"Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

This article was posted here yesterday (9/6/13):

Did anyone know that Louisville (or Detroit for that matter) was bidding?

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Not sure what they're playing at. No connected dome. Their biggest room can only seat 5,000 when set up for arena style seating. Seems completely unsuitable.

The Detroit Convention Center is absolutely massive, but they still wouldn't be able to seat enough people for Einstein. The arena the Red Wings play in is attached, but a hockey arena is too small for anything except just Einstein.

Seems pretty clear to me it's going to be Atlanta or St Louis. I hope Atlanta. It's so much easier to get to via air travel, it has nicer hotels, better restaurants, the park for students, etc. The only real knock I see is that once you're out of the midwest it's not driving distance for a lot of teams.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I agree with Cory...but I must say that it is hard for us from the west to feel sorry for other teams being out of easy driving distance should the event return to Atlanta. ;)

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I wouldn't count Indianapolis out just yet. After building up the infrastructure to host a Super Bowl that was considered an overwhelming success, and having seen the proposal being put forth during IRI this year, I think they have a shot.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

The Red Wings are getting a new arena, so they could take the hockey part out of Joe Louis, and keep the seats.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

It's still too small for more than just Einstein.

I heard that there was no good way to get from the convention center to Lucas Oil Stadium and that the "meeting space" in LOS wasn't nearly big enough for all the pits. Do you know what the plan is there?

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I've been hearing rumors of many places being mentioned (many that didn't make any sense) including those ones mentioned. I'd rather just go back to Atlanta. I had no problem with the place at all.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I'm drawing a blank on their first layout option at moment, but I remember one of the proposals was to actually house all of the FRC pits and fields within the convention center and run fields similar to what was done in 2011 because of the concert. The convention center is massive, I think there was enough room to actually house 6 divisions of FRC teams if the Championship ever needed to grow to that size, or possibly reduce the number of teams per division and just increase the number of divisions. Einstein, FLL fields & pits, & FTC fields & pits would be housed in Lucas Oil Stadium in this setup.

As far as the outdoor area for teams to hang out, there was talk of turning Georgia street into a FIRST village like they did for the Super Bowl Village. In addition to the existing restaurants they could easily bring in tons of food trucks for quick food options.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

While potentially going back to 2011 setup doesn't sound that appealing, having Einstein in its own arena would be a neat!

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Oh, you mean like we were going back to 2002? (Minus the outdoor parking lot aspect, of course!)

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I agree with Ryan, we have been only using a small* part of the convention center, there is a LOT more floor space there.

ATL has the huge advantage of a really large airport, and driving distance** to a lot of teams.

*OK, maybe about 1/4 not including the dome
** within 20 hours, YMMV

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

A little birdie told me they figured out a solution.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I'm in agreement with most here; Atlanta was awesome. We took a coach bus down there from Wisconsin, and it really wasn't that bad of a trip.

St. Louis is alright, but I would really love to go back to Atlanta :D

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Come on, y'all. Any city can host The Championship Event.



So long as it's Atlanta ;)


Or the FIRST Robotics City, complete with spaceport, hyperloop, and STEAM education programs for all.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

While there is something to be said for having the competition take place in the dome, I actually loved the pit fields in 2011. As a member of my team's drive team that year and someone who always spends a significant amount of time in the pits, I really enjoyed the opportunity to watch matches throughout the weekend rather than feeling restricted by the unavoidable distance between pits and stands.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As a non-drive team member of a team who had to play in the pits, I appreciated being able to walk 100 ft from our pit to watch the matches, but I did not appreciate the severe lack of seating which made watching the matches near impossible unless you staked out a seat for the whole day. Unlike the dome where there's enough seating but not all may be "good" seats, there were not enough seats available for eliminations in the pit fields. I certainly am not a fan of the long, circuitous trek from our pits to the seats in the dome, but I at least have a seat when I arrive.

TL;DR - Pit seats are great, if there are enough.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As a Canadian? Bring CMP to Indianapolis. Or Toronto (I can dream...).

Toronto DOES actually have the Convention Space + Domed Stadium Combo going on, but I really can't see FIRST taking it out of the USA. Too many logistics issues for getting teams there.

Indy though, is only about 10 hours drive, give or take, and sounds like the only real viable candidate other than St Louis, Atlanta, or Orlando (which isn't even being considered AFAIK). Obviously, I'd prefer Detroit on distance, but I don't think they have an appropriate venue to do the event justice.

