WHY USE A BUREAU?

WE’LL DO A LOT OF YOUR WORK – FOR FREE

VISIT DENVER has 60 full time professionals to help you find the perfect hotels, meeting facilities, restaurants and convention service firms – and all our services are free!

• VISIT DENVER ranks as the Most Helpful Convention Bureau in the United States in the 2008 Metropoll study of meeting planners.
• VISIT DENVER won all four major convention industry service awards for the past 16 years.
• VISIT DENVER can provide you with brochures, maps, videos, photos, b-rolls, email newsletters and more to help boost attendance.

CENTRAL LOCATION

Denver is just 340 miles from the exact center of the Continental United States – closer to the center of the nation than any other city our size. In addition to easy air access, Denver is at the intersection of two major Interstate highways, has four AMTRAK passenger trains daily and is a major hub for interstate motorcoach travel.

DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

• Fifth busiest airport in the nation
• 10th busiest airport in the world
• Non-stop service to more than 150 destinations, inlcuding 19 international cities
• Nearly 1,600 daily flights
• DIA is served by more than 30 airlines, including four low cost carriers and is a hub for two airlines – United and Frontier.
• More Info: www.flydenver.com

TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM DIA

Location: 23 miles from Downtown Denver
Travel Time: Typically 30-40 minutes

Commercial Shuttle Service
SuperShuttle Denver 
303-370-1300 or 800-BLUE-VAN (258-3826) or 800-525-3177
www.supershuttle.com
Shuttles operate daily from 4:30am until midnight, serving all downtown and Denver Tech Center hotels to/from DEN for $19 each way / $34 round-trip. Travel time is 45-60 minutes, depending on hotel location and number of stops

Taxi Service
Freedom Cab 303-444-4444
Metro Taxi 303-333-3333
Yellow Cab 303-777-7777
Taxi Latino 303-888-8888

Sedan & Limo Service
Average cost per trip is $80-$120. All companies have varied rates and cost depends upon number of trips and wait time. Some companies have minimums and other rates are all-inclusive. For a list of limo and sedan companies, please visit www.denver.org and enter “limousine” in the keyword search.

Public Transportation
Regional Transportation District (RTD)
303-299-6000
www.rtd-denver.com 
SkyRide Buses are available outside Level 5, Doors 507-511 in the East Terminal and Doors 506-510 in the West Terminal at Island 5. Route information is available at the RTD counter on Level 5. Downtown Denver is serviced by Route AF.  Routes AS, AB, and AF serve Stapleton Transit Center, where transfers to seven local routes are available.

COLORADO CONVENTION CENTER

• 584,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space
• Korbel Ballroom – 50,000 square feet
• Four Seasons Ballroom – 35,000 square feet
• 63 meeting rooms
• Wells Fargo Theatre – Auditorium seating for 5,000 people
• Located in the heart of Downtown Denver

COLORADO CONVENTION CENTER TECHNOLOGY

The Colorado Convention Center offers a highly sophisticated computer networking environment.

• All meeting rooms, exhibit halls, offices, ballrooms and the Lecture Hall have connections to the Fiber Optics Network.
• Single-mode and Multi-mode fiber as well as CAT5 and CAT6e wiring.
• Internet interface is provided to a full DS3 on an OC 12 platform.
• Full T1/DS1 internet service is available from the DS3.
• Master patch panel resides at the MDF to allow any IDF to be inserted.
• Support of the following topologies: 155mb ATM, 16mb Token Ring, 100mb FDDI, 100mb Ethernet (100 Base-T) and 10mb Ethernet (10 Base-T).
• The Fiber Backbone supports Gigabit traffic.
• Individual stations are served at 10/100mb.
• Fiber to Desktop available.
• All areas can access multiple VLANs.
• VLANs programmed on-site by in-house staff.
• Network design services are available.
• 24-hour internal support and monitoring.
• VPNs are supported.
• Dark fiber including Internet 2 may be brought into MDF and connected throughout the building.
• Multi-casting available.
• Wireless hot spots are established in the Public areas on 802.11b (2.4 GHz) with WEP security.
• Wireless is available at a cost in any meeting room, exhibit hall, office, ballroom or the Lecture Hall.

