Huntsville-Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau
Halsey Foodservice
Port of Huntsville
Huntsville Hospital
Matheny Goldmon Interior and Designs
The Orthopaedic Center
VBCC marquee on opening day, March 14, 1975. photo by Sam Tumminello
1975-2025
VON BRAUN CENTER: THE CENTER OF IT ALL
Foreword by Cliff Wallace, Former Executive Director, Von Braun Center
Introduction by Steve Maples, Executive Director, Von Braun Center
Project Manager Samantha Nielsen
Written by Jacob Wintzel, Lori Connors, Deborah Storey, Kimberly Ballard, Mark McCarter, Patricia McCarter, and Samantha Nielsen
Photography by Dennis Keim, Jeff White, Bud Gambrell, Sam Tumminello, Cliff Wallace, Steve Babin, Amy Clevenger, Kobi Childers, Josh Bartlett, Marty Sellers and Austin Spencer
Historical and other images graciously provided by The Huntsville-Madison County Library, Alabama Media Group, and Von Braun Center Archives
Ronald P. Beers, Publisher
Rachel Beers Fisher, Editor
Amye King, Designer Gary Pulliam, Print and Production Management
Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. However, the authors and Beers & Associates are not responsible for any errors or omissions that might have occurred.
Printing and Production by Friesens Corporation. Printed in Canada.
Downtown Huntsville, Alabama, 2022, photo by Dennis Keim
KNOWN AS THE VON BRAUN CIVIC CENTER FROM ITS OPENING IN 1975, THE ORGANIZATION DROPPED THE TERM ‘CIVIC’ IN 1997 – SIMPLY BECOMING KNOWN AS THE VON BRAUN CENTER – AFTER THE ADDITION OF SOUTH HALL. THIS BOOK WILL REFERENCE BOTH NAMES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TIMELINE OF EVENTS.
Original 3-D model of Von Braun Civic Center from architectural firm Northington, Smith, Kranert & Associates
HEARTFELT THANKS AND APPRECIATION GO OUT TO THOSE WHO BEGAN THE STRATEGIC THOUGHT PROCESS, PLANNED AND STAFFED, AND CONTINUE CARRYING OUT WHAT HAS CREATED A GOLDEN 50-YEAR HISTORY OF ONE OF THE FINEST EXAMPLES OF A PUBLIC ASSEMBLY VENUE COMPLEX.
Board of Control
Gordon W. Dykes; Chairman 1970 -1974
Tom G. Thrasher; Chairman 1974 -1990
Martha Simms Rambo; Chairman 1990 -1998
E. Wayne Bonner Chairman 1998-2022
Evans Quinlivan; Chairman 2022-2024
Dr. William Sullins; 2024-Present
1. Gordon W. Dykes; 1970-1974
2. Tom G. Thrasher; 1970-1990
3. Martha Simms Rambo; 1970-1998
4. M. R. Bottesini; 1970-1979
5. Dwight Daniell, Jr.; 1970-1974
6. James E. Keat; 1970-1977
7. Robert L. Stagg; 1970-1991
8. Lochlin W. Caffey; 1974-1976
9. Loretta P. Spencer; 1976-1996
10. W. T. Hedden; 1977-1979
11. Harold Eskew; 1979-1997
12. Dr. Richard S. Harris; 1984-1992
13. T. Frank Morring; 1989-1993; 1994-1999
14. E. Wayne Bonner; 1990-2022
15. Jack B. Charlton; 1991-1994
16. Eddie J. Turner; 1992-2019
17. Jeff Sikes; 1993-2001
18. Steve Hettinger; 1996-2004
19. Ronald E. Reed; 1997-2009
20. Tom McCarty; 1998-2002
21. Linda Green; 1999-2002
22. Tracy Jones; 2001-2006
23. Janice Fowler; 2002-2011
24. Betty Schonrock; 2002-2019
25. Evans Quinlivan 2004-2024
26. Linda Maynor; 2006-2017
27. Dr. William Sullins; 2009-Present
28. Sandra Moon; 2011-2013
29. Randy Schrimsher; 2013-Present
30. Dr. John Johnson; 2017-Present
31. Steven Thornton; 2019-Present
32. DeMarco McClain; 2020-Present
33. Lynn Troy; 2022-Present
34. Rey Almodóvar; 2024-Present
Leadership/Executive Directors
1. Howard Radford; 1971-1974
2. Cliff Wallace; 1975-1980
3. Bill Luther; 1981-1988
4. Steven Greil (Interim Director); February-April 1988
5. Roger Newton; 1988-1990
6. Ron Evans; 1990-2007
7. Steve Maples; 2007-Present
The Huntsville Times, 1975
FOREWORD
by Cliff Wallace, VBCC Executive Director, 1975-1980
Inthe 1960’s, the development of public assembly venues (specifically, arenas, convention centers, exhibition centers, and performing arts centers) exploded within the United States. During this time, Huntsville was considered a relatively small and quiet community generally known outside of the state only for the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal. However, Huntsville and Madison County soon became a haven for NASA’s space program, and the visionary community members of the time saw the need for new and larger arts-oriented venues on the horizon.
In response to the imminent growth of the area as the space program gained momentum, the Public Building Authority developed plans for a civic arts center in 1965. Four years later, Huntsville City Council chartered the Civic Center Advisory Board. A seven-member Board of Control was ultimately appointed in 1970 and formally assigned the task of developing a complex to meet Huntsville’s facility needs for the arts, entertainment, and otherwise. The appointments resulted in a brilliant balance of civic leaders recognized for their contributions and accomplishments in their respective fields and shared a proven commitment to Huntsville’s quality-of-life enhancement efforts.
One of the new Board’s first major decisions was the venue’s location. In December 1971, signage was posted identifying the future site of the VBCC—a few yards from where the city was born 166 years prior.
Staffing was also the Board’s responsibility. Those seven civic leaders knew the critical importance of staff and how, ultimately, location, design, functionality, staff, and management collectively would lure events to Huntsville, generate public interest, and achieve guest comfort and safety—thus ensuring financial viability.
I am compelled at this point to make a first-hand personal and essential point. A commitment to excellence prevailed from the first day a staff member joined the VBCC. This was an absolute goal of the Board. As the staff grew to some 50 incredible people in the beginning, a unique team developed. It reminded me of an orchestra attempting to form, with each musician playing a different instrument they had not played before but were determined to master. They listened and followed the conductor’s direction. They quickly learned to play their instrument and collectively created beautiful music. Moving away from the analogy, they fell in love with the VBCC, which was the primary reason venue users and event attendees also fell in love with the VBCC.
In the early years, The Huntsville Times’ Alan Moore wrote about the venue regularly. In almost prophetic fashion, he wrote for the special insert to the Sunday edition on March 9, 1975, that the Von Braun Civic Center will open, “symbolizing the complete transformation of a sleepy Southern cotton town into a cosmopolitan city renowned for scientific, industrial and cultural sophistication.” He continued, “This will be a true civic center in that it will house events appealing to all citizens, whether their interests are cultural, educational, religious, political or athletic.”
The Von Braun Center has led an exceptional 50-year history. From its opening in 1975 throughout all its subsequent expansions and enhancements, the results are extraordinary testimonies to Huntsville’s visionary government, community leaders, VBC Board, and staff, who have overwhelmingly proved the community’s need was and is continuing to be met beyond expectations.
Following my tenure as CEO at the VBCC, I have led as the CEO of many venues worldwide, and there has yet to be any staffed by teams any more dedicated, enthusiastic, and responsive than what I experienced in Huntsville. That, coupled with the most professional and dedicated Board I worked with, created an opportunity and future career path for me that words cannot describe.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The name was settled before the facility was even built. In February 1970, Huntsville City Council declared it the Von Braun Civic Center. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica, German-born American rocket engineer, Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), is widely known as one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration in the twentieth century. He and his team of rocket engineers transformed Huntsville, Alabama (known in the 1950s as the “Watercress Capital of the World”) into a technology center that today is home to the second largest research park in the United States and to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center (USSRC) with its worldclass educational program – Space Camp.
A 1970 ordinance cited the rocket pioneer’s “singular contributions to mankind” and stated he should be “recognized by the naming of some outstanding public institution or building.”
City Council agreed it was both “desirable and appropriate” to name the planned center after Huntsville’s most famous resident.
Just months after man’s first moon landing in July 1969, that name carried no hint of the controversy that would surface in later years. Dr. von Braun, who moved to Huntsville in 1950, was the first director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and led development of large space launch vehicles, including the Saturn class that took man to the moon. Dr. Von Braun and his team of both Germans and Americans changed the trajectory of Huntsville, Alabama, and ensured its future as The Rocket City. NASA’s Artemis program, poised to put new generations of explorers on the moon by 2026 and establish a long-term human presence there by 2028, relies heavily on the expertise and capabilities of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. While his impact on
Huntsville and the state of Alabama are profound, any discussion of Dr. von Braun requires an honest reckoning of his work in Germany, where he served as the technical director of the Third Reich’s V-2 missile project.
Additional impacts from Dr. von Braun’s team in Huntsville include:
• Development of rockets that put the first U.S. satellite into orbit and sent men to the moon;
• Development of propulsion for the space shuttle;
• Development of modules for the International Space Station (ISS);
• Development of America’s next great ship –the Space Launch System (SLS);
• Continual 24/7 monitoring of science payloads on the ISS;
• Development of the Von Braun Astronomical Society (originally named Rocket City Astronomical Association) – a facility that played an integral role in the Apollo moon landing as Dr. von Braun and his team used the Association’s telescope to search for possible landing sites for the Apollo program;
• Development of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and positioning it as a world-renowned research institute that continues to provide advanced engineering and science curricula including astrophysics, atmospheric science, aerospace engineering, cyber security, digital animation; and
• Development of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra – Alabama’s oldest continuouslyoperating professional orchestra.
