Was that Bruce Willis? If you’re attending a conference in L.A., the chances are very good he’s making a movie nearby. And that’s likely Cameron Diaz grabbing a soy latte, as a couple of delegates wait in line for coffee. L.A.’s famous downtown and Hollywood areas are probably the best places to watch stars get stalked by paparazzi.
They’re also great places for groups, offering extraordinary experiences that range from delving into the history of old Hollywood on theater tours to “chillaxing” at vibrant nightclubs. In addition, a number of new hotels and entertainment venues are coming on-line to serve larger groups.
Downtown L.A.
One of the catchiest tunes from the ’80s group Missing Persons is the electro-pop/New Wave hybrid, Walking in L.A. The chorus: “Walking in L.A, walking in L.A. Nobody walks in L.A.”
The group was right about that; there wasn’t much nightlife in downtown Los Angeles in the 1980s. If someone was walking instead of driving to get from one destination to another in the L.A. sprawl, they were deemed up to no good. In fact, there wasn’t much excitement downtown from the 1950s into the new millennium due to the city’s westward movement of its commercial center, with the exception of vibrant Little Tokyo. That began to change when the downtown population boomed in 2007, with the number of residents increasing by 20 percent in two years to more than 28,000 residents. At the end of 2008, the population shot up to 40,000.
What has really kicked off downtown’s renaissance is L.A. Live, a $2.5 billion, 4 million-square-foot entertainment district, which has been unveiling various phases for more than a year but held its official opening Dec. 4.
“With L.A. Live opening, it’s downtown’s day,” says Michael Krouse, senior vice president of sales for L.A. Inc., The Convention and Visitors Bureau, adding that of the 10 meeting planners that visited the project in the week after the December grand opening, two signed on to hold conventions there. “People have been blown away. We had a reception on the Target Terrace on opening night. It was gorgeous. There is so much energy that downtown now has that it never had before. It’s hard to put into words.”
The Target Terrace is an alfresco space at the new Grammy Museum at L.A. Live. It can accommodate about 350 people. The bonus for groups: They can tour exhibits during private events after-hours. Other parts of the museum, which features 30,000 square feet of exhibit space, can be rented out, Krouse says.
The 7,100-seat Nokia Theatre and 40,000-square-foot Nokia Plaza at the L.A. Live complex have been open just over a year. Krouse says groups can arrange to close 11th Street and Chick Hearn Court, located between between Nokia Plaza and the adjacent Staples Center, for events. The plaza can accommodate up to 5,000 people, according to Krouse.
L.A. Live is conveniently located next to the 720,000-square-foot Los Angeles Convention Center. Delegates attending events here will have easy access to L.A. Live’s many restaurants and entertainment venues. When the two hotels at the complex come on-line in early 2010—the 878-room JW Marriott and the 124-room Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles—it will bring much needed hotel space to downtown L.A., which only has around 6,000 rooms.
Other meetings-friendly hotels include the 1,354-room Westin Bonaventure and the 900-room Wilshire Grand Los Angeles, both of which are undergoing renovations.
Meanwhile, downtown L.A.’s new Sports Museum of Los Angeles is getting a lot of buzz. Founder Gary Cypres is the collector of some 10,000 items of sports memorabilia on display in 30 galleries in a converted furniture store. The collection includes the most valuable baseball card ever, the $2 million Honus Wagner card, and the 1939 uniform worn by Babe Ruth when the major leagues toured Japan.
Downtown L.A. continues to evolve. New nightclubs and restaurants offer groups a taste of L.A. culture, while the Fashion District, Gallery Row, Little Tokyo and up-and-coming areas such as the Seventh Street Corridor present groups with sensations that uniquely sum up the glamour of L.A.
Hollywood
Arguably nowhere in the world is more glamorous than Hollywood, which has been reinvented in recent years with developments like the massive Hollywood & Highland Center, an entertainment, shopping and dining complex, in addition to new hotels and renovations of longtime lures.
“That old Hollywood glamour is mixed in with the excitement of new Hollywood,” says Kaylee Kiecker, vice president of marketing and development for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
What’s exciting for planners to note is that events can be held at the intersection of the historic and the new-fangled—literally.
Case in point: The historic intersection of Hollywood and Vine is the site of the upcoming W Hollywood. The 305-room hotel is expected to open in November as part of a mixed-use development located across from the historic Pantages Theater. The project is oriented around the Metro Red Line subway station.
The W, which will include about 22,000 square feet of meeting space, is expected to remedy the lack of facilities in Hollywood. The 670-room Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa, located at Hollywood & Highland Center, is the destination’s largest hotel and handles a good deal of group business. The recently renovated Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is another meetings-friendly standby.
More brand-new lures are in store: Madame Tussauds is constructing another of its popular wax museums in Hollywood, to be completed this summer next door to Grauman’s Chinese Theater. After a half-hour tour of the theater, attendees can stroll the Walk of Fame and see celebrities’ stars on the 3.5-mile sidewalk.
Groups can soak up more of the Hollywood vibe with visits to the Hollywood Museum; the Kodak Theatre, now the permanent home of the annual Academy Awards ceremonies; and Paramount Studios. Red Line Tours offers a convenient one-hour primer of Hollywood Boulevard.
When groups come to Hollywood, they want to experience as much of the destination as possible.
“Right now, groups are looking for a rooftop experience,” Kiecker says.
The Music Box @ Fonda has made its rooftop into meeting space.
More entertainment-related activities for groups include seeing plays—there’s a vibrant theater scene in Hollywood—and attending tapings of TV shows, says Dabney Bixel, president of Bixel and Company DMC.
“Groups also like to go to restaurants frequented by celebrities and celebrity-owned restaurants,” Bixel says. “We took a group to Beso recently. It’s a partnership between celebrity chef Todd English and actress Eva Longoria Parker. As luck would have it, we saw Eva there.”
