Capital Center (ACC) to see how a measured response and the outlook to keep moving forward has ensured that this event center continues to thrive. A modern, premier event and meeting destination, the Albany Capital Center is located in the heart of downtown Albany, New York, that is the Empire State’s capital. “We’ve made our leap out of COVID and we’re in this new era now in the way we go about the hospitality business,” declares General Manager, Shannon Licygiewicz. Opened in 2017, the Albany Capital Center is owned by the Albany Convention Center Authority (ACCA) and operated by ASM Global, the world’s leading venue management and services company. The ACC is a multi-purpose meeting and event facility that can accommodate up to 5,000 people with 22,500 square feet of ballroom/exhibit space, six meeting rooms with 9,200 square feet of space, and 13,500 square feet of pre-function space. Since opening its doors, the ACC has generated over $90 million in total new visitor spending, hosted over 1,100 events and conferences, attracted over half a million visitors to downtown Albany, and perhaps most importantly, generated more than 127,000 hotel room nights in the Capital Region. When COVID hit, the ACC had to pivot from live events to virtual ones.That meant building up its production facilities so that it could accommodate businesses’ Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams meetings. For that, it turned to its AV team from American Concert and Entertainment Services (ACES), which supplied the technology and embedded it within the building’s infrastructure to make the transition happen. The ACC stayed open (even though it was restricted by COVID protocols to 25 live people per event). What really hurt was the loss of the hotel nights that followed multi-day events, which Licygiewicz says traditionally provided the major economic impact for the area. “For the past couple of years, AV has been on the top of everybody’s list,” she recounts. “We wanted to make sure that we were on the cutting edge and that those things were working efficiently. Virtual is still something that is used. We’re seeing presenters stream in if they can’t make it to all of their things, or perhaps it’s a cheaper option for some associations, 133 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 12 THE ALBANY CAPITAL CENTER
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