Convention center

Convention center
A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typically offer sufficient floor area to accommodate several thousand attendees. Very large venues, suitable for major trade shows, are sometimes known as exhibition halls. Convention centers typically have at least one auditorium and may also contain concert halls, lecture halls, meeting rooms, and conference rooms. Some large resort area hotels include a convention center.
Types
Meeting facilities with lodging: hotels that include their own convention space in addition to accommodation and other related facilities, known as convention hotels.
Meeting facilities without lodging: are convention centers that do not include accommodation; usually located adjacent to or near a hotel(s).
Other: any convention and meeting facilities designed to hold large numbers of people. Can exist alone (e.g., stadiums, arenas, parks, etc.) or within other structures (e.g., university lecture halls, museums, theaters). Usually do not include accommodation.
History
The original convention centers or halls were in castles and palaces. Originally a hall in a castle would be designed to allow a large group of lords, knights and government officials to attend important meetings with the king. A more ancient tradition would have the king or lord decide disputes among his people. These administrative actions would be done in the great hall and would exhibit the wisdom of the king as judge to the general populace.
One of the most famous convention center debacles happened in France on June 20, 1789. King Louis XVI locked a group known as the Third Estate out of the meeting hall in Versailles. This led to the revolutionary group holding their meeting in an indoor tennis court. This was the first modern democratic conference center and lead to the Tennis Court Oath and the French Revolution.
Some historic centers
19th-century exhibition halls
1850 Bingley Hall (destroyed by fire in 1984), Birmingham, England
1851 The Crystal Palace (destroyed by fire in 1936), London, England
1855 Palais de l'Industrie (dismantled in 1897), Paris, France
1873 Alexandra Palace, London, England
1876 Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1878 Exhibition Place, Toronto
1878 La Rural, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1878 Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio
1879 Garden Palace (destroyed by fire in 1882), Sydney, Australia
1880 Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, Australia
1898 Aberdeen Pavilion, Ottawa, Ontario
1898–1903 Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, Netherlands
20th-century exhibition halls
1900 Grand Palais, Paris, France
1909 Festhalle, Frankfurt, Germany
1955 McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois
1958 Centre of New Industries and Technologies, Paris, France
1959 Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
1974 Kenyatta International Convention Centre, Nairobi, Kenya
1975 Helsinki Fair Centre, Helsinki, Finland
1976 Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia
1979 Internationales Congress Centrum, Berlin, Germany
1981 Moscone Center, San Francisco, California
1983 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong, China
1985 Tampere Fair Centre, Tampere, Finland
1988 Washington State Convention Center, Seattle, Washington
1989 Taipei International Convention Center, Taipei, Taiwan
1990 Colorado Convention Center, Denver, Colorado
1993 Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1997 Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan
21st-century exhibition halls
2001 Bethlehem Convention Palace, Bethlehem
2003 Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C.
2008 BT Convention Centre, Liverpool, England
2008 Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, North Carolina
2012 Convention Center Poet Ronaldo Cunha Lima, João Pessoa, Brazil
2014 Kaohsiung Exhibition Center, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
2017 AU Convention Center, Visakhapatnam, India
2021 Rudraksha Convention Center, Varanasi, India
Image gallery
See also
Stadium
List of convention and exhibition centers
List of convention centers named after people
References
External links
Historic Conference Centres of Europe