Major Events
The Memorial Coliseum was designed with large doors at both ends to accommodate the floats of the Portland Rose Festival’s Grand Floral Parade. The 4.2-mile-long (6.8 km) parade begins at the Memorial Coliseum, where paying guests watch the parade cross the Coliseum’s floor from reserved seats inside and from bleachers outside. The Rose Festival Queen’s coronation has also been held in the facility since 1961.
On August 22, 1965, The Beatles played two shows at Memorial Coliseum to 20,000 screaming fans as part of their 1965 American Tour. Allen Ginsburg, who was in the audience, wrote a poem about the event called “Portland Coliseum”.
Elvis Presley performed at Memorial Coliseum on 11 November 1970 and again on 27 April 1973 in front of 12,000 and 13,000 fans respectively.
A political rally for 2000 presidential candidate Ralph Nader sold 10,500 seven-dollar tickets at the venue on August 26, 2000, with every seat sold except those behind the stage.
President Barack Obama spoke at the Memorial Coliseum on March 21, 2008, before winning the Democratic Nomination.
Read more about this topic: Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Portland)
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or events:
“Let’s just call what happened in the eighties the reclamation of motherhood . . . by women I knew and loved, hard-driving women with major careers who were after not just babies per se or motherhood per se, but after a reconciliation with their memories of their own mothers. So having a baby wasn’t just having a baby. It became a major healing.”
—Anne Taylor Fleming (20th century)
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)