NEW ORLEANS — At the end of May 2026, New Orleans & Company invited Trade Show Executive (TSE) and other industry journalists to town as it was hosting two major events: Sail250, the U.S. Semiquincentennial maritime celebration, and the North America’s 50 Best Restaurants award ceremony.
Signature Celebrations
On May 28, North America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026 were revealed at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel. Three New Orleans restaurants made the list: Dakar NOLA, Emeril’s Restaurant and Acamaya. The list was topped by Smyth, a Chicago venue.
New Orleans was the first Sail250 host city (and will be followed by Norfolk, Va., Baltimore, New York City and Boston), and was visited by the largest international gathering of tall ships and naval vessels from May 28-June 1.
Sail250 included free public tours and signature riverfront events, recognizing America’s maritime history while fueling economic, cultural and national visibility for New Orleans.
“New Orleans is a place of joy, but also a place of thinkers,” Stephanie Turner, Senior Vice President of Convention Sales and Strategies at New Orleans & Company, said. “We are fun, we love Mardi Gras and we love our festivals, but we love to host things that are iconic. To be the first stop in Sail250 is really exciting. The overarching message is progress, innovation and moving forward, but steadfastly remaining who we are as a real place of joy.”
Powerful Meeting Spaces
TSE saw many of New Orleans’ premiere event facilities firsthand, and stayed at the Kimpton Hotel Fontenot New Orleans, which offers more than 12,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event space.
Additionally, The Element by Marriott, which has 216 guest rooms, recently opened downtown, and a new Fairmont Hotel and Resort is set to open in the Central Business District, and add 253 luxury guest rooms, three F&B offerings and 20,000 square feet of meeting space.
TSE’s first stop was Commander’s Palace, a historic restaurant that pushes the envelope with innovative and award-winning New Haute Creole cuisine. Commander’s Palace offers a variety of private dining room options and a full restaurant buyout which can seat a maximum of 350 guests.
TSE also toured the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOENMCC), which is in the middle of a $763-million renovation.
This project has introduced a new pedestrian park, fresh exhibit hall lighting, updated restrooms, new charging stations, state-of-the-art digital signage and a Wonderwall Video Screen, improved technology infrastructure and HVAC upgrades. The NOENMCC has also replaced its 40-acre roof.
Interior renovations, which include the meeting rooms, meeting room corridors, and lobby spaces, annual capital projects, building systems, technology, safety and security updates, F&B renovation, and mixed-use and hotel development, are in progress too.
The NOENMCC has also planned for a ballroom renovation, updates to its grand foyer entrances, theater upgrades, the installation of local art, vertical transportation improvements, exterior facility and campus enhancements, and an upgraded water retention tank.
“We engaged a customer advisory council (CAC),” Elaine Williams, CMP, CEM-AP, CVE, Chief Commercial Officer at the NOENMCC, said. “We took a moment, took a breath and said, ‘You know what, let’s do our own CAC, because we have a lot to do. There were a few years there when we didn’t renovate much.’ We engaged customers from around the country and asked them, ‘What is your ideal arrival experience for your attendees? What do they like when they’re sitting in the meeting room and what do they want to see?’ That feedback guided everything we’ve done.”
Also, the facility will soon be next to a new, 1,000-room headquarters hotel that has a projected Q4 2030 opening. It will feature upscale, state-of-the-art amenities and be located directly across the street from the NOENMCC’s Hall C.
“We need it — it’s transformative,” Williams explained. “What we’re looking to do is have a headquarters hotel that you can almost consider connected … There were a lot of intentional studies on this, and one of them was with PCMA.
“They engaged their membership to discover if the industry thought that New Orleans needed a headquarters hotel … 82% of meeting planners said that they would consider bringing their meeting to New Orleans if there was a headquarters hotel connected to or in close proximity to the center. The projected opening is in 2030 and the projected shovel in the ground is later this year.”
Unique Experiences
TSE also visited the Audubon Nature Institute, which features numerous catered event venues, including the River Terrace at Audubon Aquarium, which has a reception capacity of up to 300 guests and a seated function capacity of up to 200 guests, and the Audubon Zoo Picnic Pavilion, which can host up to 1,000 guests for daytime events (2,000 on a flow-through).
Additionally, TSE explored the National WWII Museum, which has a host of unique private event spaces. To learn more, click here.
A Powerful and Successful Spirit
In a press conference, leaders from New Orleans & Company described their Vision Plan 2035, a regionally and community-driven agenda that is centered on 10 leverage points where targeted action can drive meaningful economic, neighborhood and quality-of-life impact, and designed to strengthen industries, small businesses, infrastructure, culture and climate resilience across Greater New Orleans.
The executives also shared that the city is cultivating an audience of younger attendees by drawing in events such as the MoonPay X Games Championship and Pokémon International Championships.
“The teams at the convention center and New Orleans and Company, and our partners throughout the community, are really thoughtful about how we introduce people to New Orleans and build the next generation of people who are passionate and love our city,” Walt Leger, President and CEO of New Orleans & Company, said. “These things are opportunities to connect people to the city in a meaningful way.”
Jim Cook, the NOENMCC’s CEO and President, also highlighted the center’s robust program for small and emerging businesses. The facility provides networking and education opportunities, and conducts training programs every year, which help owners connect with bankers and financiers, executive coaches and marketing professionals.
The venue recently hosted a pitch competition for local businesses and the winner will be featured in its convenience store.
Additionally, the NOENMCC has an app to make RFPs visible to a broader community of businesses.
“It’s not easy work, but it’s intentional,” Cook said. “For me, that’s a cornerstone of what we do. We provide space and help enable events in a positive way, but, more importantly, we’re an economic engine for our community and we bring people to work. The NOENMCC was dreamed up and envisioned by Ernest N. Dutch Morial, who was the first Black mayor of New Orleans. He envisioned using an entity like a convention center as an economic development engine to spread prosperity across the entire community, and in the 40 years since we were founded, we have generated over $90 billion in economic activity for the city of New Orleans. We’ve built truly generational wealth into the community, and we do it very much with intentionality.”
Turner, Williams, Cook and Leger emphasized that New Orleans offers a unique culture and world-class hosting capabilities.
“Most of our partners lean into the spirit of New Orleans and try to incorporate it very much into what they’re doing,” Leger said. “We talk a lot about how competitive it is out there, how every city is investing heavily to compete with new convention centers, meeting places, hotels and amenities — we understand the competitive nature of it, and that’s why we compete so hard. We also recognize that once we have won the meeting, it becomes a partnership to try to drive attendance, and we notice that attendance rises in New Orleans.
“In fact, we sometimes hear from customers that the events in other cities the year before our events are a little bit down because people are waiting to come to the event the next year. I think that’s because of the cultural additions that we get to add here through music, food, culture and spirit, and we’re intentional about offering those things, and people embrace it as they see it fit into their plans.”
For organizers who want to bring their event to New Orleans, Cook had this advice: “What I recommend meeting planners think about isn’t, ‘What do you want to do?’ it’s ‘what are you trying to accomplish?’ Then, allow our Convention Services team to interpret that for New Orleans, because, too often, the most fulfilling experiences are not on the mind of the meeting planner if they haven’t spent a lot of time in New Orleans.
“Allow our team, who are absolute experts in it and incredible collaborators, to think about, ‘Well, here’s what you’re trying to accomplish. So, in order to do that, we’re going to second line you from this point to this point, and then we’re going to have the Black Masking Mardi Gras Indians welcome people as they arrive, and we’re going to have a gospel choir at the beginning of your general session,’ adding in those elements, but letting our team interpret what works.”
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