Thursday, July 12, 2012

Event Venue: McPhillips Station Casino


A couple weeks ago, I attended an event put on by the McPhillips Station Casino, to showcase their updated facilities, menu and event options.  I had the opportunity to meet several new people (and catch up with a few industry friends), including those from other venues, wedding and event planners, festival organizers, travel agents, insurance brokers, web designers and a variety of other people interested in hosting events.

The Casino had food stations set up, which included sushi, cajun-style shrimp (my favourite), duck tortellini and veggie trays and desserts.  Hors d'ouerves included bruschetta, breaded shrimp, beef, and others.

I had never been past the entrance to the casino, and have a few thoughts if you're considering hosting an event at the McPhillips Station Casino:

There are several rooms of different sizes, to accommodate any sized group.  The pricing is really reasonable.  There is a huge staircase (somehow always a selling feature for me).  The main room is open and really large, with a stage, dance floor and option to rent casino games.  Although there are several sports banners, the event coordinator mentioned that they could be taken down.  The food was good, especially for the price, there was a variety, and they had a great use of stations.  The Hudson Room is quite formal and beautiful, with chandeliers and red decor.  The restaurant is open to the event space, and so if the casino has brought in a musician for the evening your group can take advantage of free entertainment.  The event coordinators are very accommodating.  I think the venue would be perfect for a sports or casino themed event, or meetings in the conference rooms.

The only negatives, and there are always a couple, are: most of the smaller conference rooms open onto the large main area, so if the main area was rented out by someone else it might be loud for the smaller groups, and you'd have to walk through the main area to enter and leave the building.   The rental space is upstairs, which means guests have to walk through the casino to get there, and which also means no kids are allowed (although the event coordinators did tell us that they are building a hall in the Club Regent Casino that has doors directly from the outside, and children will be allowed inside at that one).  There weren't many good vegetarian options besides vegetables and avocado sushi - I didn't ask about this, so there are probably more options if you were to host an event there.  My favourite were the seafoods, which were really delicious.

All in all, I think the McPhillips Station Casino would be a great place for an event, especially a concert, sports or casino themed event.  Check out their website here for more information!

2 comments:

Venue Finder said...

This place sounds nice for affairs, wish you could have shared more pictures. Looking forward to more of your posts regarding conference venues as this can be helpful for those who are searching for the perfect location for corporate or personal events.

Jess Ehlers said...

Thanks, I hope to do more of these posts in the future. I need to start remembering to take photos to share :)