INTRODUCTION
by Steve Maples, VBC Executive Director, 2007-Present
In celebration of the Von Braun Center nearing its 50th anniversary, I, along with our talented staff and dedicated Board of Control (both past and present), are proud to publish this commemorative book detailing the beginnings of the Center through five decades of growth and impact.
Since 1975, the VBC has created an unparalleled legacy in the community. It is an icon, a pillar of Huntsville and North Alabama, and there is truly no other organization or business like it in the region.
It is our hope that as you read the following pages, you will not only learn about the rich history of Huntsville’s arts community but also find a renewed passion for an institution that has been a space for countless memories to be made by people from all walks of life.
The information in this book was developed through first-hand interviews and a deep dive into news articles spanning more than half a century. From the grumblings of community members in the 1950s that grew to action in the 60s and 70s to our city experiencing unprecedented growth leading to facility expansions in the 80s and 90s and that continue into today, these pages document the development and success of an institution that helped change the trajectory of Huntsville.
Offering accommodations for all, the VBC has served diverse audiences through diverse events, including major conferences, concerts, theatrical performances, sporting events, private events, and much more. The common denominator? They bring people together for meaningful, in-person moments that create lasting memories.
One of the most special aspects of working at an event venue is helping create those moments. No matter the event, when a person comes to the Center, it is something they have planned for. Thought goes into the outfit, dinner and drinks before or after are planned, and excitement builds in the weeks leading up to the moment they arrive.
The VBC’s 50th anniversary theme is simple: Your Place Through Time. It calls for the community to remember how the VBC has been your place for those shared experiences and how it will continue to be your place for many years to come.
When the Center opened its doors in 1975, it was home to an Arena, Concert Hall, Playhouse, East Hall, and Art Museum. Today, the Von Braun Center includes Propst Arena, Mark C. Smith Concert Hall, The Playhouse, Saturn Ballroom, South Hall, East Hall, Mars Music Hall, Rhythm on Monroe, and a full-service catering kitchen.
When last year’s fiscal year ended, the VBC hosted 544 events with an estimated economic impact of over $97 million between October 2022 and September 2023.
We know the VBC is a significant factor in Huntsville’s quality-of-life, and we take that role very seriously. With our city consistently landing in top spots on national rankings, including the No. 1 Best Place to Live by U.S. News & World Report, people and businesses are constantly relocating to the area. The VBC staff, our Board of Control, and city leaders are deeply committed to ensuring the Von Braun Center remains a place where community members and visitors continue connecting and creating memories for many years to come.
pictured right: Tom Thrasher, Steve Maples, and Joey Dennis
Downtown Huntsville, Alabama, 2020, photo by Dennis Keim
EARLY BEGINNINGS: IDENTIFYING AND SOLVING A COMMUNITY NEED
DECADES BEFORE VON BRAUN CIVIC CENTER
OPENED, HUNTSVILLE LEADERS KNEW THEY NEEDED SUCH A PLACE — BUT THEY DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH.
photo by Sam Tumminello
Just weeks after the doors opened in March 1975, The Huntsville Times declared that Huntsville would never be the same. Few prophecies ring that true five decades later.
Over the years, thousands of people have watched concerts, basketball and hockey games, speeches, and plays there or attended art exhibits, dances, receptions, and conventions.
The seed for the VBC was sown many years before its official 1973 groundbreaking. As far back as the 1940s-1950s, the city’s civic leaders and the Huntsville community had visions of a civic hub where arts and culture could intersect.
Prior to 1975, patrons had to travel to various venues around Madison County to enjoy theater, symphony performances, or live popular music, such as rock and country music concerts. For bigger shows, a trip to Birmingham, Nashville, or even Atlanta might be required. Huntsville was considered a “secondary market;” thus, the capacity and logistics to host larger nationwide productions, conventions, or performances were virtually nonexistent.
Even so, the city had a tradition of live performances dating back to the early 20th century. Vaudeville and legitimate drama were presented at the circa-1907 Elks Opera House at Eustis Avenue and Greene Street.
The Beaux Arts-style theater seated 1,400 and was the city’s premier performance space. Before the theatre was torn down and turned into a parking lot in 1967, its beloved white stone comedy-tragedy masks were saved. Today, they still grin and weep outside the VBC Mark C. Smith Concert Hall.
For decades, local schools and churches accommodated organizations needing large gathering spaces. In 1955, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra (HSO) held its first rehearsal in the Butler High School
band room when Butler was located on Clinton Avenue.
The auditorium of Huntsville Junior High was a makeshift concert hall until a new Huntsville High School opened in 1954 with space for 1,100. Some local entertainers performed at the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Recital Hall. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the Madison County Coliseum in West Huntsville hosted rock groups and wrestling.
High school graduates walked the stage at First Baptist Church or Milton Frank Stadium. Huntsville High School’s auditorium was the setting for touring Broadway productions, and the Huntsville Community Chorus performed at First Methodist Church downtown.
The Huntsville Art League and Museum Association (HALMA) was founded as a local non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting art and creativity, aiming to establish a permanent art museum in Huntsville. HALMA held its first organizational meeting in 1957 at First Presbyterian Church on Gates Avenue and its first art exhibition in the Huntsville Utilities Building in 1959 (it would later rebrand as Huntsville Art League in 1989 with the establishment of the Huntsville Museum of Art).
In 1962, the Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art spoke to the HALMA club, with additional attendance by state and local dignitaries. Following the discussion, the Huntsville City Council ordered a feasibility study to identify the need for a civic and cultural space.
1962 also brought the development of another arts organization to HuntsvilleThe Arts Council Inc. This membershipbased 501(c)(3), which would later become Arts Huntsville, worked with HALMA to rally the arts community.
An article from The Huntsville Times on October 5, 1963, reported that a fundraising dinner hosted by The Arts Council that May was attended by over 500 patrons in the area who demonstrated their interest and support of a civic arts center in Huntsville. The October article that followed five months after the May dinner revealed a suggested layout of the proposed civic arts center, “It is shown as occupying a tract south of the present Big Spring Community Center and southwest of the planned new chamber of commerce building, library, and Southern Bell Telephone Co. building. The large round portion at left would be a 2,500-seat auditorium. The double trapezoid-shaped structure in the Center would be an exhibition and meeting gallery, and a smaller theater is at the right of the complex. An office for the Arts Council Inc. would be at the end of the arch. Adjoining the complex would be a 1,200-car parking lot, which would also serve nearby
municipal buildings during the day.” Discussion over the proposed civic arts center would continue over the years, morphing into different versions based on community needs and political aspirations that would ultimately lead to the development of the VBCC.
For decades, advocates of a new entertainment and meeting facility were enthusiastically united on need but differed on specifics. Newspaper reports show that some envisioned only an auditorium larger and more comfortable than Huntsville High’s. Others wanted both a large and a small one. Some wanted only art exhibition space, classrooms, or rehearsal space.
Eventually, the consensus was that Huntsville needed all that and more — a large auditorium, a small theater, and an art gallery.
This photo from The Huntsville Times on October 5th, 1963 shows the proposed civic arts center pictured left of Big Spring Community Center.
As the community became increasingly vocal, politicians saw the advantage of such a center in a city experiencing enormous growth because of thriving defense and space programs.
The community’s demand for a cultural hub continued to gain momentum with each passing year. In 1965, the Public Building Authority contracted with Booz-AllenHamilton to develop a civic arts hub plan.
The original civic center concept started small. It included a large theater, a smaller theater, an exhibition space, and an art museum. However, Huntsville City Council also felt that a large arena for sporting events would be needed to support the other facilities.
In 1969, the City Council chartered the Civic Center Advisory Board (CCAB) to advise on the design, financing, construction, and
ideas and inspiration, CCAB members, local planners, and architects traveled to over a dozen U.S. cities to evaluate various facilities. The CCAB was tasked with developing a master plan, which included an arena-type auditorium that could seat 10,000.
NEEDED, BUT WHERE?
Soon, the big question was where to put such a center.
A business advocate group called the Central City Association naturally wanted it downtown. The UAH campus and the old airport grounds in south Huntsville were also debated. One proposed site near the downtown library was scrapped when engineers reported the ground was sinking.
Big Spring International Park took the lead, primarily because downtown was experiencing radical urban renewal.
A sparkling new marble City Hall opened in 1965, and the Madison County Courthouse opened on the downtown square in 1966. The Continental Trailways Station and Meadow Gold Dairy would eventually make way for the civic center. Still, telegraph company Western Union clung to the northern end until progress would later claim it, too.
Center operational plans began to firm up in August 1970 when the City Council approved the creation of a seven-member VBCC Board of Control to maintain, operate, and manage the proposed facility.
The new governing board’s first meeting began at noon on October 1, 1970, at the Russel Erskine Hotel downtown. City Council member Joe Peters showed a map of the proposed downtown site. City leaders declared that 2% lodging and 10% liquor taxes would finance the multi-million-dollar project. On Halloween in 1970, the city began collecting taxes for a civic center fund. In November, a Council resolution called the facility’s construction “necessary.” Money accumulated fast, and thousands of dollars poured in from the city’s private nightclubs.
Huntsville’s arts and entertainment supporters who were caught up in civic center feverhoisted drinks and challenged, “Drink up for the arts!” one veteran resident remembers.
Mr. Gordon Dykes was the VBCC Board’s first chairman and brought an impressive resume. From 1968 to 1974, he was deputy director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Command at Redstone Arsenal. He later moved to Italy with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mediterranean Division.
Other early board members were 29-yearold engineer Robert Stagg, engineer Jim Keat, Bank of Huntsville president Mario Bottesini, and arts advocate Martha Simms, wife of The Huntsville Times publisher Leroy Simms - and a force herself for the project. The VBCC Board would soon have seven members and a $60,000 - $22,650 budget to hire a director.
