Under the steady gaze of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Rapid City, S.D., Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills offer a patriotic spirit that translates into contagious energy for meeting groups.
Peak season in the area runs through the high summer—June, July and August—when tourists roll through in large numbers and all the local attractions are buzzing.
However, Rapid City caters to several niche markets, and fall is still a busy season around town.
“If only we could put more days in September,” says Lisa Storms, convention sales and servicing director for the CVB. “It’s a huge month for us, baby boomers come in the fall once the kids are back in school and convention season picks up again.”
In 2011 Rapid City was named the “Most Patriotic Small Town” by Rand McNally/USA Today, and the city’s powerful sense of patriotism drives much of the group business.
“We’re continuing to go after all niches,” Storms says, “but military reunions are very popular.”
In addition to Mount Rushmore, local patriotic sites include the Black Hills National Cemetery, Ellsworth Air Force Base and the City of Presidents attraction in downtown Rapid City, a series of life-size bronze statues honoring past leaders.
“Ellsworth provides air support for half of the nation, there are numerous veteran-friendly hotels, and the city supports the local military wholeheartedly,” Storms says.
Both before and after the Fourth of July there are energetic weekend festivals in the community.
In the center of Rapid City, Main Street Square is celebrating it’s one year anniversary. The downtown gathering place is home to many community events and is transformed into an ice rink larger than the one in New York’s Rockefeller Center during the winter.
“It hosts brown bag luncheons, concerts and is great for locals, visitors and conference and meeting attendees,” Storms says. PageBreak
The square, with its iconic dancing water fountain, is available for private event rentals and performances. Sound equipment, tables and canopies can be set up.
Rapid City currently has more than 4,300 hotel rooms, and numbers are on the rise, as a new Mainstay Inn & Suites and Baymont Inn & Suites both recently broke ground and are slated to open in spring 2013 with approximately 100 rooms each.
The largest convention space in town, the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, is two blocks from downtown and can accommodate events of more than 10,000 attendees, offering a 1,746-seat theater, 4,000 parking spaces and nearly 250,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space. With an eight-story atrium and glass elevators, the adjacent Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn has 205 guest rooms and features 14,000 square feet of its own function space, including the Dakota Ballroom, which can seat up to 500 guests banquet-style.
Additional hotels offering meeting space include the Best Western Ramkota Hotel & Conference Center, with 267 guest rooms and 36,000 square feet of function space, the historic Alex Johnson Hotel, with six meeting rooms and 143 guest rooms and the new nine-story Adoba Eco Hotel, with 3,600 square feet of meeting space.
For active explorers, the George S. Mickelson trail runs for more than 100 miles along a former railroad route, over covered bridges and through tunnels. Named for a former state Governor, the trail is open to hiking, biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and horseback riding.
But the real adventure begins outside the city limits, and western South Dakota has much to offer in terms of group excursions and activities.
“Like the popular Jason Aldean song, we’re not just a flyover state,” Storms says.
She lists a long string of options, all within about an hour drive of downtown.
“They’re easy to visit on your own, or groups can arrange bus tours,” she says.
The options include charming small towns, scenic drives and still-under-construction monuments like Crazy Horse Memorial, which is being carved into the mountainside to honor the Lakota leader.
To the east is the vast Badlands National Park and to the south, Wind Cave National Park, one of the world’s longest caves, which offers seasonal ranger-led tours and gives visitors the opportunity to see rare “boxwork” cave formations. Historic local sites include French Creek, where gold was discovered by the Custer Expedition in 1874, and the the Gordon Stockade, a replica of the log fortress built by gold seekers from Iowa to protect themselves from attacks by the Lakota tribes that inhabited the area, as the settlers tried to strike it rich.
The windy Needles Highway runs through Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park and passes through two narrow tunnels blasted through granite walls. The surrounding towns of Wall, Deadwood and Hot Springs offer quirky sites and can make for unique day trips for visiting groups. PageBreak
Auto-touring is a classic way to take in the South Dakota scenery and Bill Meehan, president of Black Hills Discovery Tours, based in the “tourist hotbed” of Deadwood, S.D., knows the roads of the Black Hills very well. The company offers a variety of customized group tours and operates two vans and two minivans, and will add a 15-passenger minibus next year.
“We try to put no more than 10 people in a van, so we can remember everyone’s name and keep it personal,” Meehan says. “People are less afraid to ask questions in a small group, we can stop to take pictures along the way, and the vans can navigate narrow roads that large buses cannot.”
A popular eight-hour tour itinerary hits all the major sites.
“Everyone always wants to see the buffalo,” Meehan says, and while driving through 73,000-acre Custer State Park wildlife refuge guests may also spot elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats. An all-you-can-eat lunch is served at the historic Custer State Park Game Lodge.
The stately resort was built out of wood and stone in 1920 and even received rave reviews from the President Calvin Coolidge and his family, who vacationed there. The campus can accommodate business meetings and groups, with 101 sleeping units, three banquet facilities and three ceremony sites.
Then the driving tour continues to Prairie Berry, a popular local winery offering 15 varieties of fruit, grape and honey wines that have been made on-site for five generations. The most popular variety is a locally-grown rhubarb and raspberry blend. The winery has on-site event planners and chefs that can develop custom menus for lunches, small plate receptions, hors d’oeuvres or plated dinners. The events room can accommodate 64 guests and two patios can each seat 60. On weekdays large groups can arrange visits and host picnics with advance notice.
Discovery Tours newest full-time tour will be added next year and take visitors for a ride on the 1880 train, the only remaining steam locomotive in the black hills. The Black Hills Central Railroad winds from Hill City to Keystone, through hills that were once crisscrossed by steel rails. After the hour-long journey, groups dine on a chuck-wagon supper “just like cowboys under the stars” and enjoy entertainment until 8 p.m., when they are transported to the daily evening closing ceremony at Mount Rushmore, which Meehan describes as “patriotic and moving.”
The company runs shorter tours in the winter, as many roads are closed due to snow, but groups can still see Mount Rushmore, visit Prairie Berry and enjoy a meal at the Alpine Inn. Built in 1886 and located nine miles from Mount Rushmore, the Hill City hotel and restaurant serves fine European cuisine and is sumptuously decorated during the holiday season.
Entry fees and transportation are included in all tours, and pickups can be arranged throughout the region, including Rapid City, Sturgis, Spearfish, Hill City and the surrounding campgrounds and communities.