CONVENTION SERVICE

At VISIT DENVER, we pride ourselves on the level of service that we provide. Our Bureau has won all four of the convention industry’s top service awards for the past sixteen years, including Successful Meeting’s Pinnacle Award; Meeting & Convention Magazine’s Gold Service Award; Corporate & Incentive Travel Magazine’s Award of Excellence and Facilities Magazine’s Top Destination Award.

PRE AND POST

A Little Business, A Little Pleasure: One out of three meeting attendees in Denver take a pre- or post convention vacation – one reason why the city routinely breaks attendance records. Denver is the gateway to pre- and post-meeting adventure in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. In a little more than an hour, you can hike or fly fish in Rocky Mountain National Park, climb the world’s highest railroad to the top of Pikes Peak, play poker and Black Jack in an Old West mountain mining towns, go river rafting down spectacular Clear Creek Canyon or just relax in luxury at a variety of international ski and summer resorts like Vail, Breckenridge, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Beaver Creek, Keystone and the Broadmoor.

COST

Upscale and Affordable: Denver is the 21st largest city in the U.S. in terms of metro area population and ranks about the same in national cost studies. The city has 2,000 restaurants and is considered to have one of the highest concentrations of restaurants per capita in the nation, increasing selection choices while driving average dining costs down. According to the 2009 Corporate Travel Index, Denver is a bargain, ranking 15th out of the top 100 cities in hotel costs, 36th in car rentals, and 70th in food costs. Overall, Denver ranked as the 34th least expensive city -- less expensive than the major cities (Washington DC, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco).

SAFETY

Feel at Ease: Denver’s downtown is a European-like center city that is filled with a mile-long pedestrian promenade, tree-lined streets, flower gardens, parks and outdoor cafes. More than 10,000 people live downtown, mostly in lofts that are located above restaurants and shops. The residents give downtown Denver a 24-hour atmosphere; there are always people on the streets in the areas between the convention center, restaurants and downtown hotels. Denver is in the Top 10 on the FBIs Safest City List.

MILE HIGH SHOPPING & DINING

Shop ’til you Drop: Denver is the largest shopping center in a thousand kilometer radius with everything from Nordstrom’s and Neiman Marcus to the nation’s largest independent bookstore – the Tattered Cover. The Cherry Creek Shopping District, just three miles from downtown, has more than 420 department stores, art galleries, shops and boutiques, all in a deluxe ultra upscale mall or on quiet tree-lined streets. The 16th Street Mall is a pedestrian promenade lined with 50,000 flowers that runs for more than a mile through the heart of downtown Denver. Shopping, dining and entertainment can be found everywhere you turn. If you’re planning outdoor adventures, you’ll find a vast array of sporting goods stores here, including an REI Flagship Store complete with its own river running chute to test drive a kayak.

Denver Dining: Denver has 2,000 restaurants (300 downtown within walking distance of the Colorado Convention Center) serving all varieties of cuisine. Area specialties include Southwestern dishes, buffalo, Rocky Mountain trout and Colorado beef.

Enjoy a Tall, Frosty One: Denver brews more beer than any other city with 80 different beers brewed in town and at the Coors Brewing Company – the largest single brewing site on earth.

ARTS & CULTURE

Cultural Delights: The Denver Performing Arts Complex is the second largest in the nation with 10 venues offering seating for 10,000 for opera, theatre, symphony and ballet. Denver approved a new symphony hall in 2007.

New & Improved Nature: A $30 million expansion of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science was approved by voters in 2007. Next door, the Denver Zoo is undergoing a $130 million refurbishing that has included new primate areas and an African exhibit and will soon add a $50 million Asian Tropics exhibit featuring the world's largest bull elephant habitat.