Original Board member Bob Stagg can still recall a flurry of early meetings at temporary Board offices on Greene Street across from First Methodist Church. Like most civic leaders back then, he was a Huntsville Jaycee. Stagg was about 20 years younger than the rest of the Board.
According to Stagg, architects had drawn up a plan for seven phases, and Board members “might meet for three days in a row” to review them. A detailed study suggested an arena with 4,500 seats, an art museum, and a so-called black box theater. A food preparation area was also included but didn’t have ovens.
Stagg said the debate about location and other specifics was “sometimes heated.” Should arena seats be fixed, or should removable ones be included on the floor? What kind of chairs would such a place need? “I’m sure many of you have seen the heavy, padded chrome folding chairs still used throughout the building,” he said during a dinner in 2015 celebrating the Center’s 40th anniversary. The vendor who wanted to sell them “stepped up onto the chair, jumped up and down and said, ‘This is the way your chair will be treated.’”
Residents who have attended shows at the VBC over the past 50 years can confirm that.
Final architectural plans included:
• 2,200-seat auditorium for concerts, opera, ballet, plays, and graduations (concert hall)
• 400-seat theater for local performance groups (playhouse)
• Arena with 7,000 permanent seats
• 20,000-square-foot exhibit area with meeting rooms (exhibit hall)
• 40,000-square-foot arts and museum building (administration and art museum)
It’s easy to assume Huntsvillians now take a combined entertainment, meeting, convention, and sports facility for granted. Still, it was a novel concept back then. “There wasn’t any other complex in the U.S. that had all these attributes under one roof,” Stagg said.
Before it was built, the first center director,
“The Board relied heavily on his advice and expertise,” remembered Stagg.
“He educated us on everything about operating a civic center, from concession stands with popcorn machines - you sell more concessions when patrons can smell the popcorn - to the needs of box office security, to the need for roll-up doors for easy access when quick changeovers were required, to folding chairs and scoreboards.”
In what is undoubtedly his most significant legacy, ice hockey fan Radford pushed the idea of an ice rink. “He convinced the Board that we wanted to have a permanent icemaking capability as part of the arena,” said Stagg. Sadly, Mr. Radford passed away before the Center opened. His administrative assistant, Mrs. Analoyce Tipton, continued with the Center and was the longest-serving employee before her passing in 2020.
pictured right: Land being cleared for VBCC construction.
THE MYSTERY OF
HUNTSVILLE’S
Each autumn, the fan-shaped leaves of the beloved Ginkgo tree outside the VBC’s Mark C. Smith Concert Hall transition into brilliant gold. This stunning specimen has welcomed downtown visitors since before the VBCC opened in 1975. His roots go back to when Huntsville Wholesale Nursery hauled its stock to a railroad shipping yard near the downtown park lagoon – the site where the Center would eventually be built.
According to City of Huntsville Arborist Marc Byers, whose family-owned Byers Nursery, his father theorized that a nursery employee planted the Ginkgo, estimated to now be more than 70 years old. This theory is supported by accounts recalling the tree being fenced off for protection during the Center’s construction.
“[Dad] delivered oakleaf there to the big warehouse one time,” Byers recounted from a memory of a conversation with his father M. David Byers, Jr. “He remembered hearing Shelby Vaughn, an employee of the nursery, saying he planted that Ginkgo.” Mr. Vaughn was a Mason and documentation shows he also planted a Ginkgo on the south side of the Masonic Temple in Huntsville.
GINKGO TREE
Mr. Vaughn (born circa 1901) is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery.
This tree and his ancestors are extraordinary. The Gingko (also known as Maidenhair Tree) is native to Asia and believed to be the sole surviving species of an ancient group of trees that co-existed with the dinosaurs, with fossils of Ginkgo leaves dating back more than 200 million years. Ginkgo trees are dioecious (having male and female trees), and the Ginkgo at the VBC shows his male flower parts each spring.
The VBC’s Ginkgo has united friends and family under his branches for decades. From gathering new graduates with their families, being a meeting place for friends attending a concert, and offering shade to tiny dancers before a recital, he has been steadfast in overseeing it all.
Special thank you to arborists Marc Byers, Chris Stuhlinger, Lee Haymes, and Stoney Gray for their help researching and discovering the “roots” of the historic VBC Ginkgo tree.
HOWARD EARL RADFORD
May 25, 1919 - June 15, 1974
The first appointed director of the VBCC led an interesting and fulfilling life before his time in Huntsville. Born on May 25, 1919 in Perth, Ontario, Canada, inside a small stone house on a hop farm with no running water, Howard Radford was the eldest of seven siblings. He left the farm after high school and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force where he trained to be an Aero Engine Mechanic serving with Lorne Greene of Bonanza. After his time with the military, he sold life insurance, became the principal for a business college in Chatham Ontario, and then changed his career again to managing arenas in seven cities: Guelph, Ontario; North Bay, Ontario; Peterborough, Ontario; Port Huron, Michigan; Flint, Michigan; Roanoke, Virginia; and finally landing in Huntsville, Alabama. According to his children,
“Dad was always a man looking for a challenge to satisfy his thirst to achieve the next goal. One might say he became bored with the routine, but he always accepted the opportunity and challenge of the bigger task on the next move.” He had a passion for promotion and entertainment. “Dad was at ease making a case for investment in communities to benefit the youth and others. He had a way of communicating with any level in an organization, whether it was the impact of design, corrective action on errors or the encouragement for employees to raise their self-expectations and ownership.”
Even though he left the hop farm after high school, he would return every year to paint the old homestead until he moved his family to the U.S. in 1962. Howard Radford passed away on June 15, 1974, just nine months before the opening of the VBCC, leaving behind his wife, Edith, four children (Dennis, Dianne, Paul and Sandra), ten grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. His portrait still hangs in the Center today.
Howard’s children, Dennis and Sandra, standing in front of Mr. Radford’s portrait which hangs inside the VBC Mark C. Smith Concert Hall.
In those early days, the Board met with several architects. Local architect, Lloyd Kranert, led the design team. In February 1972, the Board unveiled plans for a sprawling complex in the heart of downtown.
The advertisement for construction bids went out in November 1972. Firms from Atlanta, Dallas, and Birmingham competed. Universal Construction of Decatur won with a low bid of $11,734,000.
Expected costs were:
• Auditorium (concert hall): $3,127,716
• Little theater (playhouse): $1,150,668
• Exhibit and meeting space (exhibit hall): $1,638,705
• Classrooms and museum (administration and art museum): $1,040,183
• Arena: $5,884,674 (with up to $40 each for seats)
The printed plans weighed an estimated 50 to 80 pounds.
VBCC Board records show parking was an early concern, and members advocated for a nice local hotel to complement the new complex (The Huntsville Hilton opened in
Community excitement built quickly. In 1973, the Huntsville Grace Club Auxiliary gave $10,931 to purchase a Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano for the new concert hall, while the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra Association began its Crescen-Dough auction in 1973 as a one-time event to support the commission of the oratorio “Galileo Galilei” by Lee Hoiby to celebrate the grand opening.
In April of 1973, with a grand opening more than two years away, Radford told the Board that “interest is exceedingly high toward the anticipated use of the civic center by both local people and outside promoters.” Two major conventions and Holiday On Ice were already booked.
Board members learned that a March 1975 opening was indeed feasible. In September 1973, the Board declared that official opening ceremonies would occur on Friday, March 14, 1975.
Dr. von Braun turned the first shovel at the groundbreaking in February 1973. More than 350 construction workers got busy. The bowl-shaped arena frame on the fringe of the park was a dazzling site.
On March 13, 1975, the Huntsville City Council went through the formality of officially granting “custody” of the VBCC to its Board of Directors. Stagg remembers all Board members had, “done a fortunate job of pulling it all together.” Still, VBCC Board Chairman Mr. Gordon Dykes stands out in his mind. “The reason we have the building we have at the quality it is for the price we got it for is because of Gordon Dykes,” said Stagg. “He knew how to write an architectural contract, a construction contract, and build buildings.
He did a “flat beautiful job” of holding everyone accountable, and it was designed to meet the best standards available at the time.”
left: Huntsville Mayor Joe Davis viewing construction.
MODEL D GRAND – FIRST PIANO AHEAD OF GRAND OPENING
The Center still owns the original piano which was crafted in 1974. According to M. Steinert & Sons’ website, the Steinway Model D Grand is the official piano of hundreds of musical venues including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard, and the New England Conservatory. “In essence, the Model D is for those who insist on the best possible piano…” To this day, musicians request (and sometimes require) a Steinway Model D when advancing their shows at the VBC.
VBC’s Model D Grand Piano on stage in the Mars Music Hall
Mr. Dykes’ plan suggested teams of architects. “It outlined each phase the architects were to accomplish and how the Board would be involved during each phase,” Stagg continued. “It also required an independent cost-analysis after each phase.” The result? “The contract signed with Universal Construction in 1973 included the entire scope asked for in the City Council’s original resolution - and it met the budget.”
OPENING DAY
The VBCC was completed within the estimated two years and within the estimated budget of just over $12 million. In February 1975, The Huntsville Times announced tickets would soon be on sale for the much-anticipated opening weekend. The community was abuzz. Opening-day festivities called for Huntsville Mayor Joe Davis to cut the ribbon and a sit-down dinner for 2,000.
On March 14, 1975, the Huntsville Concert Band kicked-off the ribbon cutting at 11:30 a.m. The mayor delivered the dedication inside the new arena, followed by Marshall Space Flight Center Director Dr. W.R. Lucas, introducing Dr. von Braun as the keynote speaker.
The celebration continued into the night with the “Beaux Arts Ball,” ushering in a new era of
arts and entertainment for the Huntsville community. Reports say festivities kept many Huntsvillians up until 1:30 a.m.
