Greensboro Coliseum Complex

One of the original four buildings of the complex, the Coliseum (also called Coliseum Arena) is one of the oldest buildings on the property. Construction began on the venue in 1958 and was completed in September 1959. Known originally as the "Greensboro Memorial Coliseum"[10] (until 1980), the arena hosted its first event on October 29, 1959. At the time, the Coliseum held 7,100 seats, becoming one of the largest arenas on the East Coast.[11]

Through the years, the Coliseum has hosted several sporting events, most notably basketball (see below). The Coliseum has also hosted concerts for over 40 years. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Coliseum was frequented by rock and R&B performers. The first major concert held at the Coliseum was by The Monkees. Elvis Presley played a concert at the Coliseum on April 14, 1972; the footage was used for his final film, entitled Elvis on Tour. Presley performed the Coliseum again on April 21, 1977, one of the final venues of his tour, before his death on August 16. Casting Crowns recorded their live album, entitled Until the Whole World Hears... Live, at the Coliseum on April 24, 2010. Rock band Phish set the attendance record for a concert at the Coliseum on March 1, 2003 with 23,642 attendees.

The arena has also hosted WJMH's SuperJam from 1997 to 2014. The music festival has featured prominent artists in the hip hop community including LL Cool J, Soulja Boy, Ludacris, Ja Rule, Plies, Nas, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, Travis Porter and the Ying Yang Twins.

The Coliseum was also the site of auditions for American Idol, Season 5 on October 3, 2005. Between Sunday, July 8 and Tuesday, July 10, 2012, it played host to the Greensboro audition stages in the second season of the Fox singer search program The X Factor.

One of the original four buildings of the complex, the War Memorial Auditorium was one of the oldest buildings on the property, until it was closed in 2014. Along with the original concept, the venue opened in 1959 to house performing arts events. Playing predominately to an African American audience, the auditorium became a notable venue on the Chitlin' Circuit. James Brown, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin were among the many performers who played the auditorium during the 1960s. The Rolling Stones played the auditorium during the band's 1965 North American Tour on November 12, 1965. The venue was primarily used for town meetings, theatrical events, religious meetings and concerts. Presidential candidate Barack Obama held a town hall meeting on March 26, 2008 to a full house. Guilford County native Fantasia Barrino gave her first concert, in her home state, during her Back to Me Tour on November 18, 2010.

The auditorium was torn down in October 2014; a premium parking lot planned on the site will subsidize the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, to open downtown as a replacement facility in 2019.[12][13] A closing ceremony took place September 4. An O'Jays concert September 5 was the last event, and items from the auditorium were auctioned off the next week.[14][15]

Originally known as the "Exhibition Building", the exhibition center opened in 1978. Its purpose was to host business conferences and conventions. The venue was primarily used by "Super Flea", the flea market for the Triad area. In 1993, the center was expanded, converting the old Blue Room into a mid-sized arena known as Hall C or the East Wing. In its current state, the 167,000-square-foot (15,500 m²) center "includes three exhibition halls, a 4,500-seat mini-arena and eight meeting rooms...."[16] The arena is often used for musical performances during the Central Carolina Fair. It is also utilized by Greensboro College men's and women's basketball home games. Other sporting events include boxing and UFC matches. The arena will often host concerts and comedy shows.

Opening in 1958 as the "Town Hall Auditorium", the Odeon Theatre is a small venue primarily used for community events. The original auditorium housed 1,000 seats. In 2004, the auditorium was converted to the smaller theatre and reopened in March 2005.

The newest addition to the complex, the White Oak Amphitheatre is the first outdoor venue for the Triad area. The venue was originally proposed in 2007 along with the aquatic center. The city purchased the nearby Canada Dry bottling plant to allow space for the amphitheatre. Construction began in 2010 and was completed in June 2011.[17] The first concert for the venue was by The Beach Boys on June 5, 2011 to a crowd of 4,000 spectators.[18] The amphitheatre is expected to operate from April to October, hosting community, comedy and musical events. The project cost $946,000 to construct.

