The Miami Beach Convention Center (MBCC) Is Ready To Do Big Things In 2023

(MIAMI BEACH, FL) March 23, 2023 – The past 12 months have been a major success for the Miami Beach Convention Center (MBCC). In 2022, South Florida’s premier convention center hosted approx. 560,000 guests at 67 regional, national, and international events, creating significant economic impact for the City of Miami Beach and the region. It earned five prestigious industry recognitions: the “Silver Stella 2022” (Northstar Meetings Group), the “Centers of Excellence Award” (Exhibitor Magazine), “Smart Stars 2022” (Smart Meetings Magazine), “Prime Site Award” (Facilities & Destinations), and “Reader’s Choice Award” (ConventionSouth). 

In 2023, the MBCC, which is an OVG360 managed venue, will only continue to grow. It is unveiling a highly-anticipated restaurant and event venue, launching a new website in spring, and looks forward to hosting a robust calendar of high-profile events. Read below to find out more about what MBCC accomplished in 2022, all the exciting things to come in 2023, and why the Miami Beach Convention Center continues to be one of North America’s top tier convention centers.

 

The Miami Beach Convention Center continues to offer guests unparalleled event and conference experiences. 

Having completed a lavish three-year, $640-million-dollar reimagination in 2020, the Miami Beach Convention Center’s focus on comfortable, flexible spaces, top-notch meeting services, inspiring artwork, invigorating greenery, and a strong commitment to sustainable business practices and green building features sets a new standard for meetings and conventions. The venue includes the largest grand ballroom in South Florida at 60,000 square-feet, four junior ballrooms, almost 500,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, an expanded Grand Lobby, up to 84 breakout rooms, approximately 800 roof deck parking spaces, almost 2,100 miles of cabling to support all IT communications, As part of the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places program, MBCC houses a $10.2 million-dollar art collection — and added two new art installations just last year. In addition to hosting Design Miami in Pride Park during Art Basel Miami Beach 2022, the unveiling of Irma and Norman Braman's generous donation of Jaume Plensa’s unique sculpture, “Minna”, took place at the same time as part of Art Week Miami Beach and added a new permanent art installation to Pride Park. In addition, as part of the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places (AiPP), a new beautiful art piece from artist Farah Al Qasimi has been installed in the MBCC’s East Lobby. 

 

It prides itself on hosting some of Miami’s most talked-about international events. 

From Art Basel Miami Beach to the Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show — the largest boat and yacht event in the world — MBCC has become the go-to venue for large-scale events in South Florida. In 2022, it hosted the first-ever ViVE conference, a combination tech-medical event that aims to facilitate business transformation in healthcare, followed by the world’s largest Bitcoin event, Bitcoin 2022. Utilizing its outdoor spaces, the Miami Beach Convention Center also hosted the first-ever Sound Money Fest, a Bitcoin music festival in Pride Park. 

This year, guests can look forward to many of those events and more. Highlights of the 2023 calendar include the return of Art Basel Miami Beach, Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show, Bitcoin 2023, Expoverse, Swim Show 2023, America’s Food & Beverage Show 2023, FIME 2023 (the largest medical device and equipment trade show in the Americas), and the exciting return of Aspen Ideas: Climate (a four-day event that brings together global and local policymakers, scientific experts, corporate leaders, inventors artists, young leaders, and changemakers to ideate ways to combat climate change). 

Most exciting, the Miami Beach Convention Center has been named the official host of Cosmoprof North America’s first-ever Miami Beach Edition. This leading B2B beauty event, which takes place at MBCC from January 23-25, 2024, will bring together 32,000 retailers, e-commerce, distributors, importers, beauty brands, suppliers, beauty industry professionals, and more for never-before-seen brand unveilings and skin, nail, and hair product launches. A counterpart to Cosmoprof North America’s Las Vegas convention, this east coast event was created specifically to connect with beauty industry professionals in the Latin American market. 

“In 2022 we experienced record breaking events in Miami Beach and in 2023 we are poised to experience the same,” says Freddie Peterson, General Manager of the MBCC. “Our amazing and hard-working teams and wonderful venue partners are well-prepared and laser-focused on delivering exceptional events, driving excellence in customer service and venue management while creating memorable experiences. Together with the City of Miami Beach and the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, we welcome our attendees and exhibitors with open arms.”

 

An onsite headquarter hotel – the 800-room Grand Hyatt – is slated to open in 2025. 