The following day, doors opened for free public tours. The concert hall hosted its first event as the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra (conducted by D. Marx Pales), performed with German guest pianist Hans Richter-Hasser. With funds from their 1973 auction, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra Association commissioned the specially composed Galileo Galilei musical
“premiere” that included Oakwood College’s Lady Shivers Tucker and John Reardon, leading baritone of the Metropolitan Opera. To Dr. Pales, the new concert hall was a gamechanger for Symphony performances. “With that big of a stage, we are able to do many more things,” Dr. Pales said in an interview.
The arena was showcased on March 19 with Holiday On Ice, which performed seven shows to sold-out crowds over the next five days. On March 20, Huntsville Little Theater presented the first local drama production
in the 400-seat playhouse with Barefoot in the Park. The Huntsville Times reviewer, Mr. Alan Moore, called the new venue a good setting for the Neil Simon comedy, with “not a poor seat in the house.”
The lineup of events in those first few months was unprecedented for Huntsville. Author Truman Capote spoke in March, and country legend Johnny Cash performed that month, too.
The first big rock show was on March 31. “Space City Jam ‘75” brought Sugarloaf and the Atlanta Rhythm Section. The next day, The Huntsville Times reported an “influx of long-haired people” numbering 3,000 and promised “vast potential for further presentation of high-quality performances of rock art.”
In April 1975, Board members heard that attendance was 88,530 in just 16 days in March, further proving that the new Center had something for everyone. Parental favorite band leader Lawrence Welk and shock rocker Alice Cooper performed back-to-back on May 27-28. By September 30, 247 events had attracted 450,987 people. Huntsville’s population at the time was about 145,000.
A group of entertainment venue professionals from 11 Southeastern states toured the new facility in December 1975 and pronounced it “superb.” The trade publication Amusement Business published so many positive articles about Huntsville’s new entertainment complex that people jokingly accused its director of paying for them. Part of the early success can be attributed to that director, a young man who came to Huntsville to help run the city’s new civic complex following the death of Howard Radford.
YOUNG DIRECTOR
Cliff Wallace was assistant manager of the circa 1958 Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, S.C. A referendum to build a
larger facility there failed, and Wallace’s boss advised him to consider Huntsville after hearing about the VBCC project.
Wallace did his research and found the need for a civic center existed, and the prospects looked good. “Huntsville had been essentially void of any real entertainment facility, certainly any facility of any quality,” recalled Wallace, who now calls Atlanta home. “They had the old fairground coliseum at that time. The most exciting thing they did was wrestling and an occasional concert.” Huntsville civic leaders did a limited market potential study, and “the economic base was there,” Wallace said.
“It seemed progressive for reasons I didn’t know,” he reflected, citing busy NASA programs and contractors moving in from across the country. “I saw potential.” Factors included a “visionary” Board of Control and strong support from a mayor and City Council that “made me understand why they put forth the funding they did with the level of confidence they had.” He remembers the planning and design for the new complex were top-notch. Architect “Lloyd Kranert and the Board traveled to a lot of places in the U.S.,” Mr. Wallace said. “They really did their homework.”
While his boss encouraged him to go for it, others in Greenville told him he was taking a risk. The VBCC Board, though, “convinced me that the building had great potential, and that’s certainly proved the case.” Center Board member Martha Simms asked Wallace to come to town for an interview.
“After looking around the building, which was under construction then, we went to dinner at a place called Jade Pagoda” on South Memorial Parkway. What seemed like a social event was effectively a job interview for the post of assistant director. The entire Board was there. “At the end of dinner,
(VBCC Board Chairman) Tom Thrasher looked at me and said, ‘Cliff, can you run this place?’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir.’” The Board asked Wallace to move to Huntsville immediately, but he needed to give notice and make family decisions in Greenville. Wallace agreed to start in January. He became acting director in March 1975 and director of the new facility by May – at age 28.
When Wallace first joined the staff at the VBCC the atmosphere was “electrifying,” he remembers years later. “The booking had been pretty good up until the time I arrived,” he said. Many promoters called and asked the Center to hold dates for their artists. The entertainment industry was thriving in the mid-1970s, and many touring artists were looking for venues.
Although the center staff was excellent, there weren’t many people there familiar with the complex inner workings of the entertainment industry. According to Wallace, promoters at that time “tended to choose a building with an industry person they knew, and who had experience. The relationship meant that much,” he said. “Fortunately, I had developed an enormous number of relationships with key promoters in the Southeast because of our success in Greenville.”
Wallace started calling promoters he knew to firm up bookings. So-called “date protection” was important. “People did not want to book and have another big show two or three days before or after them because they knew they’d be competing for ticket sales,” he said. The only official complaint Wallace received in his entire career came during his time in Huntsville. Johnny Cash’s promoter wrote to Mayor Joe Davis that the VBCC had booked Kenny Rogers too close to Cash’s date, one of the first ten shows in the new arena.
Promoters and artists loved the new venue. The city was easy to reach, and the new Hilton Hotel was next door. Setting up and leaving was easy. Even a demanding stage union considered it “as good as anything in major markets,” said Wallace.
Wallace earned a pilot’s license to promote the new Center. “We used an airplane to fly around Alabama and sell Huntsville for tradeshows and conventions,” he said. “We’d fly down to Montgomery, meet with association execs, and lure them to Huntsville.”
BOOKING ELVIS
When Wallace first came to town, he had one specific entertainer in mind to bring to Huntsville. Not just any entertainer – THE entertainer. But to get Elvis Presley, one had to work with his notoriously demanding manager, former circus promoter “Colonel” Tom Parker. “It was one of my goals when I got there to start calling Colonel Tom Parker in an all-out effort to get Elvis booked,” Wallace recalled. “Every morning at 11 o’clock, I put in a call until I got his attention. I finally got him to book Elvis for the first show on May 30. We thought it would be the only one.”
The announcement came on a Friday. Tickets for Elvis Presley went on sale at the VBCC Box Office at 10:00 a.m.
27-year-old Bennie Jacks and several coworkers in the patent office on Redstone Arsenal were tuned in to WBHP radio when the announcement was made.
Jacks, an Elvis fan since she saw him on the Ed Sullivan Show when she was six years old, jumped into her car and headed for the box office only to discover they wouldn’t go on sale until Monday at 10:00 a.m.
Tickets ranged from $6 to $10. Jacks organized a pool of money for everyone who wanted
tickets, and she and a group of friends and coworkers agreed to stand in line. When the box office opened, Jacks was 25th in the queue.
Meanwhile, inside the VBCC, the young director was facing his first big executive challenge - and it was an 800-pound gorilla on ice.
When Holiday On Ice promoters discovered the VBCC had booked Elvis, they were not happy. They feared Elvis would absorb most of the local entertainment budget and kill attendance at their show.
The ice show promoter – an outspoken industry veteran – went “absolutely berserk,” Wallace said. Sales for the ice show slumped by going head-to-head against the King of Rock’ n’ Roll.
Wallace, already charged with changing all the backstage locks in anticipation of Elvis’ arrival, now faced a call with Colonel Parker.
Wallace found himself sitting in his office with Chairman of the VBCC Board of Directors Tom Thrasher, discussing their Elvis/Holiday On Ice dilemma when he was briefly called away. When Wallace returned to his office, Thrasher was chatting with Colonel Parker on the telephone as if they were old buddies.
“I got on the phone with Colonel Parker and said, ‘You’ve got to help me, I’ve got a real problem.” In a remarkably conciliatory gesture, Parker told Wallace, “Elvis and I are going to run an ad in The Huntsville Times for you. It’s going to ask people in Huntsville to buy tickets for Holiday On Ice.”
Meanwhile, as people waited in line for Elvis tickets, rumblings had begun that the original Friday night show on May 30 was sold out. They had added another show on Saturday afternoon, May 31, but it, too, sold out.
Still, no one was leaving the line.
Elvis sold out five shows at the new VBCC from Friday to Sunday, May 30 to June 1. Huntsville became the only city besides Las Vegas where Elvis played five consecutive shows.
In The Huntsville Times, a full-page ad appeared on Sunday, March 9, 1975: “Elvis Presley and The Colonel say See Holiday On Ice. Don’t Miss this Spectacular!”Ice show sales picked up, and all seven performances sold out - a first for them. Elvis had spoken.
Tony Mason, a young local musician at the time who wasn’t an Elvis fan but who wanted to attend and take notes about how Elvis was able to build audience anticipation and excitement, attended the Saturday, March 31, afternoon concert. “There were no obstructed seats in the arena. The lights were up, and then a couple of warm-up acts came out about 20 minutes, I think,” Mason recalls. “I was stoic, notepad in hand when the
lights started going down slowly, and when it was completely dark, you could see flashlights backstage. That’s when people started buzzing, ‘I think I see him!’ ‘Is that him?’ ‘I think that is him!’ as the rising pitch of Also sprach Zarathustra began.
“It’s been more than 50 years since 2001: A Space Odyssey first hit the movie screen, but still today, that timpani is exhilarating,” Mason said. “When the ‘Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom Bom’ ended, the lights suddenly came up, and Elvis bounded onto the stage from a hidden staircase.
“My heart was pounding like the kettledrums, and I jumped up like a 12-year-old girl screaming, ‘There he is!’ I didn’t stop screaming the whole show.”
He also did not take a single note.
At one point, Elvis asked for the lights to be brought up and then marveled at what an amazing and beautiful new facility the Center was.
Bennie Jacks saw three of the five 1975 shows and one of the two shows he returned to perform at the VBCC a year later on Monday, September 6, 1976.
“He could paralyze you,” Jacks said. “When those lights went down and the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme started, every hair on your arms and body stood up.