Mile High Art: The Denver Art Museum doubled in size with a new building designed by world renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. The amazing titanium structure was complemented in 2007 with the opening of the new Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by David Adjaye.

MILE HIGH SPORTS CAPITAL

A Sports Fan’s Dream City: Denver is one of only two cities to offer eight professional sports teams and built FOUR new stadiums in the last decade to house them! The four new stadiums are: the 50,000-seat Coors Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies; the 20,000-seat Pepsi Center, home of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche; the 76,000-seat INVESCO Field, where the NFL’s Denver Broncos play; Infinity Park is home to the professional rugby team the Glendale Raptors; and finally, the largest soccer stadium in the world, the 20,000-seat Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, home to Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids.

Hit the Links: Denver has 90 golf courses that remain open all-year long and have been played as often as 30 days in January.

A Two-Wheel Town: Denver boasts 850 miles of bike trails, all part of the largest city park system in the nation.

DENVER DAY TRIPS

Wide Open Spaces: Half of Colorado is public land open to all forms of recreation in more than two dozen national parks, monuments and forests.

The Incomparable Rocky Mountain National Park: 412 square miles of waterfalls, lakes and high mountain valleys lie just 70 miles from Denver.

Test Your Luck: The old gold mining towns of Central City and Black Hawk, located just 34 mile west of Denver, have come alive in recent years thanks to casino gambling and Wild West charm. In 2009, betting limits were raised to $100, roulette and craps were introduced, and casinos were permitted to remain open 24 hours.

The Best Skiing in the World: Denver owns its own ski area – Winter Park Resort, boasting 350 inches of annual snowfall. Many of Colorado’s top ski resorts including Vail, Keystone, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain and Winter Park, are just a little more than an hour from Denver.

Natural and Manmade Wonders: Garden of the Gods is an unusual geologic formation of brilliant red rocks, located at the base of Pikes Peak an hour from Denver. Royal Gorge, the world’s highest suspension bridge, is two hours from the city. You can walk or drive cross the bridge, descend to the bottom of the canyon on the world’s steepest incline railroad, take a train through the canyon, or ride down the rapids in a rubber raft.

Road Trip Through the Clouds: Mountain goats are a common sight on the Mount Evans Highway, which climbs to 14,260 feet above sea level, making it the highest paved road in North America.

WEATHER

Mild, Sunny and Mile High: While the Rocky Mountains are still snowcapped, Denver enjoys an early spring with delightfully warm, sunny days. More than 50,000 flowers are planted on the 16th Street Mall each spring. Dress in layers so that as the sun warms up, you can remove layers and stay comfortable. In summer, Denver offers natural air conditioning – a perfect combination of warm, sunny days followed by cool evenings where a light jacket or sweater is often welcome. Autumn can arrive early in the high country and the colorful turning of the aspen trees occurs in the mountains from mid-September to mid-October. Denver receives more hours of annual sunshine than San Diego or Miami Beach, so winter days in Denver are bright, sunny and surprisingly mild. In February, average daily highs are 45 degrees – warmer than New York, Chicago, Philadelphia or St. Louis.

DOWNTOWN HOTEL PACKAGE

Easy Access: Downtown Denver is home to 8,000 rooms within short walking distance of the Colorado Convention Center, including an adjacent 1,100-room Hyatt Regency, the 1,200-room Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel, the 615-room Marriott City Center, the 511-room Grand Hyatt and the 430-room Westin Tabor Center. 

Unique Boutiques: Downtown also boasts upscale boutique hotels like the Ritz-Carlton Denver, Brown Palace Hotel & Spa, Hotel Teatro, Hotel Monaco, The Curtis Hotel, The Oxford Hotel and the Warwick Denver Hotel, with a Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences planned to open in early fall 2010.

