The Tech Museum of Innovation
San Jose, California
Planners are always looking for ways to shake up a typical meeting; how about an earthquake simulator? That’s just one of the interactive exhibits open to meeting attendees at the Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose, California. The museum offers a host of hands-on opportunities, including a chance to put together a robot, try out the Jet Pack chair and explore Google Earth.
“There’s the opportunity to be hands-on in all the exhibit galleries,” said Maureen Langan, director of special events. “All the exhibits are based on Silicon Valley technology.”
The museum’s meeting spaces include New Venture Hall, for up to 400 people in theater-style seating, and another room for about 65. The museum’s rooftop terrace delivers a view of downtown San Jose during lunches and cocktail receptions for as many as 200 people.
When the museum shuts its doors for the night, the entire space opens to groups. Events typically use the galleries for receptions or dinners, then shift into another space for meetings, Langan said.
The museum’s IMAX dome theater seats 280 people and is popular for presentations and product launches. The museum has also done behind-the-scenes IMAX tours that let people go into the projection booth to see how projectionists load the film.
Museum staff also put together scavenger hunts for meeting attendees, sending teams scrambling to exhibits to find answers to questions like, “How many pairs of chromosomes are found in a human cell?” and “Find the weight of a 150-pound person on Venus, Jupiter and Neptune.”
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Native American dancers perform every weekend at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but groups can also have them perform for their events, said Tazbah McCullah, the center’s marketing and advertising director. The center also works with dozens of local artists, so any meeting or event can add Native American dance, flute and storyteller performances or bring in artists for demonstrations in pottery making, weaving, jewelry and glassblowing.
Its 24,000 square feet of meeting space is available during the day, and the entire building is available after-hours for up to 400 people. Meeting space includes nine meeting rooms ranging from 480 square feet to a 3,200-square-foot room that can be divided in half. The center also has an outdoor rotunda and sculpture garden and a courtyard “that’s perfect for events out under the sky,” McCullah said.
As part of the center’s new culinary packages, an expert will talk about Native American foods, including corn, beans and squash, the staples of pueblo life known as “the three sisters.” The program includes food demonstrations, such as grinding corn, as well as tastings.
The on-site Pueblo Harvest Cafe also caters events with traditional “feast day” foods.
“During feast days you invite family and friends and even strangers into your home, and there are foods that are always there,” McCullah said.
The café makes bean dishes, squash mixtures, pueblo oven bread and chackewe, a blue-corn mush that can be served plain, with sugar and milk like a porridge, or with an egg and tomato on top. Executive Chef Michael Giese will also customize menus for any event.
Meeting at the center allows people to see, hear and taste a local culture that may be foreign to them.
“It’s an experience that maybe has been elusive to the people who are attending the meeting,” McCullah said. “This is a very distinctive place that has been built and operated by very distinctive people.”