Two of South Florida's premier real estate developments groups, Terra and Turn berry, have selected Balfour Beatty as the general contractor for the new Grand Hyatt. Architecture giant Arquitectonica has designed the luxury lifestyle property that will directly connect to the Miami Beach Convention Center. Slated to open in November 2025, the 17-floor, 800-room Grand Hyatt will have 52 suites, a signature restaurant and lobby lounge and bar, gym, a resort-style pool deck with panoramic views, a members-only club lounge, and four floors of additional meeting space and ballrooms. Perfect for business and pleasure, the hotel will put guests in the heart of the City Center District, in walking distance to top Miami Beach attractions like South Beach, the Art Deco Historic District, Fillmore Theater (Live Nation), The New World Center, Miami Beach Botanical Garden and all of the shopping and dining on iconic Lincoln Road.

  

The MBCC focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, accessibility, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. 

Being a national leader in large-scale events and conferences is about more than amenities — it’s about doing just as much good outside of events as you are hosting them. This year, the Miami Beach Convention Center already has a long list of sustainability projects underway, including: food recovery and waste reduction programs; building a robust sustainability plan that meets event planners' requirements for years to come; participating in OVG360 and Sodexo Live!’s own corporate sustainability programs; and other initiatives like harvesting rainwater, installing solar tubes, distributing chilled water, and reducing electricity overall are on the improvement project list. 

A number of staff members have earned or are in the process to earn the Events Industry Council’s (EIC)’s “Sustainable Event Professional Certificate,” which is designed for professionals who are dedicated to implementing sustainability and social impact where they work. Having already earned its Silver LEED Certification because of its energy-efficient green buildings and lower carbon footprint, Miami Beach Convention Center is working towards becoming Gold certified. 

As part of its commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the venue invites organizers and exhibitors to donate to the MBCC’s C.A.R.E. (Community Assistance by Responsible Events) program. Not only does donating these leftover materials such as office supplies, pens, brochures, bags, furniture etc. divert waste from local landfills, the program supports local non-profits, directly benefiting some of the neediest residents, families, and children in our community. Staff members are also encouraged to “give back” to their communities by volunteering on beach-clean ups and other social causes.

 The MBCC has an internal DE&I Committee to foster a culture of inclusivity and to plan activities that celebrate diversity. While many DEI workplace initiatives have been successfully deployed for years and while the MBCC prides itself on an exceptionally diverse employee base, participation in OVG360’s new Supplier Diversity Program adds an additional dimension to appreciating minority-owned and diverse businesses as part of the vendor list. Committed to inclusion, the MBCC is also an active member of the Miami-Dade-Gay Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. 

You can’t talk about inclusion without accessibility, and the Miami Beach Convention Center is fully ADA-compliant. Accessibility initiatives, like the 2022 debut of the AIRA Program for the Vision Impaired, is overseen by the internal ADA Committee.

 

Green spaces immerse event planners and guests in Miami Beach’s beautiful natural surroundings.

In 2022, the MBCC activated Pride Park (6 acres) and Collins Canal Park (3 acres) for events like the Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show and Bitcoin 2022 Sound Music Fest. The team has completed major landscaping upgrades and improvements by planting carefully-selected native flora and fauna: 1,600 Liriope flowering plants, 825 Carissa Emerald Blanket bushes, 150 Burle Marx philodendron plants, 40 Saw Palmetto trees and 100 dwarf Fakahatchee grass plants were planted in Collins Canal Park, while two Brazilian Beauty trees were relocated from the new headquarter hotel site to Pride Park. 

Another outdoor area is set to debut soon, at the 1916-built Clubhouse, with the opening of Rum Room and Venu. MBCC also has three outdoor terraces on its main campus — one outside the Sunset Ballroom and two outside the Grand Ballroom, which has earned nods as the largest ballroom in all of South Florida. As part of the City of Miami Beach’s “Yes to Arts” funding, MBCC’s adjacent Miami Beach Botanical Garden was granted a General Obligation bond for both aesthetic and foundational improvements in 2023. They include a new Japanese garden, general garden updates, facility upgrades, resiliency and sustainability plans, and improvements to safety, security, and accessibility.

 

MBCC is managed by OVG360, a division of global venue development, advisory, and investment giant, Oak View Group.

 The Miami Beach Convention Center is managed by OVG360, a division of Oak View Group. Always striving to reimagine the sports, live entertainment, and convention industries OVG360, a division of Oak View Group, is a full-service venue management and hospitality company that helps client-partners reimagine the sports, live entertainment, and convention industries for the betterment of the venue, employees, artists, athletes, and surrounding communities. With a portfolio of more than 200 client-partners spanning arenas, stadiums, convention centers, performing arts centers, cultural institutions, and state fairs around the globe, OVG360 provides a set of services, resources and expertise designed to elevate every aspect of business that matters to venue operators. Service-oriented and driven by social responsibility, OVG360 helps facilities drive value through excellence and innovation in sales and marketing, booking and content development, sustainable operations, public health and public safety and more.   

