The latest variant of the coronavirus killed or cut back holiday business gatherings last month, leaving the operators of MetroWest venues that host large gatherings with a common New Year's resolution: Make events happen.

With COVID-19 precautions going back and forth, convention organizers have had to tread lightly throughout 2021, either by reducing attendance — sometimes substantially — or canceling events altogether.

Large event hosts, such as the Sheraton Framingham Hotel & Conference Center; The Verve Hotel Boston Natick, Tapestry Collection by Hilton; and the Best Western Trade Center in Marlborough are now looking to resume organizing corporate and other events.

The Sheraton has a ballroom that covers 13,500 square feet and can accommodate up to 1,000 guests. In October, it even hosted a night of boxing matches — something that's expected to soon happen again.

Rumble at the Sheraton

Shearns Boxing Promotions organized the “Fight Night in Framingham” last October at the Sheraton — the first ever professional boxing event that held in the city.

Originally scheduled for March 2020, it was canceled just a week before due to the onset of the coronavirus.

But given last fall's success, Bob Trieger, a publicist who worked with Shearns Boxing to organize the event, looks forward to putting together a second boxing night in February — which he says is a perfect time.

"In boxing, you really try to stay away from January and the holidays," Trieger said. "Because if you bring in a bunch of fighters from out of town to fight on a Saturday, and there's a blizzard, then you get canceled. So then you end up having to keep them or change all the plane flights."

Even with the most recent uncertainty regarding COVID-19, promoter Chuck Shearns said Fight Night should take place without any difficulties.

“The most recent one that I had in October had no issues at all, and the one in February — as of right now — looks like it's gonna be OK,” he said.

Officials at the Sheraton declined to comment about their event strategy, citing corporate policies about speaking with the press.

An octave bluer

Gerry Katz considers the Sheraton to be a perfect venue for the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, which he has organized for 16 years.

Ever since the 2020 festival was canceled just before the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, Katz said he has been playing a waiting game. He had to call off the 2021 event and, more recently, decided to pull the plug on the February 2022 edition as well.

So now he is looking to 2023.

“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to settle ... because we typically take over the entire property of the Sheraton, and putting in maybe 1,200 to 1,500 people a day in close proximity,” Katz explained. “It's just not suitable to do with COVID-19, and we have not seen any clarity on that."

Things are complicated even further, given new ownership at the Sheraton, according to Katz, adding that the venue has been reconfigured. So even though he hopes that his partnership with the Sheraton will hold up, Katz is also looking elsewhere in Greater Boston.

“An event of this type requires a large ballroom with a big enough ceiling so that we can do lighting and stage and accommodate 900-plus people, including breakout rooms, plus a suitable number of hotel rooms,” he said. “The Sheraton in Framingham is really the premier venue for that type of event, as it checks all of our boxes. But now we've got a number of things we're swimming against.”

Flavors from the area

The MetroWest Chamber of Commerce's annual Taste of MetroWest event has been rescheduled, tentatively, from last fall to this spring. But given the unpredictability of COVID-19, nothing is certain, said Jim Giammarinaro, the chamber's president and CEO.

“The change in conditions with the new variant — things are changing constantly,” he said. “It takes too much advanced planning to have it be canceled in a second.”

Giammarinaro points out the biggest problem that MetroWest faces: a drop in the number of business travelers.

He said that business travel is an important facet of local hotel revenue, something that he says is a current priority for the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce.

"I know that people want to connect in person but I just don't think that everyone feels like it's safe right now to do so,” he said.

Conventions, trade shows

Distinctive Hospitality Group (DHG) has been in business since 2010 in Natick, running hotels with venues in Massachusetts and Connecticut that range from 12 to 300 people.

Its two MetroWest locations — The Verve Hotel and the Hampton by Hilton — are both in Natick and host large corporate functions and conferences.

Christine Tascione, vice president of sales for DHG, looks toward 2022 with great hope.

“We've seen in 2021 that corporate events have not exceeded more than 50 people,” she said. “In 2022, we'll start to see some in the smaller size in the first quarter, but in the latter part of the second quarter and into the third quarter, where larger events for non-professional and professional associations and corporations are being planned. We are even seeing good interest for 2023.”

Besides business functions, their venues host weddings, mitzvahs, sporting events and swim meets, which have also brought in revenue through hotel use, said Tascione.

Tascione likes to say that events aren’t fully back for the DHG. To her, they’re “crawling.”

“The current fear from the new variant is still giving people cause to stop and pause,” she said. “We don’t expect those capacities of 300 people meet capacity just quite yet.”

In Marlborough, Christine Kelly, director of sales at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel and Trade Center, said her facility hosted events in 2021 with shrunken numbers.

The Trade Center has 47,000 square feet of space. The hotel next door has 22,000 square feet of event space, used for weddings and smaller conventions, Kelly said.

She is optimistic about this year.

“Trade shows at the Trade Center seem to be picking up but conferences are still a little hesitant,” she said. “We had a conference in October, but no really big, big ones like we normally have. But hopefully 2022 will be better for us.”

Kelly is keeping her fingers crossed.

“People forget we're still in a pandemic and then you see COVID-19 is on the rise again, which prompts people to postpone and push out," she said. "Hopefully, we'll be hosting more soon and put this all behind us.”

Toni Caushi is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at tcaushi@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @tcaushi.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Key venues west of Boston hope 2022 brings more events, less virus