“He opened with “See See Rider”, and when he sang “Are You Lonesome Tonight”, he added humorous banter and laughed heartily at himself. His laugh alone would sustain you even if he hadn’t sung another note. When the show ended, you could not believe it was already over. No!
Tell me Elvis has not left the building!”
As of this book’s publication, Jacks still works with the VBC to bring Elvis Tribute Artists to town and raise money for various organizations across the city.
At the time, young director Cliff Wallace and the crusty Parker “clicked.” Parker shared some of his promoting tricks. Before Elvis, he represented an older artist and advertised shows where his fans would see them - on the obituary page.
Wallace wasn’t necessarily a big Elvis fan in 1975 but quickly became one after that first Huntsville show. He found the experience “almost spiritual.” “I was standing backstage looking out toward the audience,” he said. “I can remember everyone had binoculars, and the lights were reflecting off those binoculars, and it looked like a lot of animal eyes in Africa.”
Wallace left the VBCC in September 1980 to manage the massive New Orleans Superdome. “It’s because of Huntsville that I had the opportunity to go to the Superdome,” he said. “It’s an indication of how successful Huntsville was. That speaks as much for Huntsville as my potential.
“Of the first 50 shows in the arena, 39 were sellouts,” Wallace recalled of those early days at the VBCC. “That’s a statistic that no building I have ever been familiar with could match.”
In late December 1975, The Huntsville Times printed a retrospective of the Center’s first months. It declared somewhat obviously that the “VBCC totally changed the entertainment scene.”
Box-office cash registers kept ringing. In 12 months, the VBCC had attracted almost a million people to “the core of a revitalized downtown Huntsville,” the newspaper said. During its first year, 803,618 people attended 482 events at the VBCC. An additional
97,000 toured exhibits at the Huntsville Museum of Art, an attendance matched by only 30 percent of the museums in the entire country. Twenty-four convention and trade shows brought 55,650 more. Employees sold 492,000 soft drinks, 186,000 cartons of popcorn, 31,500 hot dogs, and 42,500 candy bars. Wallace told the newspaper of the $1 million first-year budget, “approximately $700,000 has been generated from our own event income, concession sales, and parking fees.” An entertainment industry publication reported that only 8 percent of the nation’s civic facilities scheduled more events that first year.
Wallace later ran a private company that helped manage and design the Memphis Pyramid, Nashville Arena, Palm Springs Convention Center, Miami Arena, and others. He also promoted opera legend Luciano Pavarotti for three years. Fifty years after Wallace’s tenure in Huntsville, CW Venue Advisory Services still works in Hong Kong.
EVERYONE WANTS TICKETS!
For the Elvis shows, fans hoping to get a ticket who couldn’t come to the Center’s Box Office sent in a check or money order and had to include a self-addressed stamped return envelope. There was a limit of ten tickets per order. While each show was quickly selling out, VBCC staff members suddenly began hearing from old friends they hadn’t hear from in years – most of them wanting tickets. In an interview with The Huntsville Times writer Lee Roop, VBCC Public Relations representative Lenora T. Grumbles received a telephone call. “Yes, everything is going just fine for us,” she told the caller on the other line. Following a long pause, she replied, “The only thing I can promise you is to send your money and we’ll see what we can do. I can’t make any promises. Everything is out of our hands.” According to the interview, the caller was from a director of a large civic center in another Alabama town. “You know the last timeI met this person at a convention, he cursed me out,” Grumbles told Roop. “Bringing Elvis Presley to town really
FOR SOME, MEMORIES OF PRESLEY’S SHOW WON’T BE PLEASANT
By Peter Cobun
teenagers who flung themselves from a 20-foot balcony at the Elvis Presley show are mending this week.
Three-hundred teddy bears, hurled at the 40-yearold disciple of rock ‘n’ roll, show no outward signs of injuries, and are reportedly on their way to a children’s hospital.
Sixty hotel rooms rented by Elvis and his lingering entourage have been vacated and cleaned. The sheets on which Elvis rested his aging, tired pelvis are being shredded and sold in tiny patches by a local charity.
A 38-year-old security guard Is nursing his finger, gnawed by an hysterical Presley fan who got away. And at the Von Braun Civic Center, where Elvis played to 44,000 people in five performances last weekend, the last of the flashbulbs has been swept away – enough bulbs to fill three 55-gallon barrels after each performance.
…As for the performances, Saturday night by all indications and reminiscences induced the most uncontrolled frenzy in the audience. From their perch 20-feet above the stage, five teenagers jumped in an ill-fated attempt to land in their imagined heaven – on stage. But instead they received fractures on the concrete below. Ambulances carried two of the girls to a local hospital.
‘The situation really scared us,’ said VBCC Operations Director Gene Woods. ‘The thing kind of got out of hand Saturday night.’
Eight females tried to run over one security guard with the unappreciated assignment of serving in a role note unlike that of a football guard. The finger of one hand he used to prevent the assault was bitten to the bone, requiring several stitches and a great deal of persuasion by a physician that it will still be there long after Elvis’ next decade of hits.
Another of the 40 security guards was pinned against a railing by an unconcerned mass of femininity. ‘He had actually begun to turn blue before we got him out of there,’ said Woods.
HUNTSVILLE REMEMBERS CHALLENGER CREW
A near capacity crowd filled the VBCC’s concert hall to pay tribute to the Space Shuttle Challenger crew, praise their efforts and pray for their families on Sunday, February 2, 1986. Director of Marshall Space Flight Center William Lucas, Governor George Wallace, Mayor Joe Davis and Director of U.S. Space and Rocket Center Ed Buckbee along with other dignitaries were in attendance.
“We will press on in the pilgrimage of space, and I’m confident that, with the help of God, we will not allow their sacrifice to have been in vain,” said Huntsville Mayor Joe Davis. “We in the City
of Huntsville have become very attached to the astronauts, even though we may not know them personally. These young people were brave pioneers seeking out into space to help make life here on Earth a little better.”
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986. It broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard and was the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft while in flight. Crewmembers: Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
REMEMBERING
ANALOYCE TIPTON
August 12, 1942 - April 23, 2020
Right outside the administrative offices, near the big Gingko tree, is a bench with a plaque honoring the memory of Analoyce Tipton – one of the VBC’s most dedicated long-term employees.
Analoyce was the first employee hired at the Von Braun Civic Center and was the “glue” who held it all together.
In 1973, before the VBCC was completed, the 31-year-old Tipton left her job at Boeing to assume administrative assistant duties there.
“She worked for Boeing; then, applied to work at the VBC, and got the job,” said her sister Dale Hopper. “She worked in the original offices downtown on Greene Street before the center opened.”
Over the years, Analoyce made countless connections and significantly impacted tourism and hospitality in Huntsville. She developed and maintained the scheduling system for the city’s civic center that is still the model for booking events today.
Over the years, Analoyce proved to be hardworking, reliable, and knowledgeable about all things VBC. “If someone needed a question answered about the civic center they went to Analoyce because she would always have the answer.”
For years, the event booking calendar (which spanned across more than twenty books almost two-foot by two-foot each) was managed by Analoyce. She noted by hand every event scheduled for each of the organization’s venues. “Nothing was booked in the building if it didn’t go through Analoyce’s calendar,” remarked VBC Assistant Director Mike Vojticek. “She continued handwriting events long after we adopted a digital scheduling system,” Vojticek fondly remembered. “She eventually adapted, but she continued taking
meticulous notes about events. She was the absolute best and everyone – not just our staff – knew to go through Analoyce to make things happen.”
Working at the VBC often becomes a family affair, and it was no different for Analoyce and her younger sister. Analoyce would frequently recruit Dale to help at the VBC, whether putting tickets in the envelopes, working the switchboard, making vegetable trays, or serving cake at the VBC’s 40th anniversary.
“I just filled in if they needed someone,” said Dale. “Analoyce would ask me if I wanted to help, and I always did.”
A special memory of Dale’s involves delivering the mail to one of the most famous women in country music. “One time, Dolly Parton was rehearsing, and Analoyce asked me if I wanted to take her mail to her,” she recalled. “So, of course I did, and she was so nice.”
Having no children of her own, Analoyce, known simply as “Oyce,” was well-loved by her nieces Melissa and Carrie, her four great-nephews, and two great-nieces. “My kids were her kids,” said Dale. “I had two girls, and she claimed them as hers, too.” Analoyce worked at the VBC for 46 years until she had to resign due to illness. Sadly, she died at age 77 from pancreatic cancer and left behind a lasting legacy with her family, friends, and peers in the industry.
“Analoyce was more than an employee – she was a mentor and a friend,” said Steve Maples. “Since I was a young kid first starting out in the business to when I was a part of the senior management team, she always liked giving me a hard time – she was like an older sister.”
To honor her legacy in March 2021 - exactly 46 years from the opening date - a bench was dedicated in her memory for her countless hours of service and friendship. Its location sits near the beloved Ginkgo tree she enjoyed watching from her office window throughout the years. The bench is a symbol of ‘Welcome’ to those visiting a location she loved so much.
CONTINUING TO ANSWER COMMUNITY NEEDS THROUGH GROWTH AND RENOVATIONS
IN MARCH 1975, THE VBCC OPENED ITS DOORS TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE FIRST TIME, UNVEILING THE VON BRAUN CIVIC CENTER ARENA AS ITS CENTERPIECE.
The story of the Center’s many expansions and renovation projects is a story of an event center at the heart of Rocket City’s growth, change, and development.
Huntsville experienced significant population growth and economic development over the next five decades following 1975 and with the increasing population and economic activity, there was a greater demand for event venues and facilities to host conferences, conventions, concerts, and other large-scale events - driving the need to expand the VBCC.