Remember folks, the 2015 Championship Event could be a VERY different event from Championship as we know it.

We're going to be sporting a new control system, which carries with it a strong likelihood of a revamped field management system. FIRST is looking for new host cities, a large portion of FIRST will have made the transition to a district system, complete with inter-district play, and HQ is trying to figure out how to get more teams to CMP, with more matches, without changing how long the event is.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that one of the best options is for FIRST to transition the divisions to having 2 fields each, which will allow more teams, with more matches, and not significantly changing the length of the event or its volunteer needs.

That type of a change could have a significant impact on the floorplan needs, and so moving away from cities with a Domed Stadium/Convention Center combo might be more viable than meets the eye.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I think the whole Louisville bidding thing is more of a self-promoting attempt by that Jim Wood, or whomever else is in charge of the bidding, than an actual attempt to bring CMP there (or just a simple PR trick).

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

On behalf of the Visit Indy bid for the Indianapolis FIRST Championships, we had a good crew working on layout solutions for FRC, FTC, and FLL in Lucas Oil Stadium (LOS) and the Indianapolis Convention Center (ICC).

To walk robots and drive teams back and forth between the ICC and LOS reminded us of Houston in 2003, which was not optimal. So, having FRC pits in ICC and fields (except for Einstein) in LOS was not an option. However, we still have two good layout plans.

Our #1 suggestion is to have all of FRC in the ICC and then FLL and FTC in LOS.

Our #2 suggestion is to have all of FRC in LOS, with pits and fields. FTC and FLL would then be in ICC.

Once FIRST makes their decision within a few weeks, we may post more regarding the details of this layout in Indy. I can attest that there have been many people working hard on this, and the above two options are good plans.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

How far apart are the LOS and ICC? I've always liked how the three programs have always been together under one roof, so that the participants of each program can check out the happenings of the other programs. To me this is a great way to enhance the unity of the programs; to show the world that the programs are a progression and not three separate paths. I'm willing to bet that a large proportion of the students there have never really watched a match from one or both of the other programs. If FTC/FLL are physically separated from FRC, I would be worried that very few participants and spectators would take the time to go visit the other location.

The same question would apply to the other cities as well - I'm not picking on beautiful Indianapolis.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

From the maps it looks like there's a loading dock, an underpass bridge for rail tracks, and a small parking lot. Yeah, not exactly an ideal connection, unless the parking lot gets converted to a "play field" like Atlanta's. No underground connections?

I'm sure the planning crew has something good figured out.

ICC is across the street from LOS, but there isn't a weatherproof connection that can handle over 6000 robot trips/day plus spectators in both directions. Hence the plan to split programs.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I second this. I've always loved being able to see all of the programs. Being an FLL veteran (competed 2005-2010/11*) and a mentor since, if I love to keep up on them there. I'm not sure that separating the program would be a good idea.

*If you're not aware, the FLL season runs from September until end of the year, but for the few teams competing at Worlds (last year about 0.41% of teams) it is of course the following year.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I've often heard this cited as a good reason (which I think it definitely is... theoretically) to keep FLL, FTC, and FRC close together at the World Championships... but I'm curious how many people take advantage of the relative ease we have to "get out and see the other programs?"

From personal experience, I actually don't think I've ever visited the other program fields or taken the time to tour the other program pits any of the times I've been to CMP (2003 and 2004 as an FLL student, and 2006, 2010, and 2011 as an FRC student or mentor)... with the exception of in 2003 when my FLL team was fortunate enough to win the 1st Place Director's award, we sat in on the Einstein matches and award ceremony, where we were re-awarded the Director's award. On that occasion - at least as a 11yo FLL student - I wasn't overly interested in the Einstein matches. (I actually found FRC kinda lame compared to FLL when I first started to transition from FLL to FRC... now I find the opposite.)

Am I the only one that's so absorbed in competing with my team for that particular program that I rarely take the time to check out what else is going on? If the MAYHEM FRC and FLL teams ever qualified for CMP in the same season, I almost certainly would pay more attention... but having relatively little invested in the other programs each year, I rarely paid much attention to anything but the program I was competing in. Is this different for spectators or people that have simultaneous involvement in the programs?

