This article was written with the assitance of AI.
Every year, the ISHI off-site dinner gives attendees a chance to step away from the sessions, connect over a meal, and experience something unique to the host region. This year, we’re taking that tradition somewhere special.
The ISHI 37 off-site dinner takes place at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts — home of the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution, and one of the most storied sports venues in America.
Welcome to The Razor
Located in Foxborough, Massachusetts — roughly halfway between Boston and Providence — Gillette Stadium sits at the heart of New England’s sports identity. Originally opened in 2002, the stadium underwent a dramatic $250 million transformation completed in 2023, and the results speak for themselves.
The most striking addition: a 218-foot lighthouse rising 22 stories above the playing field, the tallest lighthouse in the United States. It’s not just a visual landmark — it features a 360-degree observation deck with views stretching to the Boston and Providence skylines. For those attending ISHI 37 in Providence, you may just be able to spot where you came from.
Inside, the stadium’s Cross Insurance Clubs span more than 120,000 square feet of indoor space, with cathedral ceilings and floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooking the field. The G-P Atrium — the largest Patriots game day hospitality space to open since 2002 — and the newly reimagined Plaza round out a venue that manages to feel both monumental and genuinely welcoming. It’s a setting that makes for a memorable evening.
Built by the Kraft Family. Built for the Community.
Gillette Stadium is owned and operated by Kraft Sports Group, a subsidiary of the Kraft Group — the holding company through which Robert Kraft owns both the Patriots and the Revolution. Kraft purchased the Patriots in 1994 and famously did something no other NFL owner was willing to do at the time: he built the stadium entirely with private financing. No public subsidies. No referendum. He believed in New England, and he put his money behind it.
But the Kraft legacy extends well beyond football. With more than $500 million in lifetime philanthropic giving, the Kraft family has invested deeply in education, public health, youth development, and community equity across the region and beyond.
The New England Patriots Charitable Foundation — established by Kraft the same year he bought the team — supports marginalized individuals and families throughout New England. The annual Myra Kraft Community MVP Awards, created in honor of Robert’s late wife, has recognized nearly 500 community volunteers and directed more than $3.5 million to nonprofits across the region since its founding in 1998. When COVID-19 hit, the Kraft family partnered with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to procure 1.4 million N95 masks for frontline workers. When the Boston Marathon bombing struck in 2013, Kraft pledged matching donations through the Foundation to support victims’ families.
These aren’t isolated gestures — they reflect an organizational culture that treats winning and giving back as equally non-negotiable. Attending an event at Gillette Stadium means walking into a place built with that ethos in mind.
A Little Context for Our International Attendees
If you’ve traveled from outside the United States to join us in Providence, here’s what you should know: New England just had one of the most remarkable football seasons in recent memory.
The Patriots came into the 2025 season after back-to-back four-win years. Most people had written them off. They finished 14–3, won the AFC Championship, and made it all the way to Super Bowl LX in February 2026 before falling to the Seattle Seahawks. It was the kind of turnaround that doesn’t happen often: a team that looked finished, rebuilt from the inside, and came within one game of a championship.
Whether your football is played with hands or feet, you’ll feel that story in the building. The Revolution are one of Major League Soccer’s founding clubs — established in 1996 by Robert Kraft himself. They played the very first official event ever held at Gillette: an MLS match on May 11, 2002. There’s a certain continuity to that, and it makes the stadium feel like it genuinely belongs to both codes of the sport.
Wear Your Colors
One of the things that makes ISHI remarkable is the breadth of the community it brings together — forensic professionals from across the United States and around the world, carrying the traditions and identities of their home regions into one building.
So for this evening, we’re inviting you to do exactly that.
Wear your team’s kit. Football or futbol. NFL, MLS, Premier League, Liga MX, Bundesliga, Serie A — wherever you’re from, whatever team you grew up with, we want to see it. It’s a rare chance to be among colleagues and also be unambiguously yourself, wearing the colors of wherever home is.
The only rule: be ready to defend your club.
ISHI 37: October 26–29, 2026 | Providence, Rhode Island
The off-site dinner is one of the highlights of the ISHI conference experience — a chance to be present with colleagues, collaborators, and new connections in a setting that feels different from the session rooms. This year’s venue takes that tradition and places it inside one of the most recognized sports complexes in America, on a night when the field will be alive with professional competition just outside the windows.
More details on the evening’s format, timing, and registration will be shared soon. In the meantime, plan to be in Providence the week of October 26.