History
City and county community leaders realized in the 1950s, the need for a convention facility. The initial goal was to increase the occupancy rates of hotels during slow tourist months. A site was chosen one block east of the Las Vegas Strip at the site of the Las Vegas Park Speedway, a failed horse and automobile racing facility from the early 1950s. A 6,300 seat, silver-domed rotunda, with an adjoining 90,000 sq ft (8,400 m2) exhibit hall opened in April 1959. The silver dome, which hosted the Beatles on August 20, 1964, was the site of the World's Heavyweight Championship fight between Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) and Floyd Patterson on November 22, 1965, and home to the UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team from 1966 - 1982, was demolished in 1990 creating space for expansion. When completed, 1,600,000 sq ft (150,000 m2), with 1,300,000 sq ft (120,000 m2) for exhibitors, makes it one of the largest single-level facilities in the world.
The Las Vegas Convention Center Act of 1971 authorized the use of $7 million to rebuild, remodel or expand.
A 1998 expansion increased the center to 1,900,000 sq ft (180,000 m2). During the expansion, the closed Landmark Hotel and Casino (across from LVCC) was imploded adding more parking.
While it functioned, COMDEX was the most attended trade show in the United States with over 200,000 attendees on several occasions.
Another expansion started in 2002, added 1,300,000 sq ft (120,000 m2), called the South Hall. When completed in 2004, it crossed over a major roadway (Desert Inn Road) with four bridges connecting the facilities.
As of 2009, the Consumer Electronics Show is the most attended annual trade show with more than 110,000 attendees.
Led Zeppelin were supposed to perform at the convention center on April 19, 1970, as the final show of their Spring 1970 North American Tour, but the gig was cancelled due to lead singer Robert Plant falling ill the night before.
The Convention Center dome hosted two Billy Graham Crusades between 1978 and 1980.
On December 19, 1993, the draw was made for 1994 FIFA World Cup,
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
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—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
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—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)