World-Class Fun
Affordable doesn’t mean boring, however. Grand Rapids is jam-packed with world-class activities and events to rival much larger cities. We’re Beer City, USA, home to 3+ breweries and the Beer City Brewsader® digital passport, and America’s Craft Beverage Capital, with cideries, coffee roasters, distilleries, meaderies and wineries galore. We’re also a Top 20 U.S. Foodie City and the first in the nation to offer a food + drink flight pass: Flights of Flavor.
Our Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is America’s #1 Sculpture Park and we’re 1 of the 10 Best Cities in the U.S. to see Amazing Art (both per USA Today). We host the world’s most visited art event, ArtPrize, in fall every year, and the Midwest’s largest free winter festival, World of Winter, each January through early March.
Downtown Grand Rapids boasts 300+ restaurants, shops, museums, nightclubs and entertainment venues within a 10-minute walk, offering your group endless opportunities for clean, safe, big-city fun. And there’s always something new – from the new-in-2026 Acrisure Amphitheater, a 12,000+-seat outdoor concert venue on the banks of downtown’s Grand River; to Amway Stadium, which will host Michigan’s first MLS Next Pro soccer team, Athletic Club Grand Rapids, when it opens in spring 2027; to the Grand River Greenway, an 85-mile land-and-water trail network connecting downtown to points east and west (including Lake Michigan), scheduled for completion in 2031. They’re all part of one of the largest active river revitalization efforts in the country.
If your attendees are into the outdoors, we have 30+ golf courses, dozens of lakes and rivers, hundreds of miles of hiking/biking trails and more than 170 parks within minutes of the city center. Plus, the sugar-sand beaches of Lake Michigan are just 30-45 minutes away.
