Congress center to accommodate Oregon Ducks | News, sports, jobs

The quarter of Oregon Dante Moore (5) seeks to hand over Northwestern, during the first half of a university football match of the NCAA on Saturday September 13, 2025 in Evanston, Ill. (AP photo / Matt Marton)

The Blair County Convention Center Center will host the Oregon football team and the guests during the weekend of September 27, when the west coast team moves east to compete with the Penn Stateny Lions.

“It is an apple bite for us,” said the Executive Director of the Convention Center, Tom Schilling, speaking of ongoing preparations to host the Ducks of Oregon on Wednesday, a first event for the congress center.

“We have landed this one … and we expect it to lead to more,” said Schilling.

In the light of the current national classification of teams – Penn State as No. 2 and Oregon as No. 6 – the approaching match attracts attention and visitors to the center of Pennsylvania.

“The country’s spotlights will be on State College that evening,” said the president of the authority Matt Stuckey.

In the past few weeks, online posters have advised football fans interested in attending the game to make early room reservations and to consider hotels and weekend rental options in communities outside the County County.

Oregon team officials have committed to using the Congress Center several months ago, with accommodation supplied to Adjacent County Inn and Suites by Radisson.

While parts of the hotel are being renovated, Schilling said it was assured that no construction would take place inside the rooms allocated to the visiting team.

Schilling also mentioned that the accommodation of the team included transport in Altoona from Park Airport and related security details.

Upward reservations

The accommodation of the visiting football team comes at a time when the staff of the Congress Center reports an increase in reservations, in particular associations on the scale of the State.

The School Nutrition Association of Pennsylvania convened its conference at the Convention Center at the end of July, participants reserving around 500 rooms in five hotels, according to a report that Garrett Gierdoc, sales and marketing director, presented to authority.

In November, the Pennsylvania Society of Health and Physical Educators will convene its annual conference at the Convention Center, requiring around 175 hotel rooms for the two -day event. The PA Head Start Association also reserved the Center Convention in November for a conference that extends over three days which will require around 250 rooms, said Gierdoc.

“November was a slow month,” Schilling told authority.

The Congress Center calendar also shows several events on its calendar, including the “N-Échelle Weekend” from Saturday and Sunday which continues, set up by the Altoona des Railroders Model association. About 125 supplier tables must be configured.

And only a few days after the Congress Center has revised to the Oregon Ducks, the installation will be installed for Le Pennsylvania Square and Round Dance Federation Festival, from October 1 to 3, with a dance calendar that extends from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Financial reports show that the Congress Center, between January and August, carried out $ 1.6 million in revenues, exceeding budget projections of $ 63,867. Expenditure has increased up to $ 1.56 million, which has experienced budgetary projections.

The turnover of $ 1.6 million also included $ 76,574 compared to the county bed receptions, just unless budgetary projections until August. But the amount of future tax sales, said Schilling, rests with the commissioners because their vote of May 1 to award Explore Altoona while the Comté tourist promotion agency ended the division of tax revenue on the basis of a 2016 agreement.

At the end of August, the commissioners certified Discover Blair County, a newly created entity, to become the Comté tourist agency and provides that this entity installs an office inside the Congress Center.

Schilling refused to say if the Congress Center can operate without tax revenue in the County bed. Instead, he spoke of the efforts and advertising of the Congress Congress Center, which attracts people to the county and encourages the nights that generate the tax revenues of the bed.

“I believe that the commissioners see the value of our advertising,” said Schilling.

In 2024, the Center Convention received $ 254,374 in bed tax, according to the recently completed audit of the center.

The audit also showed the center with income of $ 2.68 million, a figure which included $ 254,376 in bed tax revenues. Young Jamie Johnson Jamie Johnson, Oakes Brown & Co. said that his examination showed that 2024 spending increasing up to $ 2.98 million, but that included $ 704,733 to take into account amortization.

If the tax revenues and the damping of 2024 in bed are excluded, Johnson indicated that the operations of the Congress Center had come from around $ 158,981 in black.

Mirror staff writer Kay Stephens was 814-946-7456.