Louisville, Kentucky is right down the road from many locations within the United States. Check out the chart at right to find distances to the 2006 Confernce & Stage Expo from a nearby location.

Grahic/Deborah Hazlett.

by David Rodger
Louisville Promotions Coordinator

I'm responsible for helping promote the upcoming USITT Conference & Stage Expo which is coming to my home town, Louisville, Kentucky, on March 29, 2005.

So, while in Toronto at the last conference, I talked to as many people as would listen to me, and I handed out little horse pins and brochures to hopefully generate enthusiasm for the 2006 Conference. I was a little surprised to find out that many people were already thinking about Louisville. Were they anticipating how many new plays in the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre Louisville they might be able to see? Were they remembering the last SETC conference in Louisville, several years ago, and the wonderful flocked wallpaper in the Galt House Hotel? Were they wondering how they might get their prop truck, car, boat, or plane to Louisville to participate in the special exhibition being organized by Bill Teague?

Yes. But the one comment that I received more than all others was this: Louisville is so easy to get to that they were thinking about the possibility of driving to Louisville with vans full of students and friends.

Louisville very centrally located. It is a little east of the geographic center of the U.S. (that honor goes to Lebanon, Kansas), but for a majority of USITT members, driving to Louisville takes less than a day. Nearby cities include Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Nashville. Major interstate highways go through Louisville. We fondly call the spot where I-64, I-65, and I-71 intersect downtown, "Spaghetti Junction."

If a road trip to next year's conference sounds like fun to you, below is a chart with distances and driving times for many cities within a one-day drive of Louisville. All the cities listed are home to significant numbers of USITT members. The names in all caps are locations of USITT Student Chapters.

If you prefer flying, Louisville International Airport hosts several airlines, including American/American Eagle, Continental/Continental Express, Delta, Delta Connection, Independence Air, Midwest/Midwest Connect, Northwest/Northwest Airlink, Southwest, United Express, and US Airways Express. Bus service to Louisville is provided by Greyhound. Boats are the historical method of transportation to and from Louisville, and, the conference center is only three blocks from the water. If trains are your thing, you're unfortunately out of luck. Amtrak used to operate a wonderfully quaint line, dubbed the Kentucky Cardinal, from Louisville to Chicago. The service was inaugurated in December of 1999. However, budget cuts and low ridership clipped the Cardinal's wings, and it was discontinued in July of 2003.

For more information about getting to Louisville by car, van, or truck, find your home town, or a city nearby, in the chart below then click on its name to go to a web page with a map and driving directions, courtesy of Google Maps.

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