Caesars Entertainment broke ground Monday on CAESARS FORUM, its US$375 million, 550,000-square-foot conference center in Las Vegas. And the new facility has already booked future business.

CAESARS FORUM, scheduled to open in 2020, has secured its first booking, the American School Counselor Association, which will attract 3,500 attendees from all over the U.S. in July 2021. Overall, Caesars Entertainment has contracted more than $70 million in conference business for CAESARS FORUM.

“I believe that speaks to the trust that our customers have with Caesars Entertainment,” said Michael Massari, chief sales officer. “We hosted more than 1.9 million meeting participants last year, so they know our brand and our execution.”

Caesars Entertainment booked 1.6 million room nights with 17,300 meetings and events in 2017, and the impact of CAESARS FORUM will only further entrench the brand as a meeting and event partner, but also continue to make Las Vegas a premier destination for meetings.

CAESARS FORUM, which is being constructed behind the LINQ Promenade, will be the first facility of its size built on one level and will feature the two largest pillarless ballrooms in the world, equivalent to 27 tennis courts or three ice hockey rinks.

It will feature 300,000 square feet of flexible meeting space, including the two, 110,000-square-foot pillarless ballrooms as well as two 40,000-square-foot ballrooms and six state-of-the-art boardrooms that can be divided via more than two miles of airwalls. The facility will be able to accommodate more than 10,000 participants and offer more than 100 breakout rooms.

It will also feature FORUM Plaza, the first 100,000-square-foot, multifunctional outdoor meeting and event space in Las Vegas. The space can be used for events, wellness breaks, receptions, meals or entertainment.

The conference center will be within walking distance to more than 20,000 Caesars Entertainment hotel rooms and is adjacent to the LINQ Promenade retail district. The groundbreaking ceremony included a 360 fly-through experience of the conference center.

“When something big happens, I want to be there,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of U.S. Travel, who delivered the opening comments on Monday. “This is where the action is when it comes to selling products. Forty years ago, meetings were an afterthought here in Las Vegas. Now you look around and see everything that is going on. CAESARS FORUM is going to significantly change the footprint in this city.”

Chris Giunchigliani, county commissioner for Clark County, said the new facility will support 1,000 local construction jobs and more than 450 permanent jobs upon opening in 2020. Las Vegas has more than 85,000 jobs in the meeting, event and hospitality industry with $12 billion in annual economic impact.

“CAESARS FORUM taps into our many strengths,” she said. “It is a testament to Las Vegas and our homegrown strength in the meeting and event industry.”

Mark Frissora, president and CEO of Caesars Entertainment, said that with eight properties located in the center of the Las Vegas Strip “and the demand for meeting space exceeding available inventory, this project builds on our strategy to provide a value-add to meeting planners, guests and investors.”

CAESARS FORUM is just one of several new properties that Caesars Entertainment is investing in to bolster its meeting and event portfolio.

This spring, the company announced plans to bring the Caesars brand to two hotels in Dubai’s Jumeirah Beach region and to the Puerto Los Cabos region in Mexico. Last month, the company broke ground on a new conference center at Harrah’s Cherokee in Cherokee, N.C. In 2015, Caesars Entertainment opened Harrah’s Waterfront Conference Center in Atlantic City, N.J., the largest hotel conference complex from Baltimore to Boston.