Part of the seven-county region known as Mountaineer Country, Morgantown is a lively college town and home of West Virginia University (WVU). The city offers planners unique meeting spaces and many opportunities for teambuilding and group excursions, says Tami Wood, group sales manager for Visit Mountaineer Country. “Our Mountaineer Country hospitality is our ‘secret sauce,’” she says. “We offer a customized, personal experience here not necessarily found in a larger city/destination.”
Opportunities for local adventure experiences include rock climbing, ziplining, horseback riding, and skydiving, Wood says. “Places for hikes or walks include Coopers Rock State Forest, West Virginia Botanic Garden, and Monongahela River Trail,” she adds. For history buffs, Prickett’s Fort State Park commemorates late 18th-century life on the Virginia frontier and features a reconstruction of the original fort, which served as a place of refuge during colonial times. Watters Smith Memorial State Park features log cabins, period-accurate buildings, and a museum depicting pioneer life from 1796 to the early 1900s.
Morgantown’s largest event space is the 207-room Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place, with 73,449 total square feet of function space and a capacity of 2,500 people. Other hotels with event space include Holiday Inn University, with 178 guest rooms and 4,200 square feet of meeting space, and the historic Hotel Morgan, with 83 guest rooms and more than 5,000 square feet of event space. An eight-minute drive from downtown, The Cranberry, a Choice Ascend Hotel at Cheat Lake has 80 guest rooms and five meeting and event spaces to accommodate 190 people for banquets. Morgantown has approximately 2,500 guest rooms.
Other event facilities include Terrace at Tibbs Run, part of the West Virginia Botanic Garden, with 3,550 square feet of indoor event space and a wrap-around deck to accommodate 170 guests; Hazel and J.W. Ruby Community Center at Mylan Park, with more than one acre of indoor exhibit and activity space; and Loft Conference Centers, with locations in Morgantown and Southpointe, each with adjacent hotels. Downtown’s Riverfront Amphitheatre seats 1,500 people and also features a 12,500-
square-foot open-air pavilion seating 300. Clark Mountaineer Club at WVU Coliseum has a 7,000-square-foot multipurpose space.
