Crystal Lake
In McHenry County, a green, suburban area north of Chicago where you’re more likely to find lakes and parks than crowded roads and traffic, Crystal Lake — both a town and a lake — offers meeting planners both traditional and more fluid indoor-outdoor spaces that capitalize on the area’s great nature.
The Crystal Lake Park District administers the land directly around and including the lake and allows private rentals of one of its beaches. It also offers six meeting rooms with space for 50 people and one larger space on the main beach that can hold 100. Just off the lake, the Lakeside Legacy Arts Park and Foundation, a citizen-led initiative that raised more than $1 million in less than two months to save the historic Dole Mansion, runs 20 different enrichment programs for visiting groups in addition to renting space.
Just outside town, the 100-acre Loyola Retreat and Ecology campus, affiliated with Loyola University Chicago, offers groups a variety of meeting rooms for 15 to 200; overnight accommodations; and opportunities for cooking classes, nature walks and a ropes course adventure for team building.
For a central hotel and meeting space option to complement off-sites at less traditional venues, the Holiday Inn Chicago-Crystal Lake is the largest meeting hotel in the county, with 20,000 square feet, including an 11,200-square-foot ballroom; and the Luecht Conference Center at McHenry County College can hold up to 350 people.
“One of the biggest draws of Crystal Lake is the convenience to Chicago without paying Chicago prices,” said Tammy Townsend Kise, sales and marketing manager for Visit McHenry County. “There are two metro stations into the city, so it’s easy for groups to go in for an afternoon.”
Joliet
Just 40 miles from Chicago, Joliet, Illinois’ fourth-largest city, has been a major transit hub since it was founded in 1834 because of its location bridging the DuPage and Des Plaines rivers, as well as four creeks and the Illinois and Michigan Canal. But today, visiting meeting groups can add transit activities to their meetings in more unconventional ways.
At 75,000-seat NASCAR racing facility Chicagoland Speedway, groups can rent meeting rooms with a variety of track views, and on non-race days get down on the track and potentially meet a NASCAR driver. The complete, working professional racetrack also offers opportunities for team building under pressure, simulating a real race environment. Outside the city, the 350-acre Autobahn Country Club features the second-longest racing track in the country, and groups can meet on a rooftop overlooking the track and see how the professionals do it before heading out on the track themselves for an afternoon team-building activity.
Joliet’s out-of-the-box meeting locations also extend beyond transit-themed spaces. “Joliet is a great destination for experiential meetings,” said Robert Navarro, the president and CEO of the Heritage Corridor Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There’s so many options to combine an activity with your meeting space, like a meeting room at Slammer Stadium and then a suite at the game, or a backstage tour and board meeting at the Rialto Square Theatre.”
For a more traditional meeting or a complement to some of Joliet’s more interactive venues, the Clarion Hotel Joliet and Conference Center offers 14,153 square feet of meeting space. Lewis University has 25,000 square feet of meeting space available to outside groups in the summer and three function spaces available year-round.
Rockford
Rockford may be the third-largest city in Illinois, but its Victorian living-history museum, abundant gardens and recent revitalized riverfront district give it a small-town feel that differentiates it from Illinois’ other major cities, though they’re just a quick drive away.
Though it was named in 1837 for its stony terrain and boulder-strewn ford that crosses the Rock River, Rockford has become known more for flowers than rocks in the intervening years and is now home to the Great Garden Rockford Consortium, a group of seven gardens with unique styles and plenty of event space.
Groups can meet in one of the only remaining Swiss-style estates in the United States, have cocktails in one of the most authentic Japanese gardens in North America or have a reception in the stunning, waterside, 11,000-square-foot all-glass Nicholas Conservatory.
“There’s a lot of buzz throughout Illinois because the downtown is changing and blooming and going through a renaissance,” said Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau sales manager Greta Spencer. “There are two new hotels in the works to open in the next couple years and a large multiuse indoor complex under construction on the river that will be opening spring 2016.”
The current hotel campus, which includes the 8,500-square-foot Giovanni’s Convention Center and 10,000 square feet of meeting space in the 114-room Radisson Hotel and Conference Center Rockford, is just seven miles from downtown.
“Rockford is one of the premier amateur youth sports destinations in the Midwest, so summer weekends can be busy with soccer, baseball and lacrosse tournaments,” said Spencer. The summer tournament season is mainly confined to June and July, but the CVB can work with planners to find an ideal date even in this period, if needed.
