Courtesy PA Dutch CVB
Good sports
Pennsylvania doesn’t lack for sports venues.
The Sovereign Bank Stadium in York, home of the York Revolution minor-league baseball team, the champions of the Atlantic League in 2010 and 2011, has suites that can accommodate from 15 to 200 guests. There’s a picnic pavilion for up to 500 and seating for up to 5,000 for on-field events.
In the Lehigh Valley, Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, the home field for the Iron Pigs minor league baseball team, added new group seating areas on the field for a “brand-new experience,” said Kaminetsky. Several indoor meeting areas handle up to 200 guests.
The final frontier
For something completely different, consider the Fuge in Bucks County, which, for the past year, has stepped up its event business. Founded as the Johnsville Centrifuge, the Fuge opened in 1949 to determine the effect that gravitational forces have on the body. A gondola, which dangles from a 50-foot arm, swings in a circle. It goes from a complete standstill to 178 miles per hour in less than seven seconds. No wonder astronaut John Glenn called the device the “dreaded” and “sadistic” Johnsville Centrifuge.
Today, the 12,000-square-foot round room is open to events, trade shows and meetings of up to 700 people. Don’t worry about the gondola accidentally wiping out your tables and chairs; crews in three separate rooms are required to activate it. Guests can sit in the same seat that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong occupied to pose for pictures. Call it a space-age souvenir.
Riding the rails
The Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona salutes those who built and fueled the region’s railways, which were once some of the nation’s most important. The lobby, a 63-seat theater and the Horseshoe Curve Visitors Center, are options for events. (Horseshoe Curve is a triple-tracked railroad curve, completed in 1854.)
