South Carolina’s capital—Columbia—is home to 60 bars and restaurants, more than 2,000 hotel rooms plus 142,500 square feet of meeting space at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. These are the destination staples planners and attendees can, well, plan for.
But what they might not expect is the unexpected.
“I think overall, visitors that come to Columbia are coming for those unique experiences that they don’t expect,” said Charlene Slaughter, director of communications, Experience Columbia SC.
Here are six unexpected offsite venues for group outings in Columbia.
Lace House at Arsenal Hill
The Lace House at Arsenal Hill is located on the Governor’s Mansion Complex, near the governor’s residence.
The property was previously used to host the governor’s overnight guests and now serves as a unique historic offsite venue for meeting and convention groups.
The 9,606-square-foot home was built in 1854 and is surrounded by gardens and courtyards. The house is available for private events and tours.
“The Lace House is beautiful, and it’s part of the governor’s properties, so not everyone gets to do things like that,” Slaughter said.
The venue follows similar trends Danna Lilly, vice president, Experience Columbia SC, is seeing across the destination. She finds that her clients desire to book experience-driven venues.
“I think that’s happening and is probably going to continue happening because everyone is able to get more creative,” Lilly said.
She also noted that different activations can be arranged in these unexpected spaces; one in particular she mentioned was oyster shucking.
Whatever the selection, the venues typically provide a clean slate for meeting and event planners.
“When we show [planners] the venues, we show them completely empty, as the owners want,” she said. “We allow [planners] to think about a lot of options that you can blend the old, the new and the not yet discovered.”
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Segra Park
Segra Park started as a baseball stadium and has grown into a multi-use sports and entertainment venue. Groups can rent the full ballpark, the entire concourse or partial concourse. Indoor meeting spaces include the Club Lounge for up to 500 and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Health Conference Room for up to 24.
“The reason people would want to hold meetings and events there is because of the depth of the space you have. You can sit on the sidelines of a baseball game, and then also you can be sitting in the same venue for a conference,” she said.
“It takes you out of the typical,” Lilly added. “It exposes you to things you might not even be thinking about when you’re meeting. Having conferences in areas that get you out of your everyday place—people remember that.”
Columbia Art Museum
Centrally located in Columbia’s Main Street District, Columbia Art Museum offers five meeting rooms and 89,500 square feet of space for groups from 10 to 1,400.
The venue features nine meeting spaces, an outdoor plaza and special exhibitions.
Upcoming exhibitions include:
- Rodney McMillian: A Son of the Soil confronts American identity by addressing its complex history.
- Body Matters celebrates the importance of the hand in handiwork and encourages viewers to consider their own relationships with objects such as wood, ceramics, glass, textiles and sweetgrass. Barbara Rossi: Fantastic
- Forums blends sources ranging from Surrealism to the grotesque.
“What truly makes this venue special is the art itself,” Slaughter said.
Lilly also emphasized one benefit of the venue is its prime downtown location.
“Main Street is such an attraction for us,” she said. “The ability to have your hotel as well as your venue in the Main Street area, that’s a positive.”
The Main Street District is a walkable three-mile radius.
“You’ve got walkability, you’ve got things for folks to do when they are not meeting. You have great weather most of the year,” Lilly said. “Doing specific meetings here that are unique and then [adding on] those opportunities; it’s kind of the whole package.”
Stone River
Stone River is located on the banks of the Congaree River, which runs through the middle of Columbia. The venue’s name pays homage to its location and the building’s stone accents.
“What we do is not rocket science,” Lilly said. “The beauty is in what we’re surrounding ourselves with as we meet.”
The venue offers views of walking trails at Three Rivers Greenway and the city skyline. Stone River offers more than 4,500 square feet of indoor/outdoor space. Other amenities include catering services, a built-in-bar, private parking and a covered porch and pavilion.
“I know every time I go there, I stand at that window and I see the view of the river and that downtown landscape, [I recognize] it’s something that is just so beautiful and unique to Columbia,” Slaughter said.
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Township Auditorium
This 3,000-seat, more than 90-year-old auditorium offers high ceilings and a 50-foot-wide stage, making it an ideal setting for general assemblies.
The storied venue has hosted many entertainers, including John Philip Sousa’s Orchestra on opening day, Duke Ellington, Jerry Seinfeld, Martin Short, Bob Dylan and rock ’n’ roll icon Elvis Presley.
701 Whaley
Making our list as an unexpected venue, 701 Whaley was once recognized as, “... the most interesting place to visitors in Columbia.”
The venue was built in the 1900s and served the city as a company store—featuring a bowling alley, gymnasium, auditorium, library, dance hall and more—for the area’s five textile mills. The 55,000-square-foot building features local art and is recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
The venue can host up to 1,000 guests in its 14,350 square feet of meeting space. Of its four meeting rooms, the largest is the 6,000-square-foot Grand Hall.
Lilly said venues such as 701 Whaley reflect the culture and character of Columbia because the historic buildings are still being used today. She also highlighted a typical response from planners and guests when they visit the destination’s unexpected spaces.
“I think ‘wow’ is one of the first words [that comes to mind],” she said.
Another distinct space is the venue’s pool, which was built in 1918 and reopened to the public as a unique event space in 2022. The pool was renovated to include a glass floor covering it, soaring windows, skylights and hand-laid mosaic tiles.
“It’s an empty floor and you can decorate it any way you want,” Lilly said. “The cool part about this one is that it has the original pool that they swam in and it now has a glass bottom, and you can actually set up your event on the glass [surface over the water].”
“That one is probably one of my favorites,” she revealed.
