Pere Marquette Lodge

Lutheran convention has big economic impact for Peoria

A four-day convention of worship services and fellowship at the Peoria Civic Center last month represented the first time a group has generated more area economic impact than the state basketball championship weekends in March.

The Lutheran Women Missionary League's 34th biennial convention June 23-26 generated $2.28 million in estimated economic impact, the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau reports. A recording-breaking 5,000 people attended the event, many from out of state.

The estimated economic impact for the 2011 March Madness weekends was $2 million total.

"The Lutheran women were here for four days; they were here sun up to sundown," Jim Wetherington, general manager of the Civic Center said. "They were all from out of town. It was very few people who were here local."

The June event was a boon for regional hotels, with the attendees selling out hotels in cities like Morton, which is a rarity for a Civic Center event.

"From what I understand, it was the largest conference Peoria has ever done," said Matthew Nash, general manager of three Morton hotels: Best Western Ashland House and Conference Center, Quality Inn, and Travel Lodge. "To have that kind of impact on not just one but almost every hotel . . . Morton got quite a bit of business from it."

Nash said his three hotels were completely booked during the June conference. IHSA's annual events typically only sell out the Best Western, he said.

Some Downtown Peoria hotels, though, didn't see much of a difference.

Officials at the Hotel Pere Marquette and the Mark Twain Hotel said they experienced increased activity during the Lutheran women's convention, but nothing more dramatic than the March Madness tournaments.

Bill Carter, general manager with the Hotel Pere Marquette - the hotel which hosts IHSA officials each year - said the impact of the March Madness tournaments is felt annually, whereas the Lutheran women's event likely won't be back until 2019, if at all.

"That's the major difference between them and IHSA," Carter said.

Wetherington hopes the Lutheran women's conference ultimately returns to Peoria.

"This was a wonderful piece of business for the entire community," he said. "Twenty-nine hotels were full. That's a bunch. That hasn't happened for a convention for us since I can remember.

Summer updates

Wedding planning is far more stressful than I could have imagined. Everyone keeps telling me I shouldn't stress so much, but I feel completely constrained by my budget (just 10K) and I have been unable to find nearby places I like that fit our capacity and are even somewhat in our range. So far, the place we like the best is Pere Marquette Lodge, where we got engaged. Their Fall 2012 dates are booking up fast, and we already can't have the wedding in October there because the minimum spend is $8,000. Right now we're trying to work the numbers to attain the $5,000 minimum spend on food and beverage (alone, and before tax and gratuity) for a November wedding, but there are only 2 weekends that work and 1 of them is taken and I'm worried the other is closing fast.
*sigh* And I started dress shopping recently. I've found some nice stuff but I'm determined to look everywhere before I buy. I've gotten to know what I like, while still trying other styles, but I refuse to buy anything until around December.
Everything else about the wedding is on hold until we can book a venue. Hopefully it will get settled soon.

We've been in the new house just over two months now and have only just managed to hang some of our decorative shelves.
I'm also not entirely sure of our neighborhood, and won't venture out of the house to take a walk alone. Some day I might drive over to the local high school to use their track, but it's so dang hot in St. Louis right now that I feel confined to the house anyway.

Thankfully, you don't have to be outside to get a workout. You don't even need a ton of room. Thanks to the tiny doorway leading to the basement, the furniture we had planned on putting downstairs now has to stay upstairs, crowding the living room where I set up my Wii for fitness and video games. There's just enough room around the balance board for the activities, and I've got my balance ball and weights tucked into corners.

Today is the first day since the end of bootcamp that I actually worked out. My mom and I did bootcamp 3-4 days a week for 5 weeks (the first week cost us only a dollar!) The workouts were phenomenal and after the first week of soreness, I felt like I was getting pretty strong after. The trainer was really encouraging, the exercises worked at least 2 parts of the body at a time, you never did the same exercises in the same 2 weeks, and the class was small enough to get personal attention (and he knew everyone by name).

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