In March 1975, the VBCC opened its doors to the public for the first time, unveiling the Von Braun Civic Center Arena as its centerpiece, but even as the arena buzzed with energy and anticipation, Huntsville’s civic leaders knew this was just the beginning. Expansion began early for the Center based on the economic and cultural boom within a few short years of its grand opening. A few months after opening, Huntsville Times reported a revenue of $925,000 and record numbers of concert and convention attendees. “Within the first two months from opening, six large conventions were booked,” reported the article. In March and April 1975, the Huntsville Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) reported the Center welcomed nearly 6,500 visitors to the city a mere 50 days after the grand opening.
Alongside concerts and entertainment events, the VBCC saw a noticeable increase in local conventions and arts events. A Huntsville Times article from March 21, 1982, recorded
an annual income increase for “Civic Engagements,” with the VBCC receiving $165,294 in ticket sales in 1982 - representing an increase from the $65,418 earned a year prior. According to Cliff Wallace, civic engagements were mostly local events, which showed that Huntsville natives had a direct hand in the Center’s early success. According to Wallace, most events throughout the first two decades of the Center’s opening were “locally produced or promoted, charitable, social and non-profit events, such as Rotary luncheons, local ballet, theater, orchestra presentations, and local Chamber meetings.” A double increase in ticket purchases for local events translated to a rise in event attendees from a local population that demanded more event space, so much so that the VBCC ran into an early problem: the Center was running out of space to meet local demands.
At the time, leadership envisioned a future where the VBCC would not only meet the needs of the present but also anticipate the demands of tomorrow. Plans were set in motion for a series of expansions and renovations to transform the Center into a world-class event destination and grow organically with the community.
EARLY EXPANSIONS OF THE 80’S AND 90’S
As the 1980s dawned, Huntsville found itself at a crossroads. The city’s economy was booming, fueled by the growth of the aerospace industry and the influx of talent and investment from around the country. With this prosperity came an influx of visitors to the city, and the VBCC stood at the forefront, welcoming the expanding tourism economy that was on the rise in The Rocket City.
In the opening months of the new decade, the Center embarked on its first major expansion since opening its doors: A west-side addition to the existing exhibit hall. With over 24,000 square feet of flexible space, the new West
Hall added muchneeded exhibit space for tradeshows, conventions, and other large-scale gatherings. Today, the combined space is collectively known as East Hall.
The Center now has a full-service catering department, but that wasn’t always the case.
Immediately following the West Hall addition, the new hall expanded again in 1983 to include an onsite catering kitchen. Until that point, catering was provided by Jetport - a vendor with an offsite location that was quite a distance away, so food was often cold when it arrived. The new onsite catering kitchen was a game-changer regarding food turnaround time and quality. Under the direction of Chef Tommy Armstrong, the VBCC became “the place” to hold banquets and receptions.
events were already booked within four months ahead of the $8 million facility’s completion date in December 1987.
But the West Hall expansion was just the beginning. In 1987, the VBCC underwent another significant expansion with the addition of the North Hall. Featuring a column-free design, the North Hall banquet and convention facility offered unparalleled versatility and functionality, making it ideal for a wide range of events and configurations. Planning for the North Hall began in the early 1980s and was dubbed an authentic community experience. According to a 1987 The Huntsville Times piece, the original design of the expansion included 100,000 square feet of interior and exterior facility space, including 34,000 square feet of public space that still stands today. The facility was
With the primary contractor, Birminghambased Brasfield & Gorrie, finishing the final touches, Center Director Bill Luther reported that in its first month of operation in December 1987, the facility saw 82 events in the space, with an attendance of 47,448 people. Events totaled nearly $200,000 in revenue from the North Hall venue alone in the first few months.
The first event to be held in the North Hall was the “Premier for the Arts Black Tie Gala,” a formal evening designed to showcase the new hall, as well as the capabilities of the catering kitchen and staff while also highlighting the link between the VBCC and The Arts Council. The gala featured various cameo performances and visual art presentations for more than 1,500 attendees, and the hall easily accommodated them throughout the
evening. Performances from Joyce Green of the Allegro Ensemble and the 16-piece Bob Davis Orchestra entertained guests from The Arts Council, Huntsville City Council, and Mayor Joe Davis, who served as the city’s mayor for five consecutive terms from 1968 to 1988. Guests were dazzled by the tall ceilings accented with new chandeliers, Chinese urns adorning the sides of the hall, acoustics that bounced melodious sound off the walls all evening, and the surrounding mezzanine that overlooked the entire hall.
“The beauty of the ballroom lies in the fitness for the task it has to perform,” noted a 1987 Huntsville Times article on the “Premiere for the Arts” event. “The light oak trim throughout the public rooms is a bolection type used as chair rail and cove molding, in proportion to the 20-foot ceiling in the main hall. The tray ceiling design is repeated in a subtle motif in the carpet done in tones of caramel, beige, and dusty coral and enhanced by wall coverings of beige tones. The ceiling is ornamented by chandeliers with giant frosted glass prisms in all three areas. The fixtures upstairs in the meeting rooms are formed of brass and glass.”
According to Luther, the new North Hall was built to accommodate a growing tourism industry and increased community and convention-space demand. Huntsville was growing, and the VBCC stepped up to alleviate some of the pressure in downtown Huntsville with the new hall. “It is comprised of a central hall plus adjoining rooms, passageways, and a balconied mezzanine designed to keep pace with an ever-expanding town,” Luther said in a 1987 Huntsville Times interview. From tradeshows and exhibitions to banquets and galas, the North Hall became a cornerstone of VBCC’s success, attracting businesses, organizations, and visitors from across the country and worldwide.
THE VBC EMBARKS ON ITS LARGEST EXPANSION
As the 1990s unfolded, Huntsville continued to evolve and grow - driven by the same advances in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship from the 80s. The Center, too, evolved with the times, embracing new ideas and technologies to enhance the guest experience and stay ahead of the community’s demand. During this decade, the VBCC underwent several renovations
and upgrades to modernize its facilities and amenities. From updated seating and lighting to state-of-the-art audiovisual systems and telecommunications infrastructure, no detail was overlooked in the quest for excellence. These investments paid off, as the Von Braun Civic Center solidified its reputation as a world-class event destination, attracting high-profile events and performers from around the globe.
Concerts continued to blossom steadily throughout the facility, but civic events tripled in the 1990s. The demand for space soared, and as larger exhibitions and tradeshows grew, the available space proved insufficient once again. The 1988 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Computer Fair paints a perfect picture of the time. Intergraph Graphic Users Group, a company that helped bring together some of the most brilliant web engineers of the time, announced that the VBCC would host the world-renowned IEEE Computer Fair. The event brought 15,000 people to Huntsville in 1988 and was a major success. The fair would include 100 companies that demonstrated more than 10,000 new products. The 1988 event even included demonstrations and sales pitches of the Apple Macintosh II from Apple representative Charles Ruoff.
However, according to a Huntsville Times review article of the event, the IEEE Fair tested the VBCC staff and facility limits.
below: Ron Evans, VBCC Executive Director, calm amid activity at IEEE Computer Fair. He started as a parttime employee in 1975. The Huntsville Times, 1992.
During the event, food service was relocated to a makeshift dining hall in the Monroe Street parking garage. More than twelve thousand lunches were successfully served throughout the conference, but managing food service logistics in a city parking garage underscored the urgent need for expanded convention space.
Talk of expansion began as early as 1991. The VBCC Board of Directors initially met with the Huntsville City Council to discuss a joint project to expand the West or North Halls. Years of debate between the Huntsville City Council, City representatives, and local community members led to only one option: discussing a brand-new development and the most significant expansion to date at the VBCC. Conversations in the early 90s centered around a 78,000-square-foot South Hall expansion. Such an expansion, argued the City Council, was good enough to host increased numbers and balance the budget for the City and VBCC needs. However, according to VBCC numbers, there would need to be more space.
Debate ensued for almost two years between 1991 and 1993. Campaigns for council re-election were based on the VBCC expansion alone, and community involvement with city government was never higher.
The new hall would require community and Council support, both monetarily and with some critical demolition projects that would change the downtown space for some community members. To add a nearly 78,000-square-foot space, the Council would need to approve funding and a change to Williams Avenue in downtown Huntsville that would shift the road further south and demolish a row of offices along said road. Parking would also become an issue, as the new hall would replace the parking lot located southwest of the arena. The added construction and demolition costs to the expansion project were too much for the VBCC Board of Control to take head-on, so they reached out to the Council for help. “I am concerned that the costs are underestimated, and the revenues overestimated,” said Councilman Mark Hall during initial discussions on expansion.
In 1993, the CVB wanted to bid to host a meeting of the American Bowling Congress (ABC), which would require space for bowling lanes and exhibits for six months. To supply the space, the VBCC would need to expand, so to help ease community concerns, the VBCC Board brought in representatives of the American Bowling Congress and various hotel/motel operators to discuss the economic impact the bowling convention would bring to the Huntsville area. The expected economic impact on the local tourism economy, which included hotel bookings, food and drink revenue, and impact on local business shopping, was totaled at around $37 million based on past ABC event totals. Furthermore, the ABC predicted a record number of attendees to the Huntsville bowling convention, projected to total around 50,000 during the six-month event. “The Civic Center cannot handle the bowling tournament without the expansion,” argued the VBCC Board in 1993.
PERSONAL RECORD SET DURING AKA EVENT
In February 2023, the oldest Greek-letter organization established by black collegeeducated women in 1908 at Howard University, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. (AKA) arrived in Huntsville with more than 5,000 members. AKA’s 91st Southeastern Regional Conference was held at the VBC and utilized every venue within the facility. Every meeting room, exhibit hall, ballroom and hallway was decked out in the sorority’s traditional pink and green color-scheme. During the historic event, the VBC set a new in-house record by serving over 4,400 guests a plated dinner in just 46 minutes. The estimated economic impact from this multi-day event was over $4 million.
