Downtown Salt Lake City is bracing for a wave of visitors this week as the United Pentecostal Church International holds its annual general conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center, running Tuesday through Friday starting September 29. Organizers expect between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees to fill the venue for four days of worship, teaching and networking.
It marks the first time the gathering has returned to Salt Lake City since 2004, according to KSL.com. Utah has hosted the conference six times over the years, while other cities that have welcomed it include Orlando, Florida; Long Beach, California; and Toronto, Canada. Jonathan Mohr, director of communications for the United Pentecostal Church International, said the organization is excited to return to Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake’s last UPCI gathering was larger on paper: in 2004, organizers expected as many as 14,000 participants, with exhibits at the Salt Palace and services at the Delta Center, as the Deseret News reported at the time. The church’s conference history lists six Salt Lake City stops before this year: 1973, 1979, 1982, 1988, 1992 and 2004.
What's on the Schedule
Exhibits open Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Salt Palace, then run Wednesday through Friday starting at 9 a.m., per the same report. Keynote speakers will address the full assembly each night at 7 p.m., while seminars and panel discussions are scheduled for Thursday and Friday afternoons. A closed business session is set for Wednesday at 9 a.m., during which credentialed ministers will vote on church activities and leadership as part of the organization's annual business meeting.
David K. Bernard, general superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church International, said the conference offers opportunities to connect with God, conduct important business and collaborate with leaders and ministries. The organization reports operating in 203 countries and many territories, with more than six million Pentecostal constituents worldwide.
The UPCI was formed in St. Louis in 1945, when two Pentecostal organizations voted to merge, and held its 80th-anniversary conference there in 2025, the denomination says in its history of the organization. The annual meeting rotates among cities: its published schedule names Kansas City for 2027, Indianapolis for 2028 and St. Louis for 2029.
A Public Invitation and a Smaller Ministerial Turnout
Despite the church's global reach, the event is open to the general public, and Mohr said people do not need to be Pentecostal to attend the sessions or exhibits. He added that visitors can use the conference to learn what Pentecostalism is about. Conference attendees are expected to come primarily from North America and the western United States.
Previous general conferences have drawn similar crowds of 8,000 to 10,000 attendees, Mohr said, along with 1,000 to 1,500 ministers. This year, however, he said minister attendance may be smaller than in past conferences because the Rocky Mountain District has fewer Pentecostal churches than the East Coast.
Overlap With Another Major Salt Lake Gathering
The timing puts the Pentecostal conference just days ahead of another massive draw to downtown Salt Lake City: the 196th semiannual general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scheduled for October 3-4. Mohr said attendees from both conferences will likely cross paths while traveling through the city. He also said people will visit local businesses and restaurants in the Salt Lake area.
The gathering arrives amid a broader convention economy that supports downtown hotels, restaurants and other businesses. Visit Salt Lake says convention attendees spend an average of $1,131, while tourism contributes $5.8 billion annually to the county economy; those are broad estimates, not a forecast of spending by this conference’s attendees. The figures put the expected influx in context as the city’s tourism agency describes the local visitor economy.
