Anaheim’s meetings, conventions and events business is on a roll that promises to get more “golden” in the next decade as a truly epic number of marquee events and facilities are unveiled in a destination that already boasts the largest convention center on the West Coast.
While the city recently confirmed that 160 conventions, meetings and events—projected to generate more than $1.4 billion in economic impact—will take place in the destination in 2025, the biggest buzz is about the “Golden Decade” that lies ahead.
Golden Decade Details
The future is shiny, indeed, for Anaheim meetings and events, with what Visit Anaheim dubs the Golden Decade unfurling with $10 billion in developments underway, including two new hotels bringing with them more than 550 rooms as part of the massive OCVIBE project.
“OCVIBE will be a premier live entertainment district which will be coming to Anaheim starting in late 2026, but really fully open and optimized before the Olympics in 2028,” said Ronnie Collins, chief sales officer, Visit Anaheim. “It'll actually be—for a fun fact—about four times the size of L.A. LIVE.
[Related Podcast: Anaheim Unveils a "Golden Decade" for Meetings]
“It’s truly going to be our downtown and in my opinion is the largest thing to happen to the Anaheim area since Disneyland moved here,” Collins continued, adding that the parking will be free of charge in its 8,000-space parking garage.
The 100-acre OCVIBE project will be anchored by the existing Honda Center and boast myriad new restaurants, parks, retail offerings and live-entertainment venues. Honda Center also plays a prominent role in the project as it’s the home ice of the Anaheim Ducks NHL team and OCVIBE is being funded to the tune of $4 billion by Ducks owners the Samueli Family.
Disneyland Resort, of course, always figures prominently into anything Anaheim ever since Walt Disney invented the theme park destination concept there in 1955. “The Happiest Place on Earth” is making its contribution to the Golden Decade via its multi-decade, $1.9 billion DisneylandForward development that will expand its attractions on the west side of Disneyland Drive.
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DisneylandForward is also bringing new mixed-use development to the southeast of the major thoroughfare in what is now the offsite Toy Story parking area.
“Walt Disney's famous quote is ‘Disneyland will never be finished,’ and that certainly is the case as they move into the next couple of decades with their theme park offerings," Collins said.
Mega Events and Meeting Venue News
Several major global events are coming to the Greater Los Angeles area in the next five years, including FIFA World Cup in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027, the Summer Olympics in 2028—Anaheim is hosting the men’s and women’s indoor volleyball competition—and U.S. Travel Association’s IPW in 2030.
These marquee events will be in addition to the always robust lineup of annual shows in the 1.8 million-square-foot Anaheim Convention Center, which boasts more than a million square feet of exhibit space, including NAMM every January, the Natural Products Expo West in March and WonderCon, VidCon and Pokémon World Championships later in 2025 and beyond.
Apart from the convention center, which offers more than 3,700 guest rooms on its campus, Visit Anaheim said the 1,574-room Hilton Anaheim is targeting August for the completion of a multimillion-dollar full-property renovation that will include redesigned guest rooms and suites as well as upgrades to its nearly 106,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The property is also improving its restaurant and bar as well as outdoor spaces.
[Related: Anaheim Is Building on Its Momentum as a Top Meetings Destination]
Anaheim Meeting Planner Incentive
To guide meetings business to the destination, Anaheim offers a Meetings Momentum Program for Tourism Improvement District hotels in Anaheim and Garden Grove. Under the offer, participating hotels can qualify for up to $75,000 they can use to incentivize groups to their properties for meetings and events.
“The way that it works is if that particular hotel that's in our program has an opportunity to book an in-house piece of business and that opportunity is competing with another city, the hotel can apply for Meetings Momentum funds, which come out of that $75,000 per hotel bucket,” Collins said. “They send us the application and we approve it here right on-site, send it back to the hotel and then they essentially put a clause in the contract for that particular group and then we pay the group directly.”
As a hypothetical example, Collins said the payout is based on a 7-to-1 ratio, so if a qualifying meeting generated, say, $70,000 in total rooms and F&B revenue, the meeting organizer would be reimbursed $10,000.
“We've probably had well over 100 applications already utilize this money, and in some cases the hotels use all $75,000 in one shot for one piece of business, if it's a large piece of business like at the Hilton Anaheim,” Colllins said. “Or, they could break it into multiple groups. It's at the hotel's discretion on how they use the money and when they use the money.”
With the Golden Decade set to transform the Anaheim, meeting and event planners who believe they are familiar with the destination may be surprised with everything that’s in motion.
“If you haven't been to Anaheim recently, you haven't been to Anaheim,” Collins said. “It's a destination that is evolving and really maturing with more sophisticated experiences and programming. We can't wait to showcase that for you.”
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Visit Anaheim
This article was created in collaboration with Visit Anaheim.
