Alabama’s venues step up each year to satisfy thousands of meeting requests from a variety of organizations. Three venues, highlighted here, discuss what makes their facilities and cities stand out.
Von Braun Center, Huntsville
With multiple conference spaces within it, the downtown Von Braun Center offers meeting planners a medley of options. The center’s in-house event team works to pull off some massive events, some even on short notice.
“We really focus on showcasing the Von Braun Center as a premier meeting destination,” says Samantha Nielsen, director of marketing and public relations. “We lean into [our multiple venues], that we can be extremely versatile. We can support anything from a small meeting to a multi-thousand-person conference,” she explains.
Connecting with meeting planners nationally and internationally is made easier by Von Braun’s strong partnership with the Huntsville-Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau, notes Nielsen. The two attend industry trade shows to seek out business and partner on targeted advertising to showcase the Huntsville area.
If meeting planners are interested in area attractions like the Space and Rocket Center or brewery tours, Von Braun connects them to the visitors bureau to help curate these activities, Nielsen explains.
Planners are interested in downtown walkability and accessibility to nearby restaurants and attractions for their attendees, regardless of meeting size. These factors, as well as the area’s safety, are the top two concerns Von Braun hears from planners, Nielsen says. “Huntsville really shines in both of those regards.”
Planners wishing to keep attendees in place can build from a variety of Von Braun’s on-site venues like Rhythm on Monroe. The restaurant features large windows offering downtown views and a rooftop bar. Usually closed for lunch weekdays, it can be opened for conferences, Nielsen says.
In the Propst Arena, planners might reserve a block of tickets to a Huntsville Havoc ice hockey game or a major concert already scheduled in the arena.
In tandem with Von Braun’s flexibility is its hospitality focus, says Nielsen. “We really have the mentality of ‘we don’t want to say no.’ If it’s something that we can’t do, we’re going to find another option,” she explains.
This mantra came to life during a national sorority’s Southeast regional conference. The group was scheduled for a seated dinner in the South Hall. The venue, usually hosting events like the boat show, was spiffed up with carpet, floor-to-ceiling draping and extra lighting, Nielsen says.
Then, two days before the dinner, the group notified Von Braun: Six hundred more people were attending the meal.
The Von Braun food and beverage team quickly reworked the entire service plan and borrowed extra hot boxes and china place settings from others in the local hospitality industry, Nielsen details. She and fellow administration team members helped serve the meal.
“We set a record that night. We served 4,400 people in 45 minutes,” she explains. “The client was very happy. It was a really good example of our staff’s creativity, being flexible and committing to exceeding the client’s expectations.”
Bryant Conference Center, Tuscaloosa
Located on the University of Alabama campus, the Bryant Conference Center executed more than 4,000 events last year, according to Ashley Olive, director of conference services. As might be expected, the university generates about 60% of the center’s business, she notes, although the venue also hosts external groups.
“We really try to find groups that are aligned with our educational mission,” Olive explains. Groups involved in continuing education or other education-related conferences, trainings and workshops are a good fit for the center, she says. “Education [events] aren’t the only thing we do, but [they] definitely align with what we do best.”
The A+ Education Partnership, the Alabama Water Institute, the Alabama Association of School Business Officials and the ACT (college entrance exam testing) are among the organizations who hold training or conferences at Bryant, Olive notes.
Fans of the Crimson Tide will certainly know Bryant for hosting “Tide Talk” with head football Coach Kalen DeBoer. Held on Fridays before home football games, the luncheons feature an interview with DeBoer and other speakers, Olive explains.
The center’s location makes it unique among other venues across the state. “Being situated on the University of Alabama campus allows folks to experience that ‘capstone of education’ environment,” Olive states.
It also enables Olive and her staff to connect with various groups on campus. For example, a client may want to tour an athletic facility or hear a professor who is an expert in a specific field.
Olive’s team has met some unusual client requests over the years:
- Heating water to 110 degrees for immersion baptisms
- Pulling full-size vehicles and four-wheelers into Sellers Auditorium
- Hanging chandeliers from the Sellers Auditorium ceiling
Excellent customer service and the latest AV technology set Bryant apart from other venues, Olive says. Satisfaction surveys routinely result in a net promoter score in the nineties. “It’s higher than Disney’s, so we’ll take it,” she says proudly.
On the technology front, Bryant offers:
- Video and audio integration shareable between spaces
- PTX facial tracking cameras that follow the presenter
- Virtual participation for attendees
- An AV help button in each room that alerts the AV team of issues
Bryant can accommodate single- and multi-day events, Olive says. Its largest space holds a thousand people.
When it comes to fueling attendees, Bryant offers clients a lot of flexibility. The venue has an on-site catering kitchen for basic needs like breakfast, snacks and beverages, Olive explains. But if they are looking for a more “elaborate” choice or want to try the flavors of West Alabama, they can choose any external caterer on UA’s approved catering list, she says.
Clients needing hotel rooms have many options as well, Olive notes. Hotel Capstone is right next door to Bryant. Hotels downtown and across Tuscaloosa are within five miles or less of the UA campus and meet most budgets, she says.
While the campus offers much to see and do, Olive’s team welcomes the opportunity to promote the larger community. “We are fortunate to have some great partnerships with Visit Tuscaloosa [and] a lot of the hotels in town,” she says. “We live and work in this community — we love it — and we want people to enjoy it, too.”
Mobile Convention Center, Mobile
Mobile’s location on the Gulf’s Mobile Bay is a unique selling point among other Alabama meeting spots, enabling its place in destination tourism, according to Matthew Bryant, general manager of the Mobile Convention Center.
“We are a hidden gem, and I think the core downtown is really much like a New Orleans, but yet cleaner with less crime,” Bryant brags.
In addition, Mobile offers a more laidback atmosphere for meetings vs. the more formal city experience attendees get with say, Birmingham or Montgomery, he notes. The seafood bounty of Mobile and its walkability from the convention center to downtown hotels also are pluses in the sales equation, Bryant says.
“We want to sell the whole city for a complete stay. You could be at a meeting [during the day], but then, what do you do at night?” he asks. His team promotes to meeting planners all that Mobile has to offer, from a Mobile River dinner cruise on the Perdido Queen paddlewheel riverboat to a Maritime Museum visit and more.
Bryant’s team also ensures that meeting participants know about the local dining scene. Looking for great oysters or the best gumbo in town? The team will help guide you to the right eateries.
Inside the convention center, all catering is handled by OVG Hospitality, Bryant says. No other caterers are allowed. “Our food menu adapts to the region and then to our customers’ requests. Our strength is our flexibility to cook multiple foods,” he says. The center uses beef grown in Alabama and also partners with local fisheries, he adds.
Attracting meetings to the convention center requires a multi-pronged partnership among the center, Visit Mobile, the Mobile Sports Authority and Mobile’s hotel community, Bryant explains. Depending on the target market, one or more representatives of these entities will attend national conventions and trade shows to solicit business.
When requests for proposals arrive from corporations and associations, this Mobile partnership collaborates to complete them, Bryant shares. “We don’t have a lot of money individually, but together we have a lot of money [where] we can market the region and bring business in. We work together to be successful.”
Nancy Randall is a Tuscaloosa-based freelance contributor to Business Alabama.
This article appears in the February 2026 issue of Business Alabama.