Known simply by one name (although acknowledged as Greensboro Coliseum Fieldhouse), the Fieldhouse is a standalone exhibition hall adjacent to the Special Events Center. The 30,000 square feet (2,800 m²) space opened in March 2003 as the "GCC Pavilion". The project was designed by SKA Consulting Engineers. In 2016, the Fieldhouse became the home of the Greensboro Swarm, the NBA Development League (later called the NBA G League) affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets. To accommodate the team the Fieldhouse was renovated with a permanent roof, locker room, and seating for 2,118.[19]

Another expansion project for the complex is the new aquatic center. The center features three main pools including a warm-up and training pool. The main pool is used for events by nearby high schools, colleges, and USA Swimming events, and can hold eight 50-meter (long course) lanes or 20 short course competition lanes plus a warmup pool. The complex also includes springboard and platform diving facilities and hosts meets for USA Diving. The facility has an available classroom and a 24'×19' video screen, as well as a concessions stand and swim store. The venue hosts events in competitive swimming and diving, synchronized swimming and water polo up through USA National competition levels. It also hosts the National Mermaid Convention. Paid parking is available.[20] The project began in 2010 along with the amphitheatre and cost $18.8 million to build.[21] The City of Greensboro provided a live cam feed to watch the progress of the construction. The venue has hosted the 2012 U.S. Masters Swimming Spring National Championship.[22], the 2015 NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, and other tournaments as well.

To commemorate its legacy with the ACC Tournaments, the complex opened a museum in 2011 to show the history of the ACC. The venue celebrates the past, present and future of the ACC. It features numerous exhibits including an interactive broadcast booth, memorabilia, a video globe and school mascots.[23]

Opened in March 2011, The Terrace is one of new expansions for the complex. Its main purpose is a banquet hall and will be used for speaking events as well as weddings. The Terrace is an indoor venue located in between the auditorium and Coliseum.[23]

The hockey history of Greensboro began in 1959, when the Greensboro Generals of the Eastern Hockey League arrived and competed until the league folded in 1973. The team moved to the Southern Hockey League for four seasons until it too ceased operations in January 1977.

Greensboro hockey's modern era began with the establishment of the Greensboro Monarchs of the East Coast Hockey League, who played from 1989–90 to 1994–95. When the American Hockey League expanded southward in 1995, it invited Greensboro to join; the new team took the Monarchs nickname, but attempted to draw a more regional fan base by labeling themselves the Carolina Monarchs.

When the Hartford Whalers announced their move to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1997 as the Carolina Hurricanes, they leased the Coliseum for two years while waiting for the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena (now PNC Arena) in Raleigh to be completed.[24] Subjected to ticket price increases and unwilling to support a team that was destined for Raleigh, Greensboro hockey fans rarely filled the arena for Hurricane games. Meanwhile, Triangle fans were unwilling to make the hour-long drive across Interstate 40 to Greensboro. As a result, the Hurricanes played in front of some of the smallest NHL crowds since the 1950s. During the 1998–99 season, the team curtained off most of the upper deck for home games in an effort to artificially create scarcity in the ticket market, force would-be attendees to purchase higher-priced tickets, and hide what national media mocked as "green acres" of empty seats.[25]

Once the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena was completed and the Hurricanes moved out, the plan was that the Monarchs, who spent those two years in New Haven, Connecticut, as the Beast of New Haven, would move back into the venue as a Hurricanes affiliate. Monarchs owner Bill Black tried to bring the Monarchs back to Greensboro, but the Hurricanes refused to claim the Monarchs as their affiliate. After the deal fell through, Bill Black tried to sell shares to the public in a final attempt to bring the Monarchs back to Greensboro.

