When it first opened in 1961, the Mellon Arena was known as the Civic Arena. Then in December of 1999, the resident Pittsburgh Penguins signed an $18-million, 10-year agreement to rename the Civic Arena the Mellon Arena, after the Pittsburgh-based bank.
The Mellon Arena has exemplified every trait of a world class entertainment facility. Originally built to house the Civic Light Opera, the Mellon Arena is home to a variety of family shows and has hosted such music legends as Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones, six sold-out nights of Garth Brooks and The Grateful Dead.
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The Mellon Arena hosted its first show, the Ice Capades, on September 19, 1961. Other notable performance highlights include: The Beatles on September 14, 1964, Elvis Presley on June 25, 1973 and the Page/Plant concert on March 25, 1995, which registered the highest attendance ever in the Arena (17,764) until January 30, 1999 when 18,150 fans packed the arena for a WWF house show.
The Mellon Arena is famous for its revolutionary architectural design which features the largest retractable, stainless steel dome roof in the world--170,000 total square feet and 2,950 tons of Pittsburgh steel. The roof, which has no interior supports, is divided radially into eight leaves and is supported by a huge cantilever arm that arches 260 feet. The Mellon Arena, which was featured in the 1995 film "Sudden Death" starring Jean Claude Van Damme, boasts a dome that is designed to open or close in just two minutes.
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