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Fun facts about Washington, D.C.'s Verizon Center, home to the Wizards, Capitals, Mystics and Hoyas
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I can not claim to have done any work here. The great Sheila Francis, director of events and venue public relations for Washington Sports and Entertainment, which runs Verizon Center, e-mailed me all the cool and interesting information below. I've worked with her for a couple of years on and off so I guess I've done something right to get the great gift you see below. You should read the entire list because there is a lot of surprising stuff in there about record-breaking events. Through various jobs I have been to the majority of these events. Enjoy.
- In the Top 25 highest attended events with single or multiple show days in the 11 ½ year history of Verizon Center, Disney on Ice appears nine times, and Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey circus appears 10 times. The highest attended single and multiple day event in building history is the 2003 World Figure Skating Championships. The only concerts to appear on the list are Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel & Elton John.
- The highest attended individual event in building history is held by one of three Bruce Springsteen shows during his 1999 tour. The Top 5 on this list includes only two artists: Bruce Springsteen and U2, with U2 nabbing three of the top five spots between their 2001 and 2005 tours.
- The highest grossing individual event in building history is held by Barbra Streisand when she performed at Verizon Center for the first time in 2006. The remaining top five include the Rolling Stones – twice, The Three Tenors and the Mike Tyson vs. Kevin McBride fight.
- The highest grossing event between individual and multiple day events in building history is held by the Billy Joel & Elton John tour back in 2002 with three sold out shows. The remaining top five include the 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball Division I Tournament First and Second Rounds, the Rolling Stones 1999 tour, U2’s 2005 tour and Barbra Streisand’s 2006 tour.
- The highest attended country show in building history is held by the Dixie Chicks.
- The most sellouts in the history of the building by an artist is held by Bruce Springsteen at seven. He sold out three shows in 1999, one in 2002, two in 2007 and one next month in 2009. The next closest number of sellouts is five, held between the Dixie Chicks, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, American Idols Live and Trans Siberian Orchestra.
- The record for the most number of consecutive shows by an artist is three, tied between Prince, Janet Jackson and Cirque du Soleil’s Delirium Tour.
- The highest grossing and highest attendance for an individual comedy show is held by Dane Cook from his 2007 tour, which was also his first appearance at the arena.
- The number of sold out games and concerts in the history of the building as of today, sits at 487.
- There are seven cars located throughout the building: four on the main concourse, two on the suite level and one on the upper concourse.
- The longest tenured events for the building are the Harlem Globetrotters (1973) and the Washington International Horse Show (1975), both of which date back to the days of the Capital Centre.
- In 2005, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and U2 all performed within two weeks of each other marking the highest grossing month in the history of the building for concerts/events.
- In 2000, the Three Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras performed one of only four U.S. concerts at Verizon Center.
- The first concert played at Verizon Center was by Barry Manilow on December 10, 1997.
- The Washington Capitals go through 3,000 pucks during practices over the course of a season.
- Eight other businesses get their mail delivered to Verizon Center: McDonald’s, The Green Turtle, and Chipotle are only a few.
- The Washington Mystics receive 8-10 deliveries per day during the season ranging from one box to 10-12 pallets of giveaway items.
- There are 300 televisions within Verizon Center
- The Washington Wizards receive 15-20 deliveries per day during the season ranging from one box to 15-20 pallets of giveaway items.
- There are 285 trash cans in the building
- Ice floor is situated 24 feet below street level
- At its closest point, Verizon Center is six inches from a Metro tunnel.
- The parking garage access tunnel is three feet below center court.
- The urban site of Verizon Center did not provide for an outside staging area so 80,000 square feet of internal marshalling was required on the event floor inside the building for the unloading and loading of performers' buses and tractor trailers. The arena itself is 1,050,000 square feet (an entire city block).
- Verizon Center houses three different, portable basketball courts for three different teams: the Washington Wizards, the Washington Mystics and the Georgetown Hoyas. Each basketball floor is designed by Robbins Sports Surfaces, designed to offer a double change situation, and stored in a humidity-controlled room on the event level.
- Pre-wired for television, telephones and radio signals to be transmitted, Verizon Center houses 55 z-panels. These panels allow media to "plug in" to the panel at numerous locations in the building and send their signal through fiber optic technology.
- There are no satellite up-link dishes on top of Verizon Center. Instead, the signals from the z-panel travel to the television head-end room or "zoo" which transmits the signal to the local telephone company Audio Visual Operations Center by fiber optics.
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