Rather than leave the Coliseum without a hockey team for the first time in more than 10 years, a new hockey team was founded, the Greensboro Generals, returning the city to the East Coast Hockey League. The Generals competed in the arena until 2004, when they were terminated by the ECHL due to poor performance and lackluster support from the community.[26] Increased operating expenses from the ECHL Players Union and overhead costs as a result of recent Coliseum renovations significantly affected the Generals' ability to promote within the community. It was revealed that after the team folded, nearly all of the money used to support the team over and above ticket revenues, could have been covered by Coliseum advertising revenue that was purchased as a direct result of the hockey team's presence.

After the Generals folded, the complex saw a significant revenue drop in local advertising and to this day, the Coliseum operations must be supplemented with nearly $2 million a year from the city government.

UNC vs. Radford (c.2009).

The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association played a majority of their home games at the Greensboro Coliseum during their tenure in North Carolina from 1969 to 1974, before moving to St. Louis and becoming the Spirits of St. Louis. The Greensboro City Gaters played their first and only season as a charter franchise of the Global Basketball Association minor league in 1991–1992 in the Greensboro Coliseum.

The Greensboro Coliseum has played host to many college basketball tournaments. The Atlantic Coast Conference has held their men's basketball tournament at the Coliseum 26 times since 1967, the most of any venue.[27] This is in part because the arena was within seven hours' drive of the conference's original footprint, and is within an hour of most of the fanbases of the conference's heartland in North Carolina. Most recently, it hosted the 2020 tournament that was called off after only three days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Greensboro Coliseum also hosted the Big Four Tournament from 1971 to 1981. It has also hosted the MEAC Men's Basketball Tournament ten times.

It has played host to 12 Men's NCAA Tournaments, most notably the 1974 Final Four and Lehigh's upset of Duke in 2012. It hosted the NCAA Tournament in 2006 and 2009, when it served as a first and second round site. It was the host of the Southern Conference men's basketball tournament from 1996 to 1999. The Coliseum has been the home for the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament since 2000, and is contracted through 2015. It hosted the Greensboro Regional in the Women's NCAA Tournament in 2007 and 2008. The Coliseum is the first arena to host three basketball tournaments in consecutive weeks. The Coliseum has also hosted NBA basketball, high school basketball, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

From 1959 to 1989, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons basketball team played a portion of its home schedule at the Coliseum, usually games against popular opponents that could not be accommodated in the smaller Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum. In practice, Wake Forest played most of its ACC games during this period at the Coliseum. From the 1960s to the 1980s, North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State frequently played neutral-site games at the Coliseum, owing to the fact that it was the state's largest arena at the time. The Tar Heels still occasionally play a neutral-site game here, as late as 2012. Between its service as Wake Forest's de facto primary home court and its many neutral-site and postseason games, the Coliseum has hosted many of the most important basketball games in North Carolina's history.

Since 2010, the UNC Greensboro Spartans men's basketball team has played at the Coliseum, having moved there from the smaller Fleming Gymnasium on the campus of UNCG.[28][29] For Spartans games, most of the upper level is curtained off.

In October 2015, the Charlotte Hornets chose Greensboro for the location of their new NBA Development League team the Greensboro Swarm. The Swarm began play at the Fieldhouse in the 2016–17 season.[19]

On October 6, 2016, the Hornets played a preseason game against the Boston Celtics at the Coliseum.[30]

The Coliseum first saw an arena football team when the Greensboro Prowlers of the af2 league played in the Coliseum from 1999 until 2004. The team folded due to a poor record and lack of fan support. The Greensboro Revolution of the National Indoor Football League played here in 2006 and 2007. The team ceased operations on January 23, 2008.

In 2018, the Coliseum began to host the Carolina Cobras, an expansion team of the National Arena League. The Cobras went on to win the league championship, going 10-5 in the regular season and winning their two playoff games, both hosted at the Coliseum. They defeated the Columbus Lions with a final score of 66-8. The team is still in operation today.[31]