Call Arlington, Texas, the “destination that knows how.”
In a Dallas Metroplex filled with worthy competitors for the meetings and conventions dollar, Arlington—centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth and only 10 minutes from DFW International Airport—has developed a mammoth conventions, sports and entertainment district that spills over with major attractions that will electrify groups of any stripe.
Walking through the district’s main meetings and conventions facilities and venues—which includes not one but two Loews hotels, the Arlington Convention Center and the sprawling Texas Live! entertainment complex—one might not even notice where one ends and another begins because the transitions are so seamless.
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When it comes to sports, it’s tough to outscore Arlington, which offers seven pro sports teams, including an esports team whose home “field” is Esports Stadium Arlington, the largest of its kind in the U.S. And if you don’t know anything about esports, just ask one of your younger team members.
I got to visit this meetings and conventions overachiever and found that not only is the destination a world-class center of professional sports, it also has a few surprises up its sleeve.
Loews Arlington Hotel and Convention Center
The host property for our fam tour, the brand-new Loews Arlington Hotel and Convention Center, is part of a $550 million development and the largest hotel in Arlington—and the second Loews property in the Arlington Entertainment District!
In fact, at the time of our visit, Uber and Lyft drivers were still a bit confused as to which Loews we were staying at because the new property had just opened its doors, so it’s good to be specific.
The new 21-story Loews—holding prime position a short walk to Globe Life Field (home of the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers) and AT&T Stadium, home of one of the most iconic of sports teams, the Dallas Cowboys—offers 888 guest rooms and 266,000 square feet of indoor/outdoor meetings and events space.
Collectively, the two Loews properties boast 1,188 rooms and nearly 300,000 square feet of meeting and event space.
Capturing the excitement that’s always in the air in the Entertainment District, the Loews Arlington also features numerous outdoor spaces for gatherings, including the 27,000-square-foot Front Row Event Lawn with a nearly 70-foot-wide video screen.
Indeed, there are TV screens large and small seemingly around every corner in the facilities, all at the ready to broadcast games or be pressed into service for AV needs. Groups can also bring in barbecue smokers or food trucks to add to the sensory experience.
“We’ve done soft seating and we did an event out here for the solar eclipse,” said Lisa Garland, area director of public relations for the hotel, when leading a tour that included the Front Row Event Lawn. “Whatever you can imagine, we can make happen.
“The good thing about this place is that there are large, grand-scale spaces and there’s more-intimate spaces,” Garland added about the dual Loews properties. “And the great thing about having both hotels is if your group of 300 is here [at Loews Arlington] you know you’re a third of the hotel, but across the street you’re a whole buyout, so it’s a different experience. Our team is really thoughtful about where they place the business and what makes the most sense for their attendees. It’s great to have the flexibility of both.”
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The hotel’s five premium F&B outlets, close proximity to DFW—a three-hour flight from anywhere in the continental U.S.—and lower pool deck with a manmade beach and a splash water pad are other major selling points.
“We’re so close to the airport, our most common comment is, ‘I didn’t even have time to check my email [on the ride in],’” Garland joked.
Live! by Loews-Arlington
The new hotel’s sister property, Live! by Loews-Arlington, is connected via skybridge to the convention center and Loews Arlington and offers 35,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space. While Live! is the older sister, it’s still barely past its toddler stage, having opened in 2019.
Connected to the property is Texas Live!, a giant, two-level plug-and-play audiovisual paradise with 15 dining and drinking options that are primed for event rentals—groups can even stage live music right behind the main bar of Texas Live! Arena by rolling up a mammoth video screen. Have a brave CEO? Consider putting he or she atop a mechanical bull at the flagship PBR Texas to raise money for charity.
Texas Live! is also a great option for impromptu late-night gatherings after the day’s meetings program is wrapped.
Garland described Live! by Loews-Arlington as more of a sports/lifestyle resort, very driven by sports and entertainment, while its younger sister, basically in the same building as the convention center, provides more of an upscale, traditional meetings and conventions experience with more-luxe amenities.
Arlington Convention Center
Also operated by Loews Hotels & Co., and connected to both Loews hotels, Arlington’s new convention center opened in early 2024 and offers 266,000 square feet of meetings and events space.