Really, I'm saying that even though having FLL, FTC, and FRC all under the same roof sounds great on paper, how many people would it affect how much to have the programs in adjacent/nearby buildings? If I'm in the minority and many people are actually checking out FIRST as a whole, then perhaps this is quite important; however, I'm just curious how much this argument is "real" and not just "on paper."

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

From a participant's perspective, I agree with what you're saying.

However, Worlds is a show. And from a viewer's perspective, the grandeur of having the entire show under one roof is too high to give up.

- Sunny G.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

The convention center is connected to Lucas Oil Stadium through underground passages.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Having the competitions in separate buildings across the street from each other would be fine with me. If that's a way to expand the list of possible cities beyond Atlanta + St. Louis, great.

Having pits close to the fields is more important than having FRC close to FLL and FTC.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Overwhelmingly agree. Other than the lack of seating at times, I really liked the 2011 setup when we were playing on the 'close to the pit' fields.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I'm hoping for Indianapolis.
Its nice to go to different venues and visit different cities when your team pays more than $1000 per ticket.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I thought the most interesting part was: "A decision is expected by the end of September."

Do you think they will tell us as soon as the decision is made, or make us wait til championships?

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I don't think so. Many team members and many volunteers put so much into the program in which they earned a CMP spot, or for which they are working, that time available for even a brief look at other things is very limited. As a volunteer I need my leaders to "force" me to take breaks, or I will just keep going.

I think Frank will let us know sooner rather than later. His recent track record is very good for transparency. :)

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Part of me says that we will find out right away because I would think that the article wouldn't mention the end of September unless they could release a follow up article when the decision is made. Also, I'm more likely to believe this because "In Frank Merrick We Trust"

The other part of me thinks that FIRST is going to wait until they have started to finalilize things, in case something unexpected happens.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Everyone talking about Detroit has been saying how COBO Center and the attached arena would be inadequate for the championship... but has anyone considered they might be proposing Ford Field instead?

Not knowing the internal layout I'm not sure how they'd do the pits, but there is certainly more than enough room for all the fields and plenty seating for everyone.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

There are numerous rooms that branch off from the tunnel, although I doubt that there is enough room for all of the pits. The tunnel is also at a steep incline.
The planned new Red Wings arena and "entertainment district" might be more viable.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

In that case, I wonder how Milwaukee would hold up?

We've got the Wisconsin Center, BMO Harris Bradley Center, US Cellular Arena, and Milwaukee Theater literally across the street from each other. I'll run through a possible pit breakdown:

-Wisconsin Center: ~190k sq ft contiguous exhibit space, 37k sq ft ballroom, 14 meeting rooms: FRC Pits and Fields
-BMO Harris Bradley Center: 18k seats: FLL Pits and Fields
-US Cellular Arena: 10k seats: FTC Pits and Fields
-Milwaukee Theater: 4k seats: Expanded Conferences

Additionally, these buildings are 2 blocks from the Public Museum and Planetarium, 3 from the Public Library, River and Riverwalk, Waterstreet, the Pabst Theater (seats 1300) and Repertory Theater (Seats 700).

Within a few blocks there is a DoubleTree, Hapton Inn & Suites, Fairfield Inn & Suites, Ramada, Hilton, and Hyatt.

It's walking distance from Marquette University and MSOE.

(This might be a bit of a stretch)

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

If you don't have at least 500,000 square feet of usable exhibition space, forget it and if you are planning for any growth you better have 750,000.

And I'm not talking meeting rooms but open exhibition space.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

If people dont mind not having an Arena but just a convention center, than Orlando would be the perfect option. The Orange County Convention Center is the largest convention center by square footage in America; and its in Orlando which has TONS of restaurants/hotels/amusement parks. Heck, Seaworld and Aquatica are less than 1/2 a mile away.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Maybe this is off topic. But I find it rather interesting that arguments against the district system often say, "But you're just in a gym with bleacher seats." Yet temporary bleacher seating in a convention hall is what is being proposed for several of these potential CMP venues. Is it just me, or is there a disconnect there?

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I don't think there is much of a cross-section between detractors of the district system and detractors of roll-in bleacher seating. Then again, the argument against districts has dissolved over the last 2-3 years.

