on behind them,” King said with a laugh.
The theater is a flexible space that can seat up to 80 people when used as a theater, but it can also be set up with banquet or bistro tables.
For after-hours events, planners can set up banquet tables throughout various exhibits or use the lobby for receptions and dinners. The aquarium can also arrange octopus encounters, which start with a short presentation about the giant Pacific octopus; groups then go to the creature’s enclosure, where guests can feed it, rub it, touch its tentacles and even give it a crab.
“They’re fascinating creatures, very intelligent,” King said.
Groups also enjoy front-of-house and behind-the-scenes tours, and the aquarium can arrange seal and sea lion encounters, in which the animals will plant a kiss on attendees’ cheeks or lips.
Mystic Aquarium
Mystic, Connecticut
At the Mystic Aquarium, a meeting attendee can listen to a penguin’s heartbeat or watch a beluga whale paint a canvas. And that’s why planners bring events to the aquarium: “for the sheer uniqueness of it,” said Kathy Lloyd, executive director of Ocean Blue Catering, the aquarium’s subsidiary that handles events.
The main exhibit floor is the most popular space for events as well as the largest; it can host receptions for up to about 600 people or seated dinners for up to 350. The mezzanine overlooking the main floor can fit about 50 people, and the new exhibit, Exploration: Wild, can host about 150 people. The marine theater, a large outdoor theater where sea lion shows happen, can fit thousands, Lloyd said.
Everywhere attendees turn on the main exhibit floor, “there’s some sort of engagement,” said Dale Wolbrink, director of public relations. Attendees can pet sharks in the shark tank or touch crabs in the Discovery Lab. In Stingray Bay, guests can see three types of rays and Charlotte, an endangered sea turtle that uses prosthetics to swim.
But groups can book even closer encounters. During a penguin encounter, each person can listen to the penguin’s heartbeat using a stethoscope. Groups can book a private sea-lion show before or after hours, and the aquarium offers three different beluga whale encounters, including touching a whale in the water and putting a paintbrush in its mouth so it can paint on a canvas.
