Overland Park Convention Center

all electronic locks and we continue to maintain them today. That just shows you a little bit of the mentality of our owner, the City of Overland Park— they’re not afraid to do the right thing, regardless of the cost.” Although owned by the City of Overland Park, the center has been managed by Spectrat since 2000. In addition to Spectra’s venue management, Aramark handles the food and beverage component. “And though we have two different management companies within the venue, the brands are silent and that’s done by design—we don’t want to confuse the branding of the venue,” Mitchell explains. “That happens with so many venues in our business. The city’s branding is the same as Visit Overland Park, the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau’s brand message. The operating company and the food and beverage brands are silent. That way, we’re all aligned within the city’s brand and I believe that’s a big reason for our success. We don’t want all of these competing brands with competing objectives; it’s all the City of Overland Park and everyone’s aligned as such.” OVERLAND PARK CONVENT ION CENTER Hosting around 350 events per year, the Center has about 75 full-time employees and roughly 200 part-timers. “We live in a well-to-do corporate environment, so we are going to have an event mix with a heavy dose of corporate business,” Mitchell notes. “But there’s also a heavy dose of galas and fundraisers in our mix. Right now, we have five or six of the top ten fundraisers in Kansas City hosting their events with us. A lot of that has to do with where our gala and fundraiser attendees live, in addition to not having to drive far and fight for parking, which are obstacles related to a downtown environment. We tend to have a more balanced portfolio; even though we could always do more business on the corporate side, we strategically place well- produced consumer shows and trade shows to help drive commerce to the area. Shows like this have staying power, longevity and consistency, which reduce the economic ebbs and flows that a lot of places experience. It gives us a little more stability.” Mitchell views his competition as two different