The State Farm Arena is a multi-purpose complex, in Hidalgo, Texas. It was formerly known as Dodge Arena, until February 4, 2010.
The arena seats up to 5,500 persons in its configuration for ice hockey, indoor football and indoor soccer, and up to 6,800 persons in its center stage concert configuration, which has also been used for boxing events.
The arena also features 25 suites, 500 club seats, 2,200 on-site surface parking spaces, an adjacent 2,000-square-foot (190 m2) lounge with access from outside the arena, as well as a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) bar and a 300-square-foot (28 m2) pro shop.
It is home to the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees of the Central Hockey League since 2003, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League since 2007, and the Rio Grande Valley Magic of the Lone Star Football League since 2011. The Rio Grande Valley Dorados of arena football's AF2 league were tenants from 2004 until 2009, when the team folded along with the league.
It was built in 2003, at a cost of $20 million, and is owned by the City of Hidalgo Municipal Facilities Corporation. The former DaimlerChrysler Corporation, at that time the owner of the Dodge brand, purchased the naming rights to the arena. Country music star Alan Jackson gave the first concert at the arena. On February 4, 2010, State Farm Insurance bought the naming rights for the arena.
One of the most notable events in State Farm Arena history took place in 2009, when Mexican singer Gloria Trevi, who was on tour at the time, performed before a soldout crowd. The concert was made more notable due to Trevi having been a resident of the Rio Grande Valley in recent years (she presently resides in McAllen, of which Hidalgo is a suburb.)
Famous quotes containing the words state, farm and/or arena:
“Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... often the empowering strategies we use in the arena of love and friendship are immediately dropped when we come into the arena of politicized difference—when in fact some of those strategies are useful and necessary.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)