Orlando's oldest continuously running institution is not a theme park - it is the fairgrounds on West Colonial Drive. The Central Florida Fairgrounds at 4603 West Colonial Drive occupy 87 lakefront acres about four miles west of downtown, home of the Central Florida Fair, founded in 1912 by community leaders celebrating the region's agricultural economy - decades before the first mouse ear appeared in Orange County. The fair remains the largest not-for-profit fair in Central Florida and among th.....

A church that began in an art museum grew into one of Orlando's most established independent congregations. Church In The Son at 4484 North John Young Parkway, one block off Orange Blossom Trail next to the Channel 6 television studios, held its first service on Palm Sunday 1990 at the Orlando Museum of Art, drawing over 250 people with no denominational backing. Founder Alex Clattenburg was already a fixture of central Florida's charismatic movement: a former real-estate dealmaker who led the R.....

The lawn slopes down toward a stage with Lake Lawne behind it, and on festival days 10,000 people fill the grass. The Orlando Amphitheater at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, 4603 West Colonial Drive, opened in 2016 and quickly became the city's workhorse outdoor concert venue. The setting is the point: the fairgrounds' lakeside acreage west of downtown gave Orlando something it lacked - an open-air, general-admission bowl holding 10,000 standing or around 7,000 with lawn chairs, built without .....