Low-Cost Convenience: There are a number of convenient and affordable downtown chain hotels such as the Comfort Inn, Courtyard by Marriott, Hampton Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Magnolia and Residence Inn.

METRO HOTEL PACKAGE

Plenty of Rooms: Metro Denver has 42,000 first class hotel rooms in the area, conveniently linked to downtown by efficient highways and light rail – just one reason why Denver beat out 26 other cities to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. There are more than a dozen hotels in the Denver Tech Center led by the 628-room Denver Marriott Tech Center, all with easy-to-use light rail service to downtown.

Luxurious Resorts: Conveniently located just 15 minutes from Boulder and Denver, the Westin Westminster offers 369 luxury rooms with mountain or park views. The Omni Interlocken Resort has 390 rooms, a spa and 4-star golf course, while the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center has 302 rooms and a championship golf course.

10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT DENVER

1. Denver really is exactly one mile high. There is a step on the State Capitol Building that is exactly 5,280 feet above sea level. In Denver’s rarified air, golf balls go ten percent farther. So do cocktails. Alcoholic drinks pack more of a wallop than at sea level. The sun feels warmer, because you’re closer to it, but your coffee is cooler, because water boils at 202 degrees.
2. Denver has the 10th largest downtown in America. Denver has an exciting and walkable downtown – the 10th largest in the nation. Within a mile radius, downtown Denver has three major sports stadiums, the nation’s second largest performing arts center, three colleges with 30,000 students, an assortment of art and history museums, a mint producing 10 billion coins a year, a river offering white water rafting, more than 8,000 hotel rooms, a $140 million amusement park, a $100 million aquarium and 300 restaurants.
3. Denver is near the mountains, not in them. There are 200 named peaks visible from Denver, including 32 that soar to 13,000 feet and above. The mountain panorama visible from Denver is 140 miles long.
4. Denver has 300 days of sunshine a year. Located east of a major mountain range, Denver has a mild, dry and sunny climate with more annual hours of sun than San Diego or Miami Beach. In winter, Denver is dryer than Phoenix with an average daily high of 45 degrees in February. Golf courses remain open all year and have been played as many as 30 days in January.
5. Denver’s history is short, but colorful. In 1858, there was not a single person living in the Denver metro area. Thirty years later, Colorado was a state with a population of almost 200,000. It was a Gold Rush that caused this boom, and in a 30 year period Denver saw some of the wildest events in the Wild, Wild West. This fascinating period lives again in museums, old gold mining villages and hundreds of elegant Victorian buildings.
6. Denver has the largest city park system in the nation. Denver has more than 200 parks within the city and 20,000 acres of parks in the nearby mountains, including spectacular Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The city has its own buffalo herd and every year plants more than 200,000 flowers in 26 formal flower gardens.
7. Denver is a cultural city with the second highest educated population in America. In its Old West days, Denver had a performance of Macbeth before it had a school or a hospital. Today, the Denver Performing Arts Complex has nine theatres seating 10,000 people and is second only to New York’s Lincoln Center. The seven county metro area has a self-imposed sales tax for the arts that raises up to $36 million a year, which is distributed to 300 arts organizations and facilities.
8. Denver also loves its sports. Denver is one of only a few cities to have eight professional sports teams. Denver also has horse racing and a professional rodeo. Denver has 90 golf courses, 850 miles of bike paths and the nation’s largest city park system.
9. Denver is a city of many colors and cultures with great diversity. Denver grew by 30 percent in the 1990s – an average of 1,000 new people a week, every week for ten years. Denver’s diversity is celebrated at numerous festivals and events including the nation’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration and the annual Juneteenth and Dragon Boat Festival.
10. Denver brews more beer than any other city. Coors Brewery is the world’s largest. Denver’s Great American Beer Festival is the largest in the nation with 1,700 different beers. The Wynkoop Brewing Company is the largest brewpub in America. On an average day, Denver brews more than 80 different beers.