Monroe Convention Center

Upon entering this historic-looking building, you'll be surprised by the modern, recently(?)-renovated interior. The spaces are sleek, resourceful and pleasant. The spaces are incredibly flexible which makes it easy to hold an event here. The Bloomington Handmade Market had the entire second floor completely open to fit all of their awesome, local vendors. Recently, the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce transformed the second floor into a few smaller rooms (used for personal business panels) and also had a bigger, open area available for their keynote speakers. The best part though?! The huge, free parking lot just steps outside the entrance to the building. So convenient and so rare to find at a convention center.

Gayle and I visited the Monroe Convention Center last month with our daughter-in-law and the 2 grand girls. The occasion was the Bloomington Handmade Market and we had a great time upstairs enjoying the wide variety of artistic offerings. I knew I was going to like this place while admiring the historical and refurnished red brick building from the outside. Gayle scored a nice bottle of local gin, while I took home a delicious bottle of Krampus beer from the Bloomington Brewing Company. In between were some additional metalwork and leather purchases. We enjoyed the space, which is obviously flexible for other events. Note: The Monroe Convention Center has a direct connection to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel. We easily found parking on the street.

My husband and I try to stop by every first Friday since this is a stop on the gallery wall. To be honest, if you could only do one stop on the gallery wall this would be it. It feels so elegant, there's usually music playing, wine and light hors d'oeuvres being served and beautiful art on the walls. I've been to other events at the convention center and they always feel upscale.

It's a pretty spiffy convention center for a small-ish town like Bloomington and I've had the pleasure of checking out several events here over the last few years. Most recently, I visited for the Return of the Mac festival (Yelp partnered) and thoroughly appreciated the ease of free and abundant parking at this location. I also appreciate that it's only a stone's throw from the downtown square (great for out-of-towners hoping to explore. The space is clean with an abundant number of restroom stalls and from what I seen, they have the capacity to host more than one event/group at a time with the two floors of space. I appreciate the number of windows and natural light that floods in to the front of the building (great for food photos ;). I will say depending on where you park it can be confusing to figure out which entrance is correct given your event and destination. No biggy.

First Friday of the month their is a nice Gallery Walk . View wonderful art, and listen to great music and drink nice wine and enjoy socializing with others from 5pm till 7ish. Must do event. It's fun and you will have a great time.

MJ and I attended a Pottery Show by the Bloomington Pottery Guild. Unique pottery by local artists for sale at reasonable prices. The homemade cookies were the best !

I've been to several events here over the past few years. They always do a great job working with IU to host an organized event for the career fairs. The food at lunch is good and there are always drinks available. It can be hard getting a hot lunch if arrive at the later end of the service but they do put out soup and salad to accommodate folks. The venue is always clean and ready to go for the eventa when we arrive.

I came for the Return of the Mac Festival today. It was very well organized and a great space. Clean facilities and very friendly staff!

This is a very nice alternative to our corporate office for training sessions for larger groups, too big for a normal conference group. We trained a group of new sales reps today, and and it worked out great, as we needed the space to spread out, and be able to talk in small groups, without disturbing the other groups.It's also very conveniently attached to the Courtyard Marriott. The hotel is a little older compared to the Hilton Garden Inn, or the newly opened Fairfield Inn, but it's certainly nice enough.We will continue to use the facility when we have more than 6 or 8 people in a group.

I called the convention center to get some information about hosting an event at this location. Jean from Sales was incredibly helpful! She had so much information, and was more than willing to spend the extra time to answer any questions I had. Thoroughly appreciated all of the information, and can't recommend her enough!