Austin Convention Center Named Bronze Stella Award Winner - Southwest for Best Convention Center

November 17, 2021

AUSTIN, Texas – The Austin Convention Center is proud to be a Southwest bronze winner of the prestigious 5th Annual Stella Awards from Northstar Meetings Group, in the Best Convention Center category.

The Stella Awards 2021: Best Convention Center honor and seal of excellence acknowledges the Austin Convention Center for providing superior industry service with superb food and beverage, professionalism of the staff, technology innovations, and other critical aspects of the meeting and event experience.

“It is great to be recognized as a Best Convention Center for the delivery of high-quality meetings and customer services to event professionals,” said Paul Barnes, Austin Convention Center Department Deputy Director – Chief Operations Officer. “We are fortunate to manage 90% of our services, with housekeeping, IT, security, and exhibitor services all provided with pride by our well-trained in-house staff. Additionally, we have exceptional partners, including the award-winning Levy-managed Austin Convention Center Catering team.”

With the Stella Awards, Northstar Meetings Group and its leading brands, Meetings & Conventions and Successful Meetings, issues its highest honors in the meeting industry. The awards recognize convention centers, hotels, conference centers, airlines, cruise lines, DMOs/CVBs, and DMCs that consistently deliver quality services and innovation.

Winners were selected for achieving overall excellence, superb food and beverage, professionalism of the staff, sustainability initiatives, and other critical aspects of the meetings and event experience. More than 6,000 votes were cast for nominations in 17 categories, from six United States regions, with the Austin Convention Center earning bronze for Best Convention Center in the Southwest region.

“Congratulations to all of the 2021 Stella Award winners and finalists,” said Loren Edelstein, Vice President and Content Director for Northstar Meetings Group. “All of the honorees truly represent excellence in the meetings and events industry as valued and respected suppliers. We’re delighted to recognize the best of the best once again, especially as the industry recovers from the pandemic. Thank you to this year’s winners for supporting meeting and event professionals so capably during such difficult times.”

The Austin Convention Center is a LEED® Gold-certified and GBAC STAR™-accredited facility. Located in the heart of downtown, the Austin Convention Center Department operates the Austin Convention Center and Palmer Events Center. The Austin Convention Center Department is comprised of 301 full-time staff positions and is an enterprise department for the City of Austin. As an enterprise department, ACCD is not funded by property taxes, sales taxes, or through transfers from the electric and water utilities. Over 10 million people have attended 6,000+ events, including over 900 conventions, at the convention center since it opened in 1992.

FACTS ABOUT THE AUSTIN CONVENTION CENTER: • Neighbors 12,000 downtown hotel rooms within a two-mile radius • Five exhibit halls, two ballrooms, 54 meeting rooms, and show offices • Seven ballrooms, ranging in sizes from cozy and intimate to one of the largest in Texas at 40,510 square feet • State-of-the-art audiovisual technology on a gigabit-rated network • Free Wi-Fi, over 20,000 wireless devices can connect simultaneously • In-house technology staff provides 24-hour support and customization monitoring.

ABOUT NORTHSTAR MEETING GROUP: Northstar Meetings Group is the leading B-to-B information and marketing solutions company serving all segments of the business meetings, events, sports, and incentives market –including full-and part-time meeting planners, as well as corporate, association, sports, and not-for-profit decision-makers, and incentive professionals, facilitating their professional development and achievement of business goals. The company’s influential brands –Meetings& Conventions, Successful Meetings, Associations Meetings International, Meetings & Incentive Travel, Meeting News, Incentive and SportsTravel – currently serve over 350,000 active meeting and event planners and incentive professionals, across an integrated suite of data, digital, events and print products. For more information, please visit NorthstarMeetingsGroup.com.