Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 02:29:00

The arena the Knights outgrew got a second career as Orlando's campus-scale everything room. The Venue at UCF, at 12777 Gemini Boulevard North on the University of Central Florida campus, opened in August 1991 as the UCF Arena and housed the university's basketball programs until the larger arena next door replaced it in 2007. The 87,000-square-foot building was renovated in 2007-08, its retractable bleachers replaced with about 2,500 fixed stadium seats, and reopened as The Venue - the multipurpose sibling of what is now Addition Financial Arena. The primary tenant is UCF women's volleyball, which has called the building home since 1991, and the Knights basketball teams use it as their practice facility alongside a 2,000-square-foot athlete weight room. The 31,000 square feet of exhibition space converts to five full basketball courts or configures for boxing, MMA, gymnastics, cheerleading and weightlifting competitions, with concert, banquet and trade-show layouts holding up to about 3,000 general admission. The events resume runs from Kevin Hart comedy dates and Fitz and the Tantrums concerts to Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama speaking engagements, plus the robot pits of the FIRST Robotics regional - the catch-all calendar of the nation's second-largest university. Operation sits with Oak View Group, which manages the arena campus, giving promoters plug-in production support, a VIP skybox and concessions infrastructure at student-market prices. Thirty years on, the building demonstrates the standard lifecycle of a campus arena done right: outgrown, not abandoned - repurposed into the flexible mid-room every 68,000-student university needs. The building also carries program history: the Knights' 2005 move to Conference USA was announced on its floor, and every UCF volleyball season since 1991 has been served under its roof, making it the longest continuously used athletic room on a campus that rebuilds itself by the decade.