A tornado tore off a third of the West Hall roof in 1983 - in Los Angeles - and the building did not cancel a single event. The Los Angeles Convention Center, at 1201 South Figueroa Street in downtown LA, has been the city's mega-event engine since 11 July 1971 and is now heading into a 2.6-billion-dollar expansion for the 2028 Olympics. The original hall was designed by Charles Luckman - architect of Madison Square Garden - on 35 acres of cleared land at the southwest corner of downtown, opening with the California Gift Show and growing in layers: the North Hall in 1981, the vast 347,000-square-foot South Hall by I.M. Pei's firm in 1993 - bridged over Pico Boulevard - and the subterranean Kentia Hall in 1997. The numbers explain its gravity: 867,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space across five halls and 64 meeting rooms draws up to 2.5 million visitors a year through 200-plus events, from the LA Auto Show and Anime Expo - one of the largest fan conventions in the Western Hemisphere - to E3's legendary runs, WonderCon and the political conventions of civic life. Music and culture claim their share: the halls host electronic music festivals, award-show production builds, esports finals and film shoots, while the neighbouring Crypto.com Arena and LA Live entertainment district - built partly on land carved from the center's northeast corner in 1997 - turned the block into the densest event campus in the American West. The sustainability record is quietly notable: a 2.58-megawatt rooftop solar array - the largest on any municipally owned convention center in the country - and LEED Gold operations certification, with the 2028 Olympics set to fill the halls with fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis and wrestling after the expansion links the South and West Halls. Practical notes: the Metro A and E lines' Pico station sits at the corner, which beats the garages on big-show days; South Hall's lobby is the usual meeting point, Kentia Hall's underground location confuses first-timers - allow extra minutes - and Anime Expo and Auto Show weekends sell out nearby parking by mid-morning.

Type: Indoor Event Space

Address: 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA, United States, 90015

Website: https://www.laconventioncenter.com

Opening Date: 11/07/1971

Serves Food

Accessible