Because San Diego’s Balboa Park—think Central Park, but bigger—is only a mile away from downtown’s many major hotels, it’s become a standby host for off-site events. According to Debbie Petruzzelli, spokesperson for Balboa Park Marketing, the park welcomes “special convention events” year-round.
And it’s no wonder: The nation’s largest urban cultural park is home to the San Diego Zoo, 15 museums, acres of lovely gardens, and performing arts venues. In fact, even if groups don’t meet here for a special gathering, planners are wise to point them toward Balboa Park, where the calendar of events—from museum exhibits and plays to concerts and classes—makes for built-in off-session entertainment.
“There’s nothing quite like this in the U.S.,” Petruzzelli says, adding that it’s a joy to simply stroll around and check out the circa-1920s Spanish Revival buildings.
“For events, there’s a cluster of museums,” she says, citing the San Diego Museum of Art, among others. “Planners can arrange anything from dining with dinosaurs at the [San Diego] Natural History Museum to an intimate gathering in the Japanese Friendship Garden to an event underneath a Blackbird Stealth fighter at the [San Diego] Air & Space Museum. The park runs the gamut from fine art to planes, trains and automobiles.”
Balboa Park welcomes groups both small and supersize. When ASAE was in San Diego nine years ago (the association is returning in August), they held a large multivenue event there, according to Petruzzelli.
“They had five or six museums that stayed open at night just for them, all with food stations,” she says. “We also had a big Playboy party here during the Super Bowl a few years ago; Hugh was ‘in the building.’”
The award-winning Prado restaurant is one of many eateries in the park, and according to Petruzzelli, it is one of the largest event venues for groups, with indoor and outdoor dining options.
Planners are encouraged to book outdoor events at the San Diego Zoo, which has a lot of great areas as well as tented venues, Petruzzelli adds.
Finally, the Old Globe theater, a Tony-award winning facility fashioned after Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, hosts private events and Broadway premieres such as The Full Monty.
For More Info
Balboa Park 619.231.1640 www.balboapark.org
