Fast Facts about Fort Collins, Colorado
Location: North-central Colorado
Access: Roughly 70 miles north of downtown Denver and Denver International Airport via Interstate 25
Major Meeting Spaces: Hilton Fort Collins, Fort Collins Marriott, Elizabeth Hotel, Armstrong Hotel
Hotel Rooms: 2,400
Off-Site Venues: Ranch/Budweiser Event Center, Lincoln Center, CSU Stadium Events, New Belgium Brewery, Anheuser Busch Tour Center, Ginger and Baker
Contact Info:
Visit Fort Collins
970-232-3840
www.visitftcollins.com
In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Fort Collins, Colorado, is a small but growing city of less than 200,000. Historically an agricultural area, the town is home to Colorado State University, the state’s second-largest school. It has expanded by leaps and bounds in the past two decades, becoming a hub for conferences, retreats and meetings.
Colorado’s Front Range has drawn tech companies like Amazon and Google and has a reputation for being the next Silicon Valley, rolling out the red carpet for tech startups. Beyond the university’s large venues, including its ballroom and stadium, area hotels can accommodate those seeking flexible space to small groups wanting a boutique feel. Fort Collins is a hub of craft beer and artisan food production, and many of the local facilities have event spaces for groups wanting something with a flavorful twist.
Fort Collins makes a great getaway with a quaint and walkable historic downtown area full of shops, restaurants and boutique hotels. The town is also close to Colorado’s most popular outdoor areas, offering access to wide-ranging activities that include rafting and mountain biking. Because of its size, it still retains its small-town charm and hospitality.
“When it comes to Fort Collins, we have a great iconic Old Town with foodie destinations to explore as you walk around town,” said Lindsey Rohrbaugh, group sales manager for Visit Fort Collins. “There’s a new space, the Exchange, built from open shipping containers that connects the entrepreneurial spirit of Fort Collins to our love of bikes and the outdoors. This area is great for groups, with access to multiple shops and restaurants, distilleries and breweries.”
Visit Fort Collins offers full meeting-planning services to ensure that groups maximize the city’s offerings and have the amenities they need for a successful event.
Large Meeting Venues
The Ranch/Budweiser Events Center, with seven buildings of versatile event space on 240 acres of property, can host events for up to 2,000 people. Downtown, the Lincoln Center can host up to 500 guests in its performance hall, up to 300 in the ballroom and up to 150 in any of its three conference rooms or on its rooftop deck. On campus, the Colorado State University stadium offers mountain views and can host events of all sizes for up to 900 people.
Major Meeting Hotels
The Hilton Fort Collins has 21,000 square feet of configurable meeting space that can accommodate 12 to 1,300. At the Marriott, groups can use 17 event rooms with up to 19 breakout rooms, for a total of 18,038 square feet. The Armstrong Hotel, which just underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation, features Mantz Hall, which can accommodate up to 70, along with its restaurant, which can accommodate an additional 80. The new Elizabeth Hotel can accommodate 160 guests in two meeting rooms totaling 3,693 square feet.
Creative Off-Site Venues
At the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, meetings and retreats can use spaces from a rooftop boardroom and landscaped backyard to flexible classrooms for 90 in a fun and interactive setting. At the New Belgium Brewery, meetings can take place in any of three rooms, the brewhouse and a large backyard space with a patio. At Ginger and Baker, a farm-to-table restaurant and teaching kitchen, events can take place in the mill, the wine cellar, the kitchen and the rooftop patio.
Postmeeting Activities
With the help of a company called Front Range Guides, groups can arrange guided outdoor experiences like fly-fishing, mountain biking and whitewater rafting, or hiking in nearby Poudre Canyon. Others may enjoy scavenger hunts, tours highlighting Fort Collins’ history or catching live musical performances. There are grain-to-glass or beer-and-bike tours, plus foodie walks and cooking classes with Ginger and Baker. Groups will have no problem finding plenty of team-building after-hours activities in Fort Collins.
