News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The new Putnam County Event Center will host its first major event with the UC Outdoor Expo Saturday and Sunday.
Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said the convention center is completed and now open for business. It is the first part of an expanded Fairgrounds being built just off Interstate 40 on Tennessee Avenue.
“We’ve been looking forward to this and planning for it,” Porter said. “And we are excited to be there. We haven’t had our ribbon-cutting open house yet for the facility because of all the bad weather and cold and everything so we are looking at scheduling it for sometime in February and invite the public to come out and see it.”
Porter said the convention center has a welcome center that also has a gift shop. Porter said the outdoor show will be a great opportunity for residents to check out the new building for the first time.
“It’s got full kitchen facilities for all the folks that are gonna be catering, the caters will come in for them to be able to prepare food and it’s got a big storage room for our tables and stuff,” Porter said. “And you’ll see its got a very nice sound system and big screens on the walls with projectors that you can do any kind of presentations you want. It turned out to be a very nice facility.”
Porter said construction during the final phases of the project went very smoothly despite some last minute hiccups.
“We had some little issues with the supply chain getting stuff in,” Porter said. “But it finally all came in and we got it all completed. We had some test events down there, some small little events that we tested it with and so everything went well and we think we got the bugs worked out.”
The UC Outdoor Expo will take place at the Putnam County Convention Center, 6000 Tennessee Avenue. The event will run from 10am-6pm on Saturday and 12pm-6pm on Sunday.
