Rent a Holiday Party Venue

Let us help you host a party worth writing about!

Rent space at The American Writers Museum for a colorful, interactive holiday party venue unlike any other for your guests. Located on the the famed Michigan Avenue, we offer event spaces tailored to groups ranging from 20 to 250 people.

Complete the form

Or email events@americanwritersmuseum.org to collaborate on a customized virtual or in-person event experience designed for your staff and budget.

A smiling man in a burgundy suit at a dinner event at the American Writers Museum
Colin Lyons Photography
A smiling woman in the middle ground is in focus while watching a presenter in the foreground at the American Writers Museum
A woman wearing a teal hat playing the violin at the American Writers Museum
fotio

Host a Cozy Writers Winter Celebration

Renew your team’s energy and excitement this holiday season with an interactive and memorable holiday trip to the American Writers Museum! When you rent a holiday venue here, your party will be a truly unique celebration.

American Writers Museum Rentals & Event Spaces offer opportunities for corporate meetings, fundraisers, and more!

Complimentary Experience 1: Typewriter Experience

Guests are invited to type holiday letters to family and friends with a complimentary typewriter experience, complete with custom branded paper.

A man holds a book that he is discussing with a woman looking at a page and holding a glass

Complimentary Ambience Upgrades

Cozy up next to virtual crackling fires projected on monitors throughout the space while listening to soft holiday jazz.

Upgraded Cocktail Station

Poetic Pour Over Station

Treat your guests to a complimentary upgraded interactive cocktail station.

Food & Beverage

Treat your guests to individual meals, chef-led action stations or passed hors d-Oeuvres and cocktails.

Enjoy one complimentary prop with food purchase: beverage wall, garden cart, green wall

Gingerbread Buck Specialty Cocktail

Get in the holiday spirit with an optional winter-themed specialty cocktail upgrade.

Space Details to Keep in Mind For Your Holiday Party Venue

Capacity

  • Cocktail reception in the entire museum: 250
  • Theatre style: 100
  • Seated dinner in Readers Hall: 60
  • Seated dinner in A Nation of Writers: 60
  • Seated dinner in Meijer Changing Gallery: 20

Rates

$500 OFF all event rentals from now through May 2022!

  • Early mornings: $1500/hr.

Evenings

Events can be scheduled in blocks of 2, 3, or 4 hours.

  • Event up to 3 hours ……………………….. $3,500
  • Event up to 4 hours ……………………….. $4,500

Non-profit and special circumstances pricing
is available upon request.

Equipment

When you rent a holiday party venue, we include the use of:

  • Ten (10) sleek black highboy tables (linens not included)
  • Up to one hundred (100) theatre-style chairs
  • Three (3) coat racks with metal hangers
  • Podium with a wireless PA system
  • Handheld and Lavalier microphones
  • Six (6) black stanchions
  • Use of nine (9) television monitors
  • Six (6) 66″ round tables (linens not included)
  • Four (4) 6-ft folding tables (linens not included)
  • Four (4) high-top chairs with backs, ideal for programming discussions

AV equipment for additional charge: 3 PTC-140ND Cameras, an RMC-300A camera controller, and a PC running VMix video production and streaming software. Inquire for more information and costs.

Chicago Event Space Add-Ons

Looking for more fun activities for your guests? We can help you host a wide variety of events with specialized tours and experiences to make your group’s celebration even more memorable.

Group tours are for 10 or more and start at $75 for groups up to 25. AWM members receive 15% off tours. Please fill out our inquiry form and AWM Events will get back to you shortly.

  • General Museum/Highlights Tour: Perfect for first time visitors!
  • Poe Tour: The man behind the myth, from talking ravens to thumping tell-tale hearts. You’ll dive into Poe’s work and see how his legacy continues to impact the world today.
  • Trailblazing Women Writers Tour: Discover the women of American literature with this tour highlighting the accomplishments and contributions of literary foremothers.
  • Frederick Douglass Tour: You learn not only about the writer and statesman but who influenced him in life and the famous American writers and activists he worked with.
  • My America Tour: Highlighted immigrant and native writers in each area of the Museum.
  • Hispanic Heritage Tour: The voices of Hispanic writers have always been a part of the American literary landscape: from 1528 Spanish expeditions, to the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City, to contemporary Chicago poets.
  • Museum Tour with AWM President Carey Cranston (higher rate than other tours)
  • Poems While You Wait
    • A collective of poets & their manual typewriters who provide a magical, unexpected, unpretentious, & decontextualized encounter with poetry. No requested topic is too big or too small, too funny or too sad, too silly or too serious.
  • Adult Spelling Bees by Danielle Sepulveres
    • The Twilight Zone: There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge…of spelling. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Adult Spelling Bee.
    • Fictional Characters We Wish Hadn’t Died: Can you spell Anna Karenina? How about Ned Stark? What better way to eulogize the fictional characters whose deaths have saddened us than correctly spelling their names!
    • RomComs Forever: Tonight the words will be acted out in the form of a romantic comedy quote! If you spell it correctly AND guess which RomCom it’s from, you will get double points! Time to rewatch HARRY MET SALLY for the hundredth time!
    • Request a themed bee to be curated for your group
  • Food For Thought’s A Night at the Museum Dinner Packages – 5 Stage Story Plated Dinners
    • A Night at the Museum: Mediterranean Tour
    • A Night at the Museum: A Far East Adventure
  • StoryStudio Chicago
    • Single-session creative writing workshops
  • Scavenger Hunt
    • A Women Writers scavenger hunt will take your group through our permanent exhibits to find iconic American women who shaped the history of this country with their words and voices.
  • The Big Quiz Show
    • Literary-themed Trivia: Multimedia, “figureoutable” trivia, but focusing on famous authors, lit classics, publishing phenomena, and more.
  • Children’s storytime, author talks, and more.
Visitors with cocktails at an event

Food & Beverage

When you rent a holiday party venue at The American Writers Museum, you can also work with our exclusive caterer Food for Thought to plan a menu that will keep your team energized.

Food for Thought