oklahoma city convention center – quick update

I had recently attended a conference (attended!) in Oklahoma City. The Renaissance was the headquarters hotel and the majority of the sessions were held at the Convention Center, which is attached. I already reviewed both spaces in July when I was in town for a site visit, but I wanted to give a quick update after seeing the space again.

The space…

The space is average for a convention center. It’s definitely a smaller convention center which makes a meeting of this size (750 people) much more manageable, compared to the miles and miles you could walk at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.  The Great Hall was used for meals and the space was an ideal size for the group.

renaissance oklahoma city convention center hotel

If you’re looking to host a large meeting in Oklahoma City, your largest option is the Renaissance Oklahoma City Convention Center Hotel. The hotel has 311sleeping rooms and a few smaller meeting rooms (boardroom sized), but it is connected to the convention center, which has 68,000 square feet of meeting space. The convention center’s meeting space is managed by the Renaissance (the arena and exhibit hall is managed by a different company).

The hotel

The hotel has a large, open atrium style lobby with a lovely water feature and glass elevators on either side. The “front desk” is really four different individual desks with a single clerk, I suppose to make check in feel more intimate.  There is a restaurant and a lounge off of the lobby.

The sleeping rooms looked nice and relatively recently renovated (we didn’t stay – we had stayed at the Skirvin Hilton a block away). The linens have recently been updated and I thought they looked nice. The rooms seemed a bit smaller but perfectly fine for a business traveler.

The king suites were very nice with a separate bedroom. I was amazed that there were 88 in the whole hotel, a significant percentage of the inventory.

There are a small number of boardrooms and small meeting rooms that seemed nice but nothing special.

Overall the hotel just seemed to be having an identity crisis. It was nice enough, but it didn’t wow me. The lobby was nice, but that coupled with the decor and the carpet, seemed more appropriate for a beachside hotel somewhere tropical (I’m not sure if you know where Oklahoma City is, but it’s about as far from either ocean as you can be!). Even the spa seemed out of place with the loud salsa-like music being played outside its doors.

The convention center

The convention center is accessed via a walkway from the hotel. It’s a basic convention center with a tiny bit of western flair to let your know you’re in Oklahoma City, like these details:

It felt very dark, which was a stark contrast from the last convention center I visited in Denver.

The breakout rooms I was looking at for our meeting were what you would expect at any convention center – nothing particularly good or bad about them.

Overall I was nonplussed. I’d love to see a little more character in the convention center, but the space was certainly functional.

Have you been to either the Renaissance or the convention center? What were your thoughts?