The biggest thing against most of these venues is FIRST requires a lot of exhibition floor space just to maintain its current size, not even mentioning the restricted potential for growth. St Louis is really nice and close together, but the large number of meeting rooms available in America's Center are almost of no use to the purpose of progressively expanding the scope of championship to support the corresponding expansion of team and event counts at all levels.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

For what it's worth, when the decision to move to St. Louis was made in 2009, I think Dean Kamen announced it in the fall at some public event. We knew well before the 2010 season started where the 2011 Championship would be.

Personally, St. Louis has gotten better but I'd prefer somewhere that I would feel safer walking around outside. Preferably without the constant semi-rational fear of tornadoes, but I can accept if that is an inevitability.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

If the Championship event moves to Indianapolis, there will be some debate as to whether IRI is the premiere Indiana Robotics event those years. :]

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I am only familiar with St. louis As we went there 2012 but based on all the stories and infromation presented to me about Atlanta, i would love too see it there, Indianapols would also be a nice spot to host the championship i belive.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I'm familiar with both Atlanta and St. Louis, having competed and volunteered at both places I've formed my own personal opinions on those two.

Atlanta does have a large airport easy to get to, with lots of flights in/out.

St. Louis airport is smaller with fewer flights in/out, but, is much cheaper to fly to than Atlanta, and I'm on the east coast. Flight time is pretty much the same. St. Louis is also more a "central" location for all teams.

Atlanta is far more expensive for hotels, food, and even air fare compared to St. Louis. Although prices have been going up steadily in St. Louis.

In Atlanta, I don't like the walk between the convention center Pits and the Dome for competition. It takes a good 10 minutes to walk it. If you have a short window between matches you can't get back to the pits for repairs, or even to send a runner for supplies. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but, aren't they planning on tearing down the existing Georgia Dome?

In St Louis, the walk between the convention center pit area and the dome for competition was under 5 minutes. Plenty of time to send a runner or get back & forth in a short window.

When it comes to safety out on the street both Atlanta and St. Louis have their issues. Pretty much any city does. Use common sense, stay in groups. And btw, both cities have the local police "clean out" the vagrants prior to our arrival. Try experiencing each those cities when that doesn't happen, and it's VERY different.

I can't compare the other suggested event venues as I've not been to any of them to compare, but, if it was my choice, I'd choose St. Louis, hands down.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I have paid nearly double in airfare flying to St. Louis vs Atlanta. Being the biggest Delta hub in the world, it was both easy to find a pair of flights to Atlanta and didn't cost a fortune. St. Louis has always been more expensive for me. I'll do some research after this exam and see if that's changed recently; maybe Atlanta got more expensive or is harder to move 40 students at a time through or something. No comment on hotels though.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Am I the only one who hasn't ever had any issues with downtown St. Louis? Walked around the dome and a few blocks from it multiple times both early in the morning & well late into the night to get back to my car and didn't have any problems with people. That's not to say there aren't some shady looking people hanging out sometimes but they've never bothered me. I think you'll have that in every major city though, even Indianapolis or Louisville.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Atlanta has way more flights than STL, but it is cheaper from the east coast, between 40 and $200 cheaper, from a quick search for BOS, PHL, and JFK. St Louis is generally more expensive for those of us on the west coast.

I don't remember the FIRST hotel packages costing any more in Atlanta than they do now. I am convinced there were both more and higher quality hotel rooms available in close proximity to the venue in Atlanta though.

I slightly prefer the actual venue in St Louis because it's easier to walk from the dome to the pits, but everything else about St Louis sucks in comparison to Atlanta, in my opinion. The airport is smaller and has way fewer direct flights (one a day, on one airline, for the Bay Area. Atlanta probably has 20+ direct flights a day), there's less to do in the immediate area of the venue for students, there's fewer food choices, it's impossible to eat a good meal during event hours as all the food in the venue is either bad or bad for you and overpriced (CNN center was great for this), the weather isn't as good, etc etc.

The one thing it does have going for it is it seems nominally safer, as the entire place is pretty much a ghost town and you run pretty good odds of never seeing anyone on the streets after 8 or 9 PM. Atlanta had homeless people that were fairly shameless about approaching people and trying to get money and if you went a few blocks in the wrong direction things could get a little sketchy, but I never felt threatened.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

The new stadium is planned to be done by 2017, so if the bid is for 2014-2017, we'll be good.

