What we loved about Midwest Conference Center for our wedding: 1. Fantastic views! So much better than a regular hall! 2. Helpful and professional staff. Very easy to work with! 3. Delicious food. Everyone is still talking about the chicken tequila lime! 4. Great prices! 5. Good location. Near several major highways and O'Hare I would definitely recommend this venue! read more

I attended a conference at this location. Parking is located in back of building. On day of the conference, they had a large crane taking up a significant amount of spots. The facility has a decent amount of restrooms, but some of the stalls had broken doors making guests uncomfortable. The temperature of the rooms was very uncomfortable for an all day training event. The rooms were stuffy. Main ballroom does not have windows and poor lighting. read more

I been here two times for myself to do a group with a company named ACN my son signed me up to do a life transforformation. Today will be my third time and today is my graduation of this life transformation. I came here last year for my sons transformation graduation and it was awesome. The place has a living nursing home and since I used the elevator enteance from the nursing home I was able to greet some of the residents and they told me they like living here. I asked them how much they pay to live here and they told me they all have different prices depending how big there rooms are. The building can use some renovations. The parking place need a full make over. I know I would not have a wedding here that is for sure. I like something modern or classy not 60 looking read more

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We just had our wedding in the Skyline Ballroom and everything was great! Our guests loved the food, raved about the service, and thought the venue was beautiful. Zoila was a pleasure to work with and was super accommodating and attentive. You definitely get a lot of bang for your buck. read more

Booked our wedding here and it is a beautiful space, recently renovated 16th floor. View is great, food was better! Zoila was so helpful and always very kind and patient during the planning. Exceptional service, recommending to everyone I know. read more

I recently had my wedding at this venue and I am overall pleased with the experience. I wanted to make sure I posted a thorough review before it got too late so it can assist brides in their planning who may be interested in this venue. First at foremost, I found this venue early on while doing many internet searches on various bridal planning websites. I still wasn't sure I wanted the whole wedding or if we should just go to the court house and make it official real quick and save money. I wasn't too impressed by the 16th floor Skyline Ballroom (although this is the room they advertise with "city skyline views"): it was small, seats about 125-150 guests, has a couple large support beams in the middle of the room that obstruct the view to the other guest tables and to the windows, and the immediate view surrounding the building was of all the industrial shipping/construction yards (the city skyline is tiny in the distance). But I did return to see the venue on a couple different occasions and was able to see this room set up for a wedding and it did look pretty, I must say. I fell in love with the first floor main ballroom. Just as you walk in the front there are three sets of doors that lead into a large ballroom. The ceilings are super high with beautiful light features draped in curtains and my favorite was the little star lights on the walls.. I've seen the room dimly lit with these lights on it looked like a dream.. and I was right because they lit my wedding with low-set lighting and it was just as I imagined it... magical like a dream. My 'colors' (really, lack there of) of white, cream, and bling really complemented the lighting. I love love love that room!! It was perfect for our wedding. OK, so for the planning: Zoila was the only person I really worked with during the whole process. She seems to be the primary representative for this venue and at times seems very overwhelmed, often double booking clients to show the building (even was showing the venue ON MY WEDDING DAY while we were setting up... which I was slightly put-off by because she said during the whole process that she would be available to me and my party the entire day -- yet she had time to show the venue to other clients...). She initially gave me price lists, a brief run-through of the costs and what would be considered 'extras' like chair covers and swag linens, etc. I opted (after much debate over spending $300-500 on chair covers and other extras) to go with their plain brown chairs and the basic white table coth and napkins (which ended up being beautiful with my white floral centerpieces). Another big plus was the bridal suite... I had two to chose from because there was only my wedding on that particular Saturday. I chose the bridal suite with the long salon-type mirror and stools because I had a hair stylist & makeup artist meet us at the venue. This worked out perfectly. Zoila and I communicated primarily by text and when I asked her for coffee she made arrangements and had staff bring it into the bridal suite for us (we got there early for hair/makeup at like 11:00-12:00). We had our ceremony in the Salon A (I believe is the correct room). It was beautiful. Although it is a typical conference/meeting room, it dresses up nicely and easily. And we were only in there for a short period, I was happy with that room. We opted not to use the included stage because it is not pretty to the eye and I was using hanging flower balls for the alter and it would've been too high with us standing on the stage. The ceremony worked find with all of us on the ground and our guests seated. Many people said they were unable to see or hear us, though. Oh well.. I loved it! :) Even though I never got to walk into the cocktail room :( our guests reported the passed hors d'oeuvres (chicken wings, egg rolls, ribbon sandwiches, and bruschetta) were excellent. The bar was well run with two bartenders, our guests mentioned. And Zoila was accommodating by agreeing to offer two non-alcoholic signature drinks... I chose a mint strawberry lemonade and a mint mango lemonade which were both really good!! The only negative thing that happened was that our seating got messed up. Zoila emailed me a map of the ballroom with numbered tables. This is what I used to create my place cards. Apparently the floor manager didn't get the map w/ the correct numbers and my seats were all confused... everyone was seated incorrectly. So, they had my guests get back up and move tables which in the end reflects poorly on my as if I didn't make the seating cards correctly. All in all, the wedding was beautiful. The food was AWESOME, the service was GREAT, the timeliness of staff to address our concerns was WONDERFUL. I would highly recommend this venue for any wedding... the ballroom can hold like 400-500 guests I think. We had 200 and there was a LOT of extra room read more

