The Tech Interactive 201 South Market Street • San Jose • California 95113

All you people who yawn at the prospect of going to a science center listen up: The Tech Interactive is not anything like a museum, it’s an adventure. In fact, The Tech Interactive may be the most exciting thing to happen to the South Bay in years.

Located in downtown San Jose, facing Plaza de Cesar Chavez and just across from the Fairmont Hotel, this bright mango building houses 100+ high-tech interactive exhibits that will energize the most jaded visitor. And wonder of wonders—if you host an event here, the exhibits are available for your guests’ enjoyment!

Events are held in the lobby, the exhibit galleries, the IMAX Dome Theater, and the Rooftop Terrace with stunning views. You can reserve any combination of spaces or rent the entire venue. The lobby is a fantastic place for a large party: It’s a three-level atrium with a 45-foot cylindrical tower rising up through it and, when used in conjunction with the adjacent New Venture Hall, it can accommodate 500 for a sit-down dinner.

The galleries lend themselves to standing receptions. They’re thoroughly modern, displaying a mix of steel, glass, and plastic, with walls and ceilings painted in jewel shades of purple, yellow, and blue. Each gallery has a different theme: There’s Social Robots, where you get to build (and accessorize) your own robot; the award-winning Body Motion exhibit, where you can explore how your movement and interactions with others affect your physical, social, and emotional health; and the newest, largest exhibit, Solve For Earth, that discusses as a community how to live sustainably and reduce the impacts of climate change. Reboot Reality allows guests to play in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Body Worlds Decoded also incorporates an Augmented Reality experience—with real human bodies—that you won’t find anywhere else.

In addition to these extraordinary galleries, The Tech has one more cutting-edge gem that will dazzle you and your guests: the IMAX Dome Theater. Renovated in 2018, it’s now the first laser IMAX dome in the world and the only dome in California. It features a giant hemispherical screen whose image dwarfs that of a conventional theater and puts the audience in the center of the action. Outfitted with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, the theater can be reserved exclusively for a performance or presentation, but we recommend you also use it for viewing an IMAX film: Take the ultimate off-trail adventure into America’s great outdoors in National Parks Adventure, or get a breathtaking portrait of Earth from space in Beautiful Planet.

The Tech Interactive aims to inspire the innovator in everyone, yet even if you don’t come away wanting to be a scientist when you grow up, you’ll have to admit that this place makes traditional meeting rooms and party themes feel obsolete. Part of the next generation of interactive centers, The Tech Interactive triumphs at making science, math, and technology not only accessible, but positively fun.