The award winning Key Arena at Seattle Center is Seattle's premier venue for sports, concerts and family entertainment. The state-of-the-art facility is recognized as one of the safest, most advanced and comfortable arenas in the world. Its unique design provides sports and concert fans an intimate entertainment experience with spectacular sightlines and acoustics, uncommon in arenas of similar size.



KeyArena at Seattle Center was opened October 26, 1995. It is located north of downtown Seattle, USA on the grounds of Seattle Center (the site of 1962's Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair). Since its inception, It had entertained over 10 million guests.

The Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association are the primary tenants of this gorgeous Key Arena.It has also the distinction of hosting the 1974 NBA All-Star Game.

This gorgeous Arena has been used for multipurpose activities. Besides hosting Seattle's own SuperSonics, Storm and Thunderbirds, KeyArena at Seattle Center also hosts entertainments most acclaimed talent from music's biggest stars to popular family shows. Since its opening in 1995, KeyArena has hosted over 130 concerts including music's biggest names such as Aerosmith, Jose Carreras, Pearl Jam, Celine Dion, Elton John, Garth Brooks, George Strait and Simon & Garfunkel. It is proud of entertaining thousands of families with shows from Disney On Ice, Champions On Ice, WWE (http://events.ixs.net/WWE.aspx ), NCAA and the 1995-1996 NBA Finals.

In addition to being the home of the Sonics, it is also home to the Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association and the Seattle Thunderbirds, a junior hockey team in the Western Hockey League. The Thunderbirds hosted the Memorial Cup here in 1992. It is also used for non-athletic entertainment purposes, such as ice shows, circuses, and concerts.

The arena was built in the name the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1962. However, the reconstruction was started on June 16, 1994 that ultimately completed on October 26, 1995. The building's original roofline was used as a guide and some of the original concrete for the main supports still exists but most everything about the arena was brand new. The court which was originally at street level is now 35 feet below to allow more seating. After the rebuild, the Coliseum was renamed KeyArena, as Key Bank purchased the naming rights.

The first regular season game that the Seattle SuperSonics played in KeyArena at Seattle Center took place on November 4, 1995, against the Los Angeles Lakers.The city of Seattle contributed 74.5 million and the Seattle SuperSonics approximately 21 million for the reconstruction of this wonderful Key Arena.

KeyArena is unique in the sense that it is the first publicly financed arena fully supported by earned income from the building. It has wonderful seating capacity for all the games and the concerts. Its seating capacity for basketball games is 17,072, ice hockey games and ice shows 15,177, end-stage concerts, 16,641 and center-stage concerts and boxing 17,459. Risers hold 7,440 on the upper level and up to 7,741 on the lower level, with luxury suites adding another 1,160 seats.

Actually, Key Arena at Seattle Center has earned the reputation of nation's best gathering place.Undoubtedly, It is home to the finest cultural and educational organizations, sports teams, festivals, community programs and entertainment facilities.

For more information about Key Arena visit: http://venues.ixs.net/venues/Key-Arena/index.aspx