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Wonderful! I had my wedding ceremony and reception at the Midwest Conference Center and it was amazing. The ceremony room, cocktail hour space, and reception room were beautiful. Zoila was a pleasure to work with. The food and cake were delicious. Guests loved the late night snack - Gene and Jude's hot dogs! The bartenders were great. There was a nice view of the city from the ballroom. We were able to work with a nearby hotel to provide a shuttle for guests, and there was plenty of parking for anyone who wanted to drive. We were able to get ready in a good sized Bridal suite, and the groom and groomsmen were also given a space to hang out before the ceremony. The staff worked with my husband and me to make the day everything we wanted and more. read more

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Extremely disappointed. My fiancé and I had an appointment to look at this place as a possible wedding venue. When we arrived at our scheduled appointment time of 1:00pm, I called the woman who was supposed to give us the tour. Her name is Zoila. She is the woman in charge of events as well. She wasn't answering her phone. We waited around for a while, and eventually asked one of the other workers when're she was and no one knew. I called her again. Still no answer. One of the other workers there eventually ended up giving us a tour, and you could tell she had no idea what she was doing (not her fault) as the tour was concluding, we saw Zoila in the hall on our way out helping another couple. So my thought is she double booked and completely forgot about us. As we passed her, she didn't even acknowledge us. How am I going to trust someone to help out with my wedding that doesn't answer the phone, and double books appointments and forgets about her clients? It completely turned us off to the place. And side note. The place is dated and even smells dirty. The pictures they have online are very deceiving. The skyline is NOT that close to the windows read more

Beautiful Space Loved working with Zoila Matricardi she's amazing :) The staff was helpful There was ample parking I would recommend this space with high regard read more

Really recommend this place for any simcha. They will work within your budget and provide wonderful attention to detail and your every need. A perfect venue for your wedding! read more

I have to say with the most sincerity that my wedding ceremony and reception at the Midwest Conference Center exceeded my expectations! The food, the venue, the staff, the bridal suite, and every amenity provided was excellent. Zoila was a pleasure to work with and even accomodated my family with a last minute decor change. What was even more helpful is that we planned everything from another state, but Zoila was able to communicate effectively via email about every detail. I was stress free because of her, and to top it off I had no wedding coordinator. The price was very affordable and I was so happy the entire night. I recommend this place to anyone who wants professionalism and care on their special day, you are in good hands. read more

