Bastrop Convention & Exhibit Center

Never before has our non profit organization’s event planning team said, «never again». The event team walked away from very successful event at lovely venue saying, «whew! We are through dealing with this horrid management» after getting word that we had missed picking up some trash in a waste basket between stalls in ladies room. And, this was after we missed vacuuming some little specs in our initial attempt to leave center the same as we found it. The deplorable experience started with getting a call just two hours before our site visit (with a team member traveling 4 hours from West TX) with word that the date we had been discussing for a week or two had just been taken with a signed contract. Since we were so far along in planning process, we accepted another date. Team members who communicated with Management felt like they were reprimanded and interrogated. Our organization has worked with about 20 other venues in past years and walked away from all the others very appreciative of the enjoyable experience of working with management team. The Management here has heavy hand to enforce letter of the law on stringent rules and regulations. «No outside food or beverage» is not related to health department. It seems to be related to income for the venue. No brought in bottles of water or granola bars allowed, Even for volunteers setting up the day before. An approved caterer had to make a trip to local grocery to purchase such items (and, the Center took a percentage), even though the kitchen was not used. No alternate green room was available that was not subject to rules. In fact, there were no benches and picnic tables outside, so a registrant who did not purchase a lunch was forced to eat their «outside purchased» Subway sandwich in their car.
Highly recommend the pleasurable experience of working with management at the Hampton Inn in Bastrop which has a fairly large banquet room for meetings. Their rules are reasonable.
And, there, Fitty’s BBQ caters. Fitty’s cannot be beat for value and pleasurable, memorable experience for registrants.