 

Sodexo Live! continues to impress guests with sustainable, delicious food and the highly-anticipated debut of two new restaurant and event spaces, Rum Room and Venu. 

The MBCC is proud of its partnership with Sodexo Live!, which is the exclusive food & beverage provider at the MBCC. 

Soon, Sodexo Live! will debut two exciting new concepts inside the historic 1916-built Clubhouse. Led by Executive Chef Samantha Cruz, Rum Room will serve an upscale, tapas-style menu inspired by traditional Miami dishes, history, and South Florida’s Caribbean roots. Dishes will be made using indigenous Florida ingredients — like local corn, Florida River Gold potatoes, and other produce or spices found in Redlands farms or farmers' markets — as well as Spanish ingredients, like beans and sofritos, that were popular in Miami Beach in the early 1900s when Spaniards passed through the area. In line with the theme, Rum Room will have tropical, 1920s Florida decor and offer an extensive menu of local South Florida rums. Cruz will also create custom menus for corporate functions, weddings, bat and bar mitzvahs, cocktail parties, and more at Venu, a 3,300-square-foot event space that offers waterfront views. 

Taking a sustainable, eco-friendly approach to its business practices, Sodexo Live! started a new composting program for food scraps in 2022, recycles cooking oils to prevent additional food waste, and is a proud participant in the “Plastic Free Miami Beach” initiative, eliminating zero single-use plastics and serving items with compostable, reusable, or recyclable cutlery, cups, and dishware. The company also makes a point to give back to the communities where it operates. Each year, the Miami Beach team donates tens of thousands of pounds of prepared but unused food to The Caring Place, Miami Rescue Mission, and Food Rescue Miami. From March-September 2022, the team donated approx. 3,000 pounds of food and composted approx. 15,000 pounds through the local composting company Compost For Life.

 Recently, Chef Samantha worked with the back-of-house staff to build an herb & vegetable garden next to Rum Room on the Miami Beach Convention Center Campus, which began as a project to drive more sustainable practices in the kitchen. The garden currently holds 192 square feet of herb and vegetable beds and consists of organic soil mixed with compost from the convention center’s composting program. The vegetables harvested will be used on the Rum Room and Venu menus and foliage will be added to table garnishes and decorations.  Solar powered lights were installed on the wooden fence surrounding the garden.

 Smart City Networks: Its efficient, state-of-the-art technology and campus-wide fiber connectivity network make the MBCC a leader in event digital communications. 

The MBCC continues to evolve at the speed of technology to enhance large-scale event experiences for all planners and guests, meet and exceed industry standards, and offer the latest and greatest telecommunications tools. As part of its $640-million reimagination, the venue contracted Smart City Networks to upgrade the property’s technology capabilities extensively with a 10-gigabit redundant circuit that offers faster network cabling speeds, built-in internet circuit redundancies, telephone services, and more. In the works is a project to install a permanent fiber patch panel at Pride Park to guarantee seamless, state-of-the-art fiber connectivity across all MBCC indoor and outdoor spaces. Everlast Productions, South Florida's largest audiovisual (AV) provider and the venue’s preferred AV partner, supports the world’s largest trade shows and expositions with only the most advanced onsite meeting and events technology in the market today. 

The Miami Beach Convention Center is located at 1901 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, FL 33139. For more information, please visit www.miamibeachconvention.com or follow Miami Beach Convention Center on Facebook and @miamibeachcc on Instagram. 

Media Contact: DeepSleep Studio | [email protected] | (305) 877-1031

 

Images and interviews are available upon request.

  

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About Miami Beach Convention Center

Re-imagined following a $640-million-dollar renovation, the expanded MBCC includes a new 60,000 square-foot Grand Ballroom, four junior ballrooms, almost 500,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, an expanded Grand Lobby, pre-function areas that are bathed in natural light, up to 84 breakout rooms, approximately 800 roof deck parking spaces, almost 2,100 miles of cabling to support all IT communications, $10.2 million dollars’ worth of art curated by the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places program and a six-acre (Pride Park) and three-acre (Collins Canal Park) public green spaces that can serve as incremental event space. The MBCC Campus includes two new event spaces: Venu, a space for elegant private events and upscale meetings, and Rum Room, a 1920s restaurant with an enticing tapas-style menu and local South Florida rums. The MBCC is proud to have earned Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ Facility Accreditation, and LEED® Silver Certification as part of the venue’s $640-million-dollar expansion project, which includes many environmentally friendly features.