Loews, which owns and operates both of its hotels, also handles the catering at the convention center.
Taipo/Behind the Door
A big surprise during the tour was our quick jaunt into Arlington proper for dinner at what is one of the most interesting restaurants I’ve ever eaten at, Taipo.
Celebrating Nepalese cuisine, the restaurant’s small, relatively nondescript front-of-house belies a secret that makes it an intriguing offsite option—a side door that opens up into the glittery, golden Behind the Door speakeasy adorned with Nepalese decor and serving up Nepalese-themed craft cocktails.
The food, too, was delicious, with simple-yet-elegant Nepalese-style dumplings and dishes, with Western-style options available.
Taipo offers that little extra something outside of the massive convention and sports complex that speaks to Arlington’s evolving nature, and is just the right size for a small, Instagram-worthy reception certain to provide a welcome change-up (baseball pun intended) to a program.
Taipo—founded by two sisters who immigrated from Nepal—is also representative of the growing diversity of Arlington, a “mom-and-pop” culinary scene where one can tuck into Ethiopian barbecue and many other cuisines with roots stretching throughout the globe.
Choctaw Stadium
With seven professional sports teams calling the Arlington Entertainment District home, the need for stadiums and arenas is real. So real, in fact, that the former Texas Rangers MLB home, then called The Ballpark in Arlington, remains standing after the Rangers moved to the brand-new Globe Life Field just down the street.
Now home field for the Dallas Jackals of Major League Rugby, North Texas SC of Major League Soccer Next Pro and the Arlington Renegades of the United Football League, as well as various special events, Choctaw also houses the office of the Arlington CVB and the world headquarters of Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which operates the nearby Six Flags Over Texas theme park.
Medal of Honor Museum
Scheduled for a March 2025 opening, the Medal of Honor Museum commemorates those who demonstrate “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty,” with many having made the ultimate sacrifice. Our group visited the museum’s preview center in Choctaw Stadium followed by a hardhat tour of the under-construction site.
The preview respectfully showcased the heroic contributions of Medal of Honor (MOH) recipients stretching back to the award’s inception in 1861. While more than 40 million people have served in the U.S. armed forces, only 3,536 have earned the nation’s highest military award for valor.
An obvious must-see for military reunion groups, any group will be touched by this monumental museum, and not only by the stories detailing recipients’ self-sacrificing actions but also the sheer magnitude of the architecture—the last museum project of world-renowned architect Rafael Viñoly, who died in 2023—and the symbolism it conveys.
A touching story from the new museum was a $10 million donation of land from the City of Arlington and the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, which chose to name the museum’s main theater after Arlington MOH recipient Col. Neel Kearby instead of using naming rights for itself.
Esports Stadium Arlington
Pro sports of the virtual kind also have a home in Arlington, with the 30,000-square-foot Esports Stadium Arlington. The facility is the home arena of OpTic Gaming—described as the “Dallas Cowboys of esports”—who made their bones on the digital battlefields of Call of Duty and have since branched out to Halo and other games.
The AV dreamworld of Esports Stadium features 21,000 square feet of usable space for events and also boasts its own commercial kitchen, a remnant from its time as Arlington’s convention center.
“The great thing about this space is it still can be used as a ballroom—we’re still the eighth-largest ballroom in the Metroplex,” said Justin Grimsley, assistant director, convention and event services for Esports Stadium Arlington. “The city owns the facility, all of its cameras and the technology, so planners can have it all here for a package price. The name ‘stadium’ is kind of a misnomer—it’s really a giant TV studio; $10 million in total and a $3 million broadcast studio, all owned by the city.”
The teams that play there even have their own locker rooms complete with multiple computers to warm up on.
Next door, and also in the former convention center, is the Arlington Museum of Art, which at the time of our tour was displaying an impressive exhibit on Pompei in addition to works from local visual artists.
Rangers Game at Globe Life Field
The tour wrapped with a final night soiree in a suite at Globe Life Field, which hosted the 2024 Major League All-Star Game in July.
Although the World Champion Rangers came up short, the new stadium was a winner, with all the modern sports facility attributes that also make it a great place for events or even meetings.
The stadium offers 12 venues for private events, including the field, clubs and a dedicated conference center.
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