Table Rock Lake
Branson, Missouri
Combining beautiful scenery with proximity to all the attractions of Branson, Missouri’s Table Rock Lake, only 10 miles away, offers both outdoor activities and attractive meeting options. With 800 miles of shoreline, the lake is a magnet for visitors interested in water-related activities or simply enjoying the lakeside environment.
The lake is known as one of the top bass fishing lakes in North America and features an abundance of several species of game fish. It also offers campgrounds, swimming areas, boat launch sites, campgrounds and picnic areas. Along with full-service marinas, more than 100 privately owned resorts also offer services to visitors, who may enjoy boat cruises on small pleasure craft or a full-size showboat.
Not just a site for outdoor activities, Table Rock Lake also serves as a conference center with two major facilities. Chateau on the Lake Resort and Spa has 43,500 square feet of meeting space with capacity for 3,000 guests. Its 19 meeting and banquet rooms include a 32,000-square-foot great hall supplemented by three boardrooms. The resort has 301 guest rooms
Big Cedar Lodge, known for its rustic decor, offers flexible space for accommodating groups of up to 1,000. The more than 21,000 square feet of event space includes 16 meeting rooms, with the largest suitable for banquets that seat up to 600 or 500 in classroom mode. Sleeping rooms accommodate 259.
Grandad Bluff
La Crosse, Wisconsin
Overlooking La Crosse, Wisconsin, Grandad Bluff is an impressive 600-foot-high bluff. It offers visitors a far-ranging view of the Mississippi River Valley, including parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. The park features coin-operated binoculars, a shelter house and picnic areas.
Visitors who explore the bluff also have their choice of a variety of outdoor activities. The area has six golf courses and offers some of the region’s best skiing. Blessed with three rivers, the area offers plentiful opportunities for fishing, kayaking and boating. Nearby Hixon Forest offers trails for hiking, and semiprofessional teams entertain baseball, football and hockey fans.
The primary meeting venue is the La Crosse Center, located in the heart of downtown on the banks of the Mississippi River. Offering two grand halls with a combined 36,000 square feet of meeting space, the center also features a 6,000-square-foot, second-floor ballroom with a riverfront view. Three boardrooms and a conference room are also available. All told, the complex has nearly 100,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space.
La Crosse hotels offer nearly 2,400 sleeping rooms and a number of meeting spaces. The Radisson La Crosse Hotel features seven meeting rooms and 11,500 square feet of meeting facilities that can accommodate up to 400 people. It has 169 sleeping rooms. For a change of pace, the Charman is a renovated candy factory built in 1898 and now operating as a 67-room luxury boutique hotel. It offers a 613-square-foot meeting room suitable for 40 to 50 guests and a boardroom that holds 14.
The Weber Center for the Performing Arts also offers space for meetings and business presentations. Event spaces include a 450-seat fixed-seat theater, a 100-seat black-box theater configurable in a number of arrangements and a large classroom that can be divided into three smaller spaces.
The Ridge History Park also offers an alternative meeting site for smaller groups. Along with its role in commemorating the history and culture of the region, the park has a banquet hall/meeting room that serves up to 75 people.
Hocking Hills State Park
Logan, Ohio
As Ohio’s most-visited park, Hocking Hills State Park offers deep gorges, cliffs and multiple waterfalls. The park is surrounded by the Hocking State Forest, which offers horseback-riding trails, rock climbing and rappelling.
Opportunities for hikers are outstanding. Six major hiking areas are open year-round. Perhaps the most popular is the Old Man’s Cave trail, where thousands of years of flowing water have cut away the sandstone and provided a trail for visitors to follow. The trail is surrounded by forests of eastern hemlocks and includes some of the park’s most impressive cliffs and waterfalls. Approximately one mile long, it takes about an hour to hike. For a more challenging experience, a one-way, six-mile hike to Ash Cave is just the ticket.
Though best known for its hiking, the park also features a wealth of other activities, including horseback riding, canoeing, kayaking, fishing and bird-watching. For those preferring their activities to be motorized, all-terrain vehicles and Segway tours provide other options. Hocking Hills has also become the center of the region’s zip-line craze with more than 60 lines of varying heights and lengths.
The park’s lodge features a banquet room that seats 280 guests, complemented by two smaller meeting rooms. A total of 40 cottages offer an alternative lodging format within the park, and other privately owned cabins and cottages are available nearby. The largest is Old Man’s Cave Chalets, a cabin rental operation that offers 50 top-line cabins. Some units sleep up to 20 people.
The Baymont Inn and Suites hotel in nearby Logan, with 58 sleeping rooms, has three small meeting rooms. Each accommodates up to 20. In the same area, the Holiday Inn Express Hotel Hocking Hills has 81 guest rooms. The hotel breakfast room doubles as a meeting site for 20 to 25 guests.
