Meeting planners seeking a destination for conferences, meetings and events in Northern Ireland that combines the best of town, coast and country locations will undoubtedly appreciate County Antrim. An obvious choice for meeting planners, Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast has become one of Europe’s favourite city break destinations. However, County Antrim offers much, much more boasting not only a remarkably beautiful coastline as well as scenic countryside and magical glens, but also one of nature’s most intriguing and captivating sights, the Giant’s Causeway.

The landscape is ideal for adventurous delegates participating in teambuilding events and corporate activities on land and water, whilst rural conference venues provide the perfect setting for corporate retreats and secluded meetings without distraction but with plenty of space to think.

Event organisers are spoilt for choice given the vast range and number of meeting venues available throughout the region, both in the city and countryside, including contemporary conference and training centres, academic venues, country house hotels and impressive historic buildings.

Conferencedelegates will find it easy to reach Belfast using ferry services from either Scotland or England or via flights into George Best Belfast City Airport or Belfast International Airport. By road the scenic A2 coast road or M2 from Belfast provide access to the wider region.

Combining cool with culture and heart with heritage County Antrim has it all! A vibrant atmosphere adds to the energy of large events hosted here in venues such as the Kings Hall Exhibition and Conference Centre. 8,000sqm of exhibition space and the capacity to accommodate up to 6,000 delegates make this the country’s largest conference venue, whilst the Belfast Waterfront caters for over 2,000 delegates boasting a vast auditorium, several meeting rooms and state-of-the-art conference facilities. Academic venues such as Queen’s University Belfast provide both large and small conference spaces whilst purpose-built facilities such as Lagan Valley Island provide an extremely versatile alternative comprising exhibition space and conference suites whilst also catering for training and teambuilding activities, corporate hospitality events and weddings. Striking and impressive, Belfast Castle is a fine example of the historic venues available, as is the Culloden Estate and Spa, a venue with fascinating heritage providing a selection of meeting suites able to accommodate 800 delegates. County Antrim hotels offer exceptional conference and banqueting suites and outstanding service, excellent examples being the Park Plaza Belfast and Park Inn Belfast. Major hotel groups represented in County Antrim include Choice Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Radisson Blu, Regus and Rezidor.