Brand Story – The Pendleton Convention Center offers hospitality, service and amenities in one of Oregon’s most unique locales.
Pat Beard has one simple question for you: When was the last time you’ve been through Pendleton?
If your answer is, “It’s been a while,” or “I’ve never been,” you might want to reconsider.
“We are a diverse, interesting, undiscovered gem of a community that has all kinds of art, music and culture,” says Beard, event manager for the Pendleton Convention Center. “And we really do excel in making people feel at home, that all their needs are met and that their expectations are exceeded, every time.”
While Beard is talking about the larger Pendleton community, he’s also talking more specifically about events at the Pendleton Convention Center. Located next to the famed Pendleton Round-Up Stadium, the center offers up more than 40,000 square feet of meeting and event space for up to 3,500 people, nine breakout rooms, the latest broadband technology and a large, on site, commercial kitchen offering exclusive in house catering from the Pendleton Catering Company, which can cater meals for up to 600 attendees at a time.
“If you are a regional corporation or organization, you have to come here,” Beard says. “We have world-class hospitality, great audio-visual and killer food. Once you’ve found those things, everything else goes away.”
In addition to the facilities and amenities that the convention center offers, Beard says Pendleton itself is a prime location smack dab in the middle of the Northwest. It’s a three-hour drive from Portland, Boise and Spokane and four from Seattle or Bend. The city is consistently ranked one of the safest in the region, there’s virtually no traffic and it’s got all the draws of a big city with the feel of a friendly, tight-knit western town.
Pendleton is also home to more than 40 restaurants — from high-end steak houses to pho shops and Thai food — 1,000 hotel rooms, two golf courses, several museums and unique attractions like the subterranean labyrinth known as the Pendleton Underground.
“We are a community of fun-havers who like having company,” Beard says.
What’s more, there’s something extra coming to the Pendleton Convention Center in 2024: a brand new, 60,000-square-foot event center next door with an arena and spaces for food trucks. It’s all part of the package of attractions that Beard says should have anyone headed to Pendleton.
“It’s an eddy in the big stream of life,” he says. “There’s a more relaxed pace, but we get things done. People come here not just because of this incredible facility, but because it’s in this engaging community that wants you here, that appreciates you being here.”
Learn more at MeetinPendleton.com
Brand stories are paid content articles that allow Oregon Business advertisers to share news about their organizations and engage with readers on business and public policy issues. The stories are produced in house by the Oregon Business marketing department. For more information, contact associate publisher Courtney Kutzman.
