The Kentucky Exposition Center (KEC), is a large multi-use facility in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Originally built in 1956. It is overseen by the Kentucky Venues and is the sixth largest facility of its type in the U.S., with of indoor space. KEC has two arenas ( Broadbent Arena and

Freedom Hall Freedom Hall is a multi-purpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is best known for its use as a basketball arena, previously serving as the home ...

), almost 700,000 sq. ft of Class A exhibit space, nearly 500 acres of outdoor planning space (on grass and concrete). A majority of the 1.3 million square feet is contiguous.

Cardinal Stadium Cardinal Stadium, formerly known as Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, is a football stadium located in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, on the southern end of the campus of the University of Louisville. Debuting in 1998, it serves as the home o ...

, formerly an on-site

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

field with a capacity of up to 37,925, was home to the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

and

Louisville Redbirds Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

minor league baseball teams.

is one of two on-site arenas, and provided 18,875 seats for the University of Louisville men's and women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

teams until they moved

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

to the new

KFC Yum! Center The KFC Yum! Center is a multi-purpose sports arena in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is named after the KFC restaurant chain and Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC. Adjacent to the Ohio River waterfront, it is located on Ma ...

for the 2010–11 season. Broadbent Arena is also located within the complex and as has maximum capacity of 6,600. The site has 1,000 permanent horse stalls, 720 temporary stalls and capacity for livestock as well. KEC hosts a number of events, including the

Kentucky State Fair The Kentucky State Fair is the official state fair of Kentucky which takes place at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville. More than 600,000 fairgoers fill the of indoor and outdoor exhibits; activities include sampling a wide variety of f ...

, the

North American International Livestock Exposition North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) is a livestock show held each November in Louisville, Kentucky and lasts for two weeks. It is billed as the "world's largest all-breed, purebred livestock exposition", with nine major livesto ...

, the

VEX Robotics World Championships VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students, and a subset of Innovation First International. The VEX Robotics competitions and programs are managed by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (RECF). In ...

and the

National Farm Machinery Show The National Farm Machinery Show is an agricultural machinery exposition held annually in February indoors at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Attendance exceeds 300,000 people, with 800 exhibitors in display ...

. It is located adjacent to

I-65 Interstate 65 (I-65) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates ending in 5, it is a major crosscountry, north–south route, connecting between the Great Lakes and the Gulf ...

and the Henry Watterson Expressway, as well as the

Louisville International Airport Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport , formerly known as simply Louisville International Airport, is a civil-military airport in Louisville in Jefferson County, Kentucky. The airport covers and has three runways. Its IATA airport code ...

. Past sporting events held at KEC include six NCAA final Fours, the minor league world series, and the

Bluegrass Bowl The Bluegrass Bowl was a college football bowl game that was played only once, on December 13, 1958, at Cardinal Stadium (later known as "Old Cardinal Stadium") in Louisville, Kentucky. The Oklahoma State Cowboys defeated Florida State Seminoles, 1 ...

, a failed attempt to start an annual

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

. The venue was also home to the Fairgrounds Motor Speedway which hosted the

ARCA Racing Series The ARCA Menards Series is an American stock car series, the premier division of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA). It is considered a minor, semi-professional league of stock car racing, used as a feeder series into the three national ...

and

ASA ASA as an abbreviation or initialism may refer to: Biology and medicine * Accessible surface area of a biomolecule, accessible to a solvent * Acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin * Advanced surface ablation, refractive eye surgery * Anterior spinal ar ...

National Tour from 1961 to 1979 including long running races the International 500 and the Bluegrass 300. In 2004,

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

was selected as one of five cities in the

to host the

Dew Tour The Dew Tour is an extreme sports circuit organized by the Adventure Sports Group, a subsidiary of American Media, LLC. History The tour was announced in late 2004, and made its debut in Louisville, KY in June 2005. The tour then made stops i ...

, an extreme sports franchise which started 2005. Titled the Panasonic Open, the event was held at the Kentucky Exposition Center from June 8–12. The event returned to Louisville in 2006. In February 2006 the facility changed its name from ''Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center'' to simply ''Kentucky Exposition Center'' to "more accurately reflect the facility's mission." In April 2006, demolition began on KEC's East Wing, which was built as part of the original facility in 1956. It was replaced with the renamed North Wing, a more modern Class "A" exhibition space with higher ceilings and fewer support poles, similar to the South Wing. The new facility, also features a skywalk, allowing those parking in the rear of the facility to access the lobby without going through the new hall. The wing was completed in October 2007 and is currently being used by most events staged at the complex.

References

External links

Kentucky Exposition Center official website
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Louisville, Kentucky Tourist attractions in Louisville, Kentucky Convention centers in Kentucky Buildings and structures completed in 1956 1956 establishments in Kentucky Fairgrounds in the United States Kentucky State Fair