Portland Expo Center — Local services in Portland

The value of any convention center honestly has more to do with the quality (and quantity) of events hosted there, than the actual event space itself. What can you really say about four walls, overhead florescent lightning, and concrete floors? I guess you could complain about parking fees, grumpy security guards and an inconvenient location, but none of those are particularly true about the Portland Expo Center, especially with regards to any other large(-ish) convention center in the area. Arguably, the OCC in downtown suffers far worse in all three of these categories.

My wife and I attended the Portland Seafood and Wine expo here, a week or so ago, with our two young boys, and had a blast! While the floor space wasn't as packed with as many vendors as it was capable of holding, there was still a solid turnout, with plenty of enticing options to sip, sample and savor. And that was just in our hall; concurrently, a gold expo and a retail/consignment show were running in parallel, with our tickets being good for entry to at least the golf show (although we didn't attend, because...ugh, golf).

The last time I attended an event here was the Warped Tour, going on 8 or 9 years ago, so in addition to the indoor space, the Expo Center also is home to many outdoor and tented events, such as concerts, Cirque du Soleil (when they're in town), and much more.

It's safe to say that this place has been in my blind spot a bit for the past few years, likely due to the deterioration of the area around Delta Park, during the COVID area. But after our spontaneous attendance last weekend, my wife and I will be actively looking for, and forward to, more events hosted here...

I've been coming here twice a year for several years now for Quilt Shows. One ids sponsored by my own guild and the other is one I have been an instructor at for many years now. It is a lovely Convention Center and my only two gripes are that they keep raising the price of parking (up from $8 last year to $10 this year with no carpooling discount) though there is plenty of parking. My other gripe is lack of variety for food. There is a TINY cafe in the lobby that I've not eaten at, with how small it is and large attendance at events, it's hard to get seated there; and then there is a food court with the usual (mostly rather expensive) mundane convention style food offerings. They do have a food truck come park outside during lunch hours but with as much space as they have in the parking lot, they could invite a few other food trucks for more variety. There is a developed retail/business area with some restaurants a bit north and right across the freeway from the center but it can be confusing to out of towners and locals alike as to how to get to it plus the northbound on-ramp to I5 really backs up all the time and getting to those restaurants on surface roads is not...

The parking and drink costs are outrageous! $10 per day even for vendors who attend the events going for that weekend or days. A bottle of water should never cost more than Disneyland! $3.50 at any Disney park a 20oz bottle of water. $4.25 at the expo center. Portland really needs to have a better priced venue for events. The expo center needs to look at bringing in actual competitive food vendors vs having exclusive agreements with the same people year over year johnsonville products and deep fried food is terrible. No scoop of ice cream should be $5.00 or more. If they had a non exclusive food deals they might be able to have better results with concessions.

Updated: just went to the Sportsman show this weekend. That event was great, but yet again venue customers service was terrible. Parking was a mess and became a cash only mess. Could not help a child who needed to go potty get to a restroom and no one could help tell us where to go once finally...