Civic Center Peoria IL
Civic Center Peoria IL is an entertainment complex located in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Philip Johnson and John Burgee, it features an arena, theater, exhibit hall, a ballroom and meeting rooms. It opened in 1982 and completed an expansion to its lobby and meeting facilities in 2007. On the grounds of the Peoria Civic Center sits the massive “Sonar Tide,” the last and largest sculpture of the pioneer of abstract minimalism Ronald Bladen.
The Civic Center Peoria IL is a multipurpose event facility offering the highest levels of customer service for clients and patrons. The Peoria Civic Center includes an arena with seating for 11,300, a 2,196-seat theater, 45,000 square feet of meeting space and 110,000 square feet of exhibit hall space. The downtown location is less than 10 minutes from the Peoria International Airport with over 4,000 hotel rooms nearby, 1,000 within walking distance and 400 attached via indoor skywalk.
Civic Center Peoria IL hosts the annual Broadway in Peoria Series of touring Broadway shows presented by the American Theatre Guild. Season tickets are available along with individual performance tickets for each show. Group tickets are also available at a discount.
The site of the Civic Center Peoria IL includes the spot at Liberty Street and Jefferson Street, where Moses and Lucy Pettengill lived from 1836 to 1862; that house was part of the Underground Railroad and Moses was also an Underground Railroad “conductor”. In 1862, the Pettingills moved out of downtown and to Moss Avenue, where the present Pettengill–Morron House was built in 1868. The downtown home was demolished in 1910 to make way for the Jefferson Hotel. The hotel, in turn, was imploded in 1978 to make way for the Peoria Civic Center.
The first event at the Civic Center Peoria IL was a home and garden show in the Exhibit Hall in February 1982.
Carver Arena has been hosts to acts such as Eagles, Elton John, Bob Seger, Kiss, Blake Shelton, Eric Church, Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Jason Aldean, Cher, Janet Jackson, James Taylor, Avenged Sevenfold, Shinedown, Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch, The Harlem Globetrotters, World Wrestling Entertainment, Disney, Monster Jam, Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live, Disney on Ice, and basketball exhibition games for the Chicago Bulls.
As of 2013, seating capacity was 9,919 for hockey and indoor football, 11,433 for basketball and up to 12,036 for concerts. Bob Seger set the record for the highest-grossing concert in venue history on January 22, 2019. The previous record was held by an Elton John concert in 2011. Reba McEntire set a record for top-selling country concert in venue history on March 18, 2022. Previous record holder was Blake Shelton.
Steve Martin and Martin Short’s Now You See Them, Soon You Won’t event on April 20, 2019, set the record for top comedy show in the Peoria Civic Center Theater’s History. Harry Connick Jr. set a new box office record for a concert in the theater with his December 3, 2022 performance.
Pollstar ranked the Civic Center in Peoria IL Theater as the 96th top selling theater in the world and 3rd in state of Illinois behind Chicago based venues with the Chicago Theatre and Rosemont Theatre in the first and second places.