A conference that is a room product first
MAPP runs its Benchmarking and Best Practices Conference from Tuesday September 29 to Thursday October 1, 2026 in Indianapolis. The Indiana Convention Center's event listing puts the conference in Wabash Ballroom 1-3 and forecasts 650 attendees. Plastics Business, the association's industry publication, reports the event at the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott, 350 W. Maryland, Indianapolis, IN 46225, with a room block booked through mappinc.com/conference.
The two published lines name different buildings. Put both in the RFP and ask the organiser to confirm the session venue before the contract goes out.
Ten tracks against 650 attendees
The programme runs keynote presentations, peer-to-peer sessions, BC Labs and an Innovation Hall. Plastics Business lists ten learning tracks: Engineering/Automation, Executive Stakeholders/Owners, Finance/IT/ERP, Human Resources/Safety, Operations, Presidents/Senior Leaders, Procurement, Sales and Marketing, Senior Leaders, and Tooling.
Ten tracks and one general session define the room set. A planner who runs the Labs as concurrent breakouts needs ten rooms sized near 65 seats each at a full house, plus the ballroom for the general session and the Innovation Hall floor for the exhibition.
New this year is the Made in America: Tooling Trade Fair, which puts American mold builders and plastics and rubber processors on the same floor.
What the organiser prices
MAPP publishes registration at $1,038 for members, $1,264 for non-members and $950 per registration at four or more. The Lunch and Learn add-on costs $76. The price list sizes delegate spend. Room rental, the food and beverage minimum and the AV quote come from the venue, and MAPP publishes none of them.
The block and the house that holds it
The room block sits at the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott, 350 W. Maryland. Visit Indy lists that property with 650 sleeping rooms and 42,000 square feet of meeting space, among twelve downtown hotels joined to the convention center by skywalk.
Downtown Indianapolis holds 7,100 hotel rooms, and 4,700 of them connect to the building by skywalk. The venue counts 200 downtown restaurants within walking distance and 15 minutes to Indianapolis International Airport.
Three events, one three-day window
Two other events open on the same Tuesday. ATD Core4 and ATD OrgDev each forecast 1,000 attendees across September 29 to October 1. The venue's own event feed carries all three, so the same three days carry 2,650 forecast attendees in one building.
The building also turns over at the front of the week. The Do it Best Corp. Fall Market holds the floor from September 25 to 28 with a forecast attendance of 12,000, and it closes the day before the conference week opens.
What the planner confirms with the organiser
Two items sit with MAPP: the session building and the block's release date. The venue states the closing and opening times for the facility and its skywalks depend on the event, with a rule of thumb of lock-down near 11:00 p.m. and re-opening near 6:00 a.m.
Price the room set on the 650 delegate core, carry the two co-located conferences in the demand picture, and staff the opening day for the Fall Market's move-out.