A temporary tent where catering was set up to accommodate a large event.
Early conversations projected costs totaling around $16 million. Including the Williams Avenue expansion, the total quickly increased to $20.9 million, which included the money to purchase the property the small businesses operated along the same street. The initial costs did not include an eventual $4 million increase to add 577 parking spaces to the city parking garage across Monroe Street from the VBCC. The project size quickly eclipsed 100,000 square feet of additions to the VBCC, adding the necessary space to accommodate event requests.
Eventually, in February 1993, the Huntsville City Council approved the first of many initial investments in the expansion. A $900,000 land purchase agreement was approved to help purchase land south of Williams Avenue. The overall cost increased to $21.3 million at that time, but the Huntsville City Council and VBCC were not phased. The ABC event was projected to pass the expansion’s overall cost in just six months. The expansion also came at an opportune time, as the national military and space economy was hurting due to a significant decrease in national spending. Community leaders began looking at other economic avenues to expand - and the VBCC had the solution. “A bigger and better Civic Center is a form of economic diversification. At a time when federal spending on space and defense is on shaky ground, diversification is desirable and essential,” argued the Huntsville City Council. The project budget, finalized at $21.3 million, was approved in early 1993.
Architectural designs were created in early 1995, and construction would begin later that year. The project would come to a close in 1997, almost a year after the initial projected completion date of December 1996. As of 2025, the state-of-the-art South Hall provides over 100,000 square feet of continuous space and 82,000 feet of column-free exhibit space, addition to meeting rooms, a 20,000+ square foot lobby, pre-function area, and
multi-use rooms. The hall also includes a 500-space covered parking garage to alleviate the parking issue. The 35’ ceilings and a 350-pound-per-square-foot load capacity make it the perfect location for large trade and onsumer shows, conventions, and banquets. The South Ballroom overlooking Big Spring International Park (now known simply as Big Spring Park) opened with beautiful chandeliers and carpet, providing an elegant setting for banquets and social functions.
With its modern design and flexible layout, this spacious venue expanded the Center’s capacity to host events of all kinds – prompting a name change that would open doors for national and international events. With the addition of South Hall, the Von Braun Civic Center became known as the Von Braun Center. From corporate meetings and conventions to concerts and sporting events, the South Hall quickly became a destination for event planners and attendees, contributing to the VBCC’s continued success and growth.
THE 21ST CENTURY AND BEYOND
The VBC again found itself at an intersection as the new millennium approached. Huntsville’s economy boomed – once more driven by the growth of the Space and Defense industries –while infrastructure and event spaces began lagging. With renewed prosperity came an invigorated sense of optimism and ambition. Still, it also meant an uptick in city population and an ever-increasing demand for new entertainment venues. However, the VBC was ready to seize the moment.
In the early 2000s, the VBC embarked on another series of expansions and renovations. Almost a decade after opening, in 2006, the South Hall meeting rooms were renovated, multi-use ballrooms were added, and a new staircase and landing connected the VBC to downtown Huntsville’s newest property –Embassy Suites Hotel and Spa. After a generous
donation from local philanthropists David and Hazel Propst, the arena was renamed Propst Arena and underwent a series of $15 million in renovations in 2010, which included a modern glass frontage overlooking Big Spring Park, the same frontage that welcomes visitors to concerts and Havoc Hockey games to this day. Following renovations, Propst Arena became a state-ofthe-art multipurpose facility boasting seating for over 10,000 spectators. The project added 1,000 seats to concert setups, VIP suits, additional restrooms, concession and bar areas, and a cook-to-order grill. During the same timeframe, the Linda and Mark C. Smith Family Foundation donated a generous $3 million donation to solidify renovation plans for the building’s original concert hall. In 2008, the VBC unveiled plans to modernize what would become the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall, a 1,955-seat theater designed to host a wide range of cultural and performing arts events. Renovations to the concert hall were completed in 2011.
Over the years, the Propst Arena and Mark C. Smith Concert Hall have undergone various renovations and upgrades to remain modern and attractive venues. These efforts include updates to technology, seating, amenities, and infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of performers and patrons. In 2019, the lighting inside Propst Arena was upgraded to an Eaton’s Ephesus LED Lighting System, which is estimated to have an annual energy savings of $45,132 for the arena, along with a reduction of approximately $8,923 in annual arena lighting maintenance costs. Additional renovations included a $4 million backstage expansion that began in December 2020 and ended in the fall of 2021 ahead of schedule and under budget. This renovation was the first significant change to the arena’s backstage since it was built in 1975 and received an Award of Merit from the Associated Builders and Contractors
Propst Arena backstage after 2021 renovation
Mars Music Hall opening night with Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit
Mark C. Smith Concert Hall backstage expansion, 2024
of America. The arena now includes six dressing rooms, two private star lounges, four locker rooms, a catering and media room, office space, and a commercial-grade laundry room.
A 2021 renovation to the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall focused on a $380K upgrade to the Steel Rigging System, which included adding new line sets over the stage, a new truss over the Orchestra Pit, new audio points so that audio systems can be hung rather than stacked on stage, and additional power for audio and truss
hoists - all made possible once again by the Linda and Mark C. Smith Family Foundation. The focus returned to Propst Arena in 2022, with renovations and enhancements made to the exterior including a new roof, paint job, and the installation of a color-changing exterior LED lighting system.
Thirty-six years after its grand opening, the VBC’s North Hall received its first facelift.
After receiving city approval in 2021, the ballroom renovation project began in May 2022 and was completed in late 2023 with
a total project cost of $12.5 million. Before opening in 1987, management projected 150 occupancy dates annually within the space; by 2021, ballroom occupancy had increased by more than 10%. When the 2021-2022 fiscal year ended, the VBC hosted over 490 events with an estimated economic impact of
over $80 million between October 2021 and September 2022. Those numbers, paired with increased rental demand – consistent with Huntsville’s growth and national popularity - warranted a significant North Hall update.
“With Huntsville consistently landing in top spots on national rankings, including the No. 1 Best Place to Live by U.S. News & World Report, people and businesses are relocating to the area in droves, and all eyes are on our fantastic city,” commented Maples in a 2023 interview. “We take our role at the VBC as a large factor for Huntsville’s qualityof-life very seriously and will continue to ensure we’re delivering the highest-quality product in the nicest facility possible.”
Renovations included upgraded wall coverings, flooring, a color-changing LED lighting system, an upgraded audio system, and more.
Modified areas included the ballroom, main entrance lobby, public corridors, restrooms, meeting rooms, and other auxiliary spaces.
Additionally, the building exterior received a new roof system, exterior paint, new signage, and a decorative LED lighting system. These were the first significant maintenance and renovation projects to the North Hall since opening in 1987. The elegantly renovated venue was also renamed, paying homage to the space theme and the local economy that helped shape the community. Today, it is known as Saturn Ballroom, which features a stunning LED sign that welcomes new comers into the city from the parkway. “The addition of the hall almost 36 years ago was intended to enhance the flexibility of the overall facility by adding space for banquets, meetings, and receptions,” said Maples. “It continues to make Huntsville a viable option
for large conferences and tradeshows that need multiple event spaces simultaneously while also being a space for banquets, galas, weddings, local town meetings, and more. When speaking with national and international event planners who need ballroom space, we find ourselves continuously having to explain that North Hall is in fact a ballroom, so when we began brainstorming potential new names, we knew we wanted to include the term ‘ballroom’ in the title. Additionally, NASA’s Saturn project is hugely important to North Alabama and our entire region so landing on the name ‘Saturn’ felt right and ties into the VBC’s family of venues perfectly.”
In January 2024, the Huntsville City Council approved a $15.3 million contract with Turner Construction Company for back-ofhouse changes to the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall that will lead to larger performances in the future. Overall, the project includes a 12,000-square-foot addition to the facility, which currently sits at around 12,000 square feet by itself and will see an additional 6,000-square-foot renovation of the backstage space. Von Braun Executive Director Steve Maples said these improvements result from recommendations made by a visiting Broadway group to attract larger multi-weeklong shows to the North Alabama market. Representatives from the worldrenowned Broadway rendition of Phantom of the Opera traveled to Huntsville at the VBC Board of Control’s invitation to review the concert hall and recommend enhancements. As a part of the agreement with the City Council and Turner Construction, catering areas and dressing rooms will also expand to keep up with increased demand, and the surrounding public corridors will receive new flooring and wall coverings.
As the completion date of this book nears, renovation and expansion projects are still underway. The South Hall pre-function area is undergoing its first renovation since opening
in 1997. After bringing in a consultant company, Convention Services Leisure, the recommendation to double the size of South Hall was made. While that expansion isn’t in the cards at this time, $5 million is being spent to renew and modernize the space. Renovated areas include the public corridor, lobby, meeting rooms, and multi-use ballrooms. Renovations include modernizing with new flooring, paint, lighting, modern electrical outlets, enlarged windows, and alterations to the grand staircase connecting the facility to the Embassy Suites Hotel and Spa.
CHANGING HUNTSVILLE’S MUSIC LANDSCAPE
As a way to bolster the music and entertainment industry, in 2018, the City of Huntsville launched the Huntsville Music Initiative. “A growing music industry will do great things for our quality of life and create a whole other job and economic sector in Huntsville,” reflected Dennis Madsen, the city’s manager of Urban & Long-Range Planning, in a 2021 interview. “That was the big motivation behind doing the music audit and creating the Music Board.” The market was primed for a new venue unique to Huntsville and would offer a different style and feel for concertgoers and music lovers alike.
History often repeats itself, and similar to the growth seen during the previous decades, extreme growth and continued relocation to Huntsville and Madison County by both companies and individuals created more demand for entertainment options. The VBC opened Mars Music Hall in 2020 to address this demand.