- Sunny G.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I found out that Indy does in fact a tunnel from Lucas Oil to the convention center. http://visitindy.com/web_files/map/D...ks_c012711.pdf

I did have an entire thing almost completely typed up with pluses and minuses of the five cities, but my computer froze and I had to restart it, and I'm too lazy to type up the whole thing again. My personal ranking of where it should be is Indy, St. Louis/Atlanta (don't care which), then Louisville. I know that the Indy Airport is small and doesn't serve a lot of places, but the city would really get behind it, and with the 12 hotels and the Circle Center Mall all connected by the skywalk and 2 more right by those plus 3 by the stadium, weather and transportation in the city wouldn't be that bad of an issue. I went to Indy for the 2010 Final Four and they did a great job. My coach and I both would like it to be there.

My other idea (mostly joking, of course, unless people would actually want it) is that Kansas City, Kansas could host it, using the Kansas Speedway's infield as pits and Sporting Park for the fields, since we never even get close to filling up the stands and they are next door to each other, literally. The reason championships requires the NFL stadiums, in my mind, is that not many other places have the floor space we need for 5 complete fields and stands. Sporting Park would have the floor space for it, and with 20,000+ seats, it has the seats for it too. The airport serves lots of cities, and we have a lot of sponsors located in KC. Of course, both the Speedway and Sporting Park are outdoors and our hotel rooms are spread out over KCK and KCMO, with no real public transport infrastructure.:D

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

A major reason our elementary school has an FLL program is that in 2010 we were on Curie, which was right next to Einstein, which was where the FLL tables were set up. My wife -- a 5th grade teacher -- spent time watching FLL when the FRC matches weren't going on. And decided that her students could do that. We're now starting our 4th year of FLL at the school.

That's hardly "many people," but how many does it take to make a success? All other things being equal, even one or two cases of programs being started because someone saw them at Worlds is worth it. I'm sure that all other things aren't equal among the various sites, but since we're in the business of Inspiration I think it behooves FIRST to try really hard to keep everyone together.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

FIRST is a family. The family that plays together stays together. I hope wherever we go in the future FLL, FTC, and FRC stay together. Simply put that's what makes it the World Festival rather than individual championships.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As someone who has carried a robot up that incline multiple times (Youth Engineering Science Expo), my vote is against Ford Field. I've been in the under tunnels and locker rooms (for marching band state championship) and there is no place for the pits down there. The Detroit bid is definitely Cobo and the Joe. Also if Detroit (magically) wins, don't tell anyone about the free parking at Greek Town, I don't want it to fill up!

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Something tells me that would turn into Robotics city for the weekend, sounds awesome! :cool:

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Is there really a Kansas City in KS? :p

Hm, an outdoor speedway. Sounds challenging.:ahh:

Let's face it: As victims of our own success, there are not many venues that might accomodate CMP. None of the ones mentioned are 'perfect'. STL is not bad, especially for the walk from the field to the pits (for both robots and spectators) and so that's my fave so far.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

That's exactly what would happen. That's what Indy did for the Super Bowl, that's what it does annually for the GenCon and FFA conventions, that's what it does for the Indy500.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

That was my thought. Indy seems to really embrace these types of things, it doesn't swallow it up like large cities, such as NYC (no offense to anyone). When I was there for the 2010 Final Four, the city embraced it, and everything was about it. I could totally see that happening with FIRST Championships.

Yep, that's who originally got Google Fiber, KCMO was announced a week later. For anyone who is interested here ( here) is the map. Note that the directions and time for walking is completely wrong, as it is taking the longest route possible. Frances Family Drive between the Best Western and Sporting Park would make the route 5-10 minutes tops, as it runs right to the infield of the Speedway and right next to Sporting's garage doors that can lead you to the field. Of course, like I said, this is still half jokingly, unless anyone actually wants to do it.::rtm::

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

Too bad Jerry won't offer his palace and put World's here in Dallas

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

I had been looking last year around the country for places. Jerry's house (Cowboys Stadium for those who don't know) has only a tiny convention center roughly a mile away.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

You're fortunate. It happened to us twice in the same week. One even started shoving one of our students around, and then started trailing us. Felt much safer in downtown STL.

Re: "Louisville trying to steal robotics competition from St. Louis" Article
 

As a Louisville local, I would imagine they proposed using the Kentucky State Fairgrounds down near the airport. It has over 1 million square feet under roof and connected, with an enourmous amount of parking.

http://www.kyfairexpo.org/meetingplanners.aspx