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Elevate your meeting experience at The Banff Centre
June 27, 2011
The Kinnear Centre for Creativity & Innovation at The Banff Centre. Photography by Laura Vanags, The Banff Centre.
Majestic mountain grandeur and natural alpine landscape – The Banff Centre offers this wondrous combination as backdrop to the more than 500 conferences it hosts each year.
By Deborah Whittle
With more than 75 years of experience as a centre for creative excellence in the arts and leadership, the centre’s first-rate staff, warm hospitality and quick service meets the needs for corporations looking to hold meetings and events. The Centre’s multiyear Revitalization Project is nearly complete, offering greatly increased meeting space – now more than 72,000 square feet of meeting space, including lecture theatres and auditoriums – and thusly greatly increased opportunities for corporations.
Banff is a world-renowned destination, great for attendance-building. Inspirational scenery, powerful mountains, and plenty of activity options keep even the most diverse group of attendees entertained and engaged.
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Located within Banff National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, The Banff Centre is situated in one of the world’s most spectacular destinations in the Canadian Rockies. This conference centre has more than 60 diverse meeting facilities, lecture theatres and auditoriums, and can accommodate groups from five to 1,000. It also has more than 400 bedrooms with complimentary wireless Internet access, multiple dining venues, a recreational complex, professional conference services and sophisticated high-tech AV equipment.
Although the Banff Centre is just minutes from the city’s downtown amenities, one of its best attributes is its location – on a quiet site on the outskirts of town away from tourism activity, on 43 private, well-treed acres.
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Since 1952, The Banff Centre has provided delegates from Alberta and around the world with world-class meeting facilities in a specialized environment that fosters inspirational learning experiences. All guests are on-site for education purposes such as attending a conference, participating in a leadership development program, or pursuing professional development in the arts. Delegates benefit from the creative energies and showcasing of the Centre’s arts and leadership programming and events, and net revenues from conference activity are an essential source of funding to support arts programming.
Amenities include the recreation complex’s 25-metre swimming pool, whirlpool, fitness room, climbing gym, squash court, full-sized gymnasium for team sports, and indoor running track. On-site dining options include a 350-seat market-style dining room, a critically acclaimed à la carte restaurant, a sophisticated wine bar, and new bistro and bar, all with spectacular mountain views. The Banff Centre also offers a comprehensive banquet menu for private dining.
Meeting delegates can attend one of the many public performances, exhibitions and events that take place at The Banff Centre throughout the year, such as the four-month-long Banff Summer Arts Festival and the Banff Mountain Festival, an annual showcase of the world’s best mountain films, speakers and writers.
As the completion of The Banff Centre’s multiyear Revitalization Project draws near, the Centre has a lot to celebrate and a lot more to offer. Opened in July 2010, the Kinnear Centre for Creativity & Innovation, a new meeting facility at The Banff Centre, is both an inspirational and practical venue for meetings and events, offering 19 meeting rooms and a total of 21,000 square feet of meeting space. Meeting spaces feature touch-control AV, heating, and light control systems. All principal meeting rooms face west and offer mountain views. The Kinnear Centre has 10 break-out rooms, a sky-lit galleria, a resource library, loading dock and freight elevator, a banquet kitchen, and a licensed bistro. The Kinnear Centre has been built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System standards, and will seek a designation of LEED Silver. The Shaw Amphitheatre, an outdoor theatre with the spectacular backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, offers an additional experience for delegates.
The Banff Centre is an active member of the International Association of Conference Centres (IACC). Among a select number of properties in Canada that are IACC approved, The Banff Centre offers higher conference experience standards, professional staff and conference planning expertise, effectively relieving the stress for meeting planners so they can focus on their conference objectives.
The Centre caters to such meeting groups as the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference, to informal yoga retreats. There are international science and research association conferences, educational conferences and retreats, and many corporate groups from the energy sector, including an annual petroleum safety training event that draws up to 1,200 delegates for workshops and a tradeshow.
Featured event:
This spring, the 43rd annual Banff International Conferences on Behavioural Science will be held at The Banff Centre, the 40th consecutive year the event has been held at the Centre.
Beginning in 1969, the Banff Conferences pioneered the “conference of colleagues” format for professional and scientific meetings. Registration is limited and the program is designed for both formal and informal interactions among all participants. Plenary sessions and workshops are presented by individuals renowned for the excellence of their applied acumen or research.
The event provides opportunities for colleagues to interact in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere by including informal get-togethers, poster sessions, banquet and excursions such as downhill and cross-country ski trips.
Ken Craig (University of British Columbia), Bob McMahon (Simon Fraser University and the Child & Family Research Institute), and Ray Peters (Queen’s University) have each served on the planning committee since 1982 and will celebrate 30 years working together on the annual event. McMahon cites that “The Banff Centre has played a key role in the success of the Conference in many ways – the natural setting is spectacular; the meeting, dining, and recreational facilities are most conducive to the informal, friendly environment in which our conference flourishes; the proximity to world-class artists and events is stimulating and unique; and the conference staff are superb!”
Deborah Whittle is marketing officer at The Banff Centre.
Filed under: Convention Centres
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