Riverfront Activities
Peoria has a lively riverfront that entertains thousands of meeting attendees and other visitors each year. The Caterpillar Visitors Center is quite popular and has eight exhibit galleries, four theaters, and videos and photos that help tell the fascinating story of this 90-year-old company. It’s hands on, too, with cool technology and simulators that let you feel as though you are single-handedly operating a big piece of earth-moving equipment.
There is also plenty of meeting space inside the center. “You can actually have a meeting in the bed of a giant mining truck,” said the CVB’s Allen. “You walk into a huge meeting space, and you think you’re in the back of one of their giant Caterpillar creations.”
The Peoria Riverfront Museum is another popular attraction. It blends science, achievement, art, history and more into an experience that will educate and stimulate people of all ages. The museum features an Imax screen and a planetarium. It has abundant meeting space, and when the meeting ends, attendees can tour the museum.
The museum also brings exciting national and international exhibitions to its halls. One recent example was “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,” which included interesting pieces recovered from the debris field beneath where the ill-fated ocean liner sank in 1912.
Speaking of boats, the Spirit of Peoria is a paddleboat that offers fun hour-and-a-quarter-long trips on the Illinois River; it also travels farther for up to five days when it cruises the Mississippi River to places like St. Louis and Hannibal, Missouri. The longer excursions include overnight accommodations, entertainment such as music and theater, and delicious buffet meals.
The riverfront is also the scene of festivals nearly every weekend in the summer and fall. Live music is a hallmark of these gatherings. The riverfront has fun themed eateries and several fine-dining restaurants in the district.
Downtime Fun
Wildlife Prairie Park, just 10 miles west of downtown Peoria, is an 1,800-acre park dedicated to the natural environment of Illinois and the Midwest, with more than 50 native animals and plants and interesting attractions. The park encourages education, conservation and recreation. People enjoy riding the Prairie Zephyr, a miniature train that transports them throughout the park. The park offers attractive meeting and banquet spaces for planners seeking a change-of-pace site.
Peoria also has a zoo. One of the highlights is the Africa exhibit, where visitors walk around the main area on a boardwalk. The exhibit has a range of animals, from lions and giraffes to monkeys, zebras and rhinos. The Zambezi River Lodge is an option for conference planners, with flexible space that can handle a crowd of up to 200.
Planners may want to add the excitement of a casino to their upcoming meeting or event, and East Peoria is the site of the Par-a-Dice Hotel Casino. The venue offers 20,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space that can accommodate up to 1,000 people, and the hotel has 202 guest rooms for an “all in one” experience.
The CVB’s Allen says the craft whiskey industry has made a comeback in the city. “We are historically known as a Whiskey Capital and have distilleries and also breweries and wineries here that we love,” she said. One popular tour takes visitors around the city and explains its whiskey history dating back to the 1920s, including a notorious gangster era. The tour ends with a visit to JK Distillery and its new facilities and, inevitably, a sip or two of their product.
Peoria, Illinois
Location: Central Illinois
Access: Interstates 74, 474, 55 and 155 and General Wayne A. Downing International Airport.
Major Meeting Spaces: Peoria Civic Center and adjacent fine-arts theater and arena. Various large downtown hotels with sizable meeting spaces.
Hotel Rooms: 1,000 in the Peoria downtown core; 4,000 in the metro area.
Offsite Venues: Caterpillar Visitors Center, Peoria Riverfront Museum, Wildlife Prairie Park.
Contact Info:
Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
800-747-0302
www.peoria.org/planners