Dubbed an “Out of This World” experience by Huntsville locals, Mars Music Hall became known as an intimate concert venue featuring state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, with flexible seating arrangements allowing for various event configurations.
HSV’S MUSIC AUDIT
In 2019, the City of Huntsville conducted a music audit amid other music-related activity including the construction of the VBC Mars Music Hall, and approving funding for an amphitheater at MidCity.
The initial phase of this new initiative included hiring a third party to complete the audit on the City’s music-ecosystem and make recommendations for how to cultivate a music-friendly environment. The City entered into an agreement with Sound Diplomacy, an internationally-recognized consulting group, to conduct the extensive music audit.
On August 22, 2019, results of the audit were shared during a regularly scheduled Huntsville City Council meeting, followed by a public presentation and Q&A session the next day at the VBC Mark C. Smith Concert Hall – with speakers including Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, Director of Urban and Economic Development Shane Davis, Manager of Urban and Long-range Planning Dennis Madsen, and Sound Diplomacy Founder/President Shain Shapiro. Results from the music audit led to a city-appointed Huntsville Music Board tasked with overseeing continued diversification of entertainment in Huntsville.
Dennis Madsen and Shane Shapiro
Much like other renovations and expansions of the past, the addition of Mars Music Hall was a solution to a community need. “The City of Huntsville is developing at a rapid pace and is constantly attracting out-ofmarket visitors and enhancing the qualityof-life for residents. Adding this size and type of music venue to the heart of the city is an important step in continuing that growth,” said Steve Maples in a 2019 press release.
The groundwork for the new music hall began in 2017 when Huntsville City Council approved an expansion plan that allotted $7 million to add a music hall and restaurant.
The VBC Mars Music Hall opened on Friday, January 3, 2020 with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit to a sold-out crowd of 1,575 people. The new club-circuit venue saw back-toback sold-out weekends for its first three months before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic forced the VBC to close its doors. “Mars Music Hall has been incredibly well-
received not just by audiences but by artists who say it is a great place to play,” reflected Madsen in a 2021 Huntsville Business Journal article.
A few short months after opening Mars Music Hall, the VBC completed the expansion project by opening its first on-site restaur ant and rooftop bar – Rhythm on Monroe –in March 2020. Adjacent to Mars Music Hall, Rhythm on Monroe opened as a vibrant restaurant featuring a rare rooftop bar in Huntsville at the time. “Rhythm will be the perfect spot for a pre-show dinner, after-show cocktails, or just a great dining spot without attending an event,” said Maples in a 2019 Huntsville Business Journal interview. Rhythm, aptly named for the different types of musical performances hosted at the VBC on the corner of Clinton Avenue and Monroe Street, serves locally sourced ingredients and showcases local musicians several nights of the week.
The Von Braun Center’s journey of expansion and renovation stands as a testament to its integral role in Huntsville’s growth, transformation, and cultural development over the past several decades. Five decades after its first day welcoming guests into the building in the mid1970s, the VBC continues to adapt and expand and will undoubtedly remain a cornerstone of Huntsville’s cultural and economic landscape –enriching the lives of residents and visitors alike.
CONTINUED GROWTH
In 2024, initial plans for the expansion of the VBC’s conference center were drawn. However, the project, estimated at $75 million, was temporarily halted to prioritize other city developments.
“At the direction of Mayor Battle a few years back, we’ve been able to update the main areas of the VBC before we begin really looking hard at what expansion we need to consider,” said Randy Schrimsher, a Huntsville developer
who has been on the VBC Board of Control for almost 15 years. “That’s all turned out so well. It’s given us a chance to bring in some great planners to determine the current needs of convention space.”
As of 2025, the Center looks to extend well beyond the current roof space. Given its occupancy rate, the need for more space has been proven. With existing facilities receiving their due attention, the focus will soon shift westward towards Pin Hook Creek, where the City is creating a walkway and sky bridge that will connect the VBC and downtown to the other side of Memorial Parkway.
According to Schrimsher, “The Board actually wanted to turn attention to the west a few years back, but the Mayor really did a favor by asking us to work on the existing space. That way, we know everything will work well together when the time comes to move forward.”
Intertwined with the expansion plans, this strategic development opens up new possibilities for the VBC’s use of space. Schrimsher said meticulous planning has gone into the upgrading and future expansion of the Center, which is an agency of the City.
Expressing the growing need for more convention space, Schrimsher highlighted the current 100,000 square feet and emphasized the unanimous agreement to double that capacity.
“For convention purposes, you can never have enough breakout rooms,” Schrimsher continued. “We are looking at a master plan that will show the western side facing the updated river walk, with breakout rooms all along the sides.”
And what about arena space?
“In our existing Propst Arena, we can hold between 7,000 to 9,000 depending on the event setup,” Schrimsher said. “The next
South Hall before 2024 renovations
South Hall after 2024 renovations
generation is going to be a 15,000 to 18,000seat arena. There’s no room to do this on the existing site. We have been in discussion with the City about reserving a site for the next new arena downtown. Lot D by the creek (currently used for overflow parking) is probably the top preferred site. It is considered the best site for a new arena.”
These insights into the VBC’s current expansions and future plans provide a glimpse into the dedication and strategic thinking that drives the Center forward. As the VBC approaches its next chapter, the prospect of a vibrant future and continued growth is evident!
The VBC stands at the precipice of a new era, ready to welcome the next 50 years, along with countless events, shows, and performances with open arms.
Saturn Ballroom after renovations, 2024
South Hall prefunction, 2024
North Hall before renovations
Tickets for the VBCC’s opening weekend went on sale at the box office, Mason Jewelers in The Mall, and at Belk Hudson in Haysland Square. In the early years, if a person couldn’t purchase tickets in-person at the box office or one of the offsite locations, they could mail in their ticket request with a check or money order, along with a self-addressed and stamped return envelope. Additional offsite locations opened in July of 1975 at Parisian’s in the Gateway Shopping Center in Decatur, and Penney’s in The Mall in Huntsville which, according to an article in the Huntsville Times, “would have tickets available at the store’s credit department where seating charts and information will also be available…the department store will also accept Penney’s charge cards as a means of purchasing the tickets.” During these times, all tickets for an event were printed ahead of going on sale, with certain allotments and their respective seating charts being distributed to each of the offsite locations. By 1984, additional ticket outlets included Sears in Madison Square Mall, Sears in Decatur, South Trust Bank in Boaz, Curtis Magnavox
in Athens, London Shops in Florence and Muscle Shoals, AmSouth of Arab, Eiford’s in Scottsboro, Home Bank in Guntersville, Union Bank in Pulaski and Lincoln County Bank in Fayetteville.
The first wave of ticketing evolution began within a decade after the VBCC opened its doors for business. By 1984, hiring talent, event promotion, and production had become so costly that promoters were reluctant to shoulder the added expense of paying the ticket outlets a percentage for tickets sold at their locations. Starting October 1st of that year, a new ticket compensation initiative was rolled out – local ticket outlets selling tickets for VBCC events could collect a modest service fee of up to .50 cents per ticket. The entertainment industry and promoters already employed this type of incentive throughout the U.S. In the larger event markets outside of Alabama, the service fees usually ranged from $1.00$1.50 per ticket, thus making the .50 cent service fee a real bargain.
The next ticketing trend came in 1989 when the Center teamed up with Fastix - phasing out the need to camp out in front of the box office. Fastix, a Birmingham-based computerized ticketing system, streamlined ticket sales by making all available tickets accessible at dedicated ticket outlets in-person and by telephone. Prior to this new electronic technology, tickets were printed ahead of each on-sale with select amounts delivered to each outlet in an effort to avoid duplicated seat sales. Every transaction was reported immediately to the other outlets and the Center so that every location could manually update their seating diagrams. With Fastix, the same tickets were available at all Fastix outlets throughout the state thanks to the computerized system. Machines at each location printed the tickets and reported the sale to all other outlets. With Fastix, ticket buyers no longer needed to rush to the box office to get prime seats or to order tickets in advance because tickets were printed at the time of sale. A convenience charge of $1.00 for tickets up to $10, $1.25 for tickets up to $15, and $1.50 for tickets $15 and over was also included in the purchase price.
Digital ticketing entered Huntsville’s scene around 2008 when Ticketmaster migrated to a fully digital sales format. The VBC Box Office soon followed suit. Implementing 100% digital tickets allowed for the effective tracking of valid tickets, which was a significant plus for all venues.
The convenience of digital ticketing and online ticket sales has revolutionized the buying process
KNOWN FOR SIGNATURE DISHES, HAND-CRAFTED COCKTAILS, AND STUNNING VIEWS, RHYTHM ON MONROE IS A HOTSPOT FOR INDIVIDUALS OF EVERY AGE AND BACKGROUND.
Rhythm On Monroe, 2020, photo by Steve Babin
AMID COVID CONCERNS, VBC SHOWS CREATIVITY AND RESILIENCY
In March 2020, humanity faced a dire time when the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading across the globe. While all industries suffered greatly, the entertainment industry received an unprecedented blow when live events came to a screeching halt as the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in the U.S. The last full-capacity ticketed events held at the Von Braun Center were on March 13, 2020 (The Molly Ringwalds in Mars Music Hall, and The Charlie Daniels Band with House Whiskey in the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall). In the days, weeks and months following, VBC staff worked continuously with promoters, tour managers and Ticketmaster to cancel, postpone and reschedule over 100 events (including concerts, conventions, weddings, meetings, etc.). Like everyone else at the time, the VBC team was forced to quickly pivot roles and accommodate for what would be the “new” normal for the next year...
The timing of the first order from Alabama Governor Kay Ivey calling for all indoor eating establishments to close came just three days after the VBC opened its new restaurant, Rhythm on Monroe. The menu was quickly adapted to cater to families ordering curbside. In the coming weeks and months, the VBC full-time staff volunteered to