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I received an email about the Skyline Ballroom after signing up with the Chicago Bridal Expo. I made an appointment with Ziola to see the space. I will say this, the pics on the website make the Chicago skyline look much closer than it actually is. BUT just being on the 16th floor makes for a really neat "city feel" without actually being in the city. We booked the space shortly after our appointment and they actually had dates open for Sept (we were there in April) so they had dates available even with pretty late notice. However, please be aware that you will need 25 percent down to book the space and all deposits are non refundable. I was going back and forth about the venue but a family member put down a deposit even though I wasn't sure about the space. For this reason we ended up with this space, but everything worked out. Luckily we had picked a lot of our decorations at our first appointment, this saved us having to go back multiple times. On the plus side, there are TONS of colors and fabrics to choose from. The non upgraded chairs are pretty plain and we didn't want to spend $4.50 per person just on chairs with sashes so we compromised and did just the black covers, they looked nice, they are stretchy so they look sleek and modern. We picked specific alessandro table cloths because I liked the pattern but when we actually arrived on our wedding day, we found out that the venue staff could not gather the table cloths for the elegant look I wanted. I was told by the catering staff that the table cloths I picked didn't look right gathered so they decided to just lay them flat. I thought they looked plain just laying flat and had I known that these specific table cloths weren't big enough to be gathered and lay the way I had seen table cloths for other weddings at MCC, I would have picked a different table cloth to get the elegant look I was going for. This really bugged me because you envision your head table a certain way and then to get there on your wedding day and be told by the staff "it didn't look right" was a disappointment, especially since there were so many other options for table cloths. We tried to show a slide show but the room layout made it impossible for all the guests to see it. Ziola did offer to set out our place cards and place setting favors and put all of this in our contract so there was no question about who was doing what. For the most part, Ziola was pretty responsive to emails, there was a call or two she didnt return but she would usually respond to emails, even my long detailed emails. We had the brushetta, egg rolls and ribbon sandwiches for our cocktail hour The guests have told me they tasted good but I personally did not have any and these are not offered to try at the tasting. I wish they had offered them at the tasting because I did not even get to my cocktail hour. Another downside is the lighting. The staff that were left after the catering manager went home did not know how to lower the lights. I would have liked the lights lowered for our first dance but the staff did not know how to change the lighting so our first dance was a bit over lit in my opinion. They eventually figured it out so my guests wouldnt have to dance in a fully lit room but again it bugged me a bit. So any brides out there, figure out your lighting ahead of time and tell the staff when to dim it etc. And as other reviewers have said, the beams in the room make it difficult to see the head table no matter where the bride and groom sit. We opted for a head table on the side with the skyline with 4 of us on a platform. My bridal party on the lower platform did not like the the platform seating, they told me they felt like they were at a kids table. I personally wish the platform was more of a graduated platform so there wasn't such a big gap between us and the rest of the bridal party. And the platform was really shaky, I seriously thought the whole thing was just going to collapse and the rails were so shaky as well that walking up the stairs very dangerous! My guests tell me they had to have twice what they would normally drink because the drinks seemed watered down. Maybe this is the norm for reception halls so guests dont drink too much but we paid for open bar and that is what we should get, so again, disappointed in this area. I do agree that the drinks were watered down but I guess my guests expected it and this was not a deal breaker, just disappointing as we paid for open bar and upgraded liquor. Another downside was the assisted living facility next door. I was careful about telling my guests which entrance and where to park because I did not want people to accidentally walk in the wrong place. We did jump in the elevator to take some shots on the spiral staircase and stopped on one of the assisted living floors because a resident needed an elevator and it was a bit awkward for my guests to encounter the residents that were going out to smoke!! read more

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Dont see this venue its on the 15th floor but the 14 floors below this are assisted living. Room is small and ugly on the 15th floor, view is good of the city but right next to the building are the train tracks. read more

I recently stood up in a wedding and the reception was held here in the "Skyline" ballroom. First, the venue is attached to an assisted living facility which is quite a noticeable eyesore upon arrival. They assured my bride that it was completely separate but it is definitely not. They allowed us to set up centerpieces the evening before (which was a nice perk) and seniors kept coming up and wandering around our banquet room while we were setting up, We even had to walk one back down to the home as he was noticeably confused as to his whereabouts. When parking filled up in front some guest were forced to park and enter on the side of the building that leads straight into the lobby of the nursing home. My second disappointment with this venue was that is was absolutely freezing!!! People were wearing their coats, the DJ was seen breathing into his hands, and many people left early just to warm up. Our bride asked them multiple times to turn the heat up and they kept assuring her they would do it. Finally after her fourth request they admitted that the heat wasn't working and they would not be able to turn it up. Lastly, the skyline was so tiny you had to squint and the food was mediocre. The bread especially was a disappointment as it was cold and very dry. I would definitely not go back to another wedding at this venue. read more

I went to the Midwest Conference Center for a few business events over the course of the last year (2014). I have to say the food is amazing and the view from the top is intimidating if you don't like heights don't wander to the windows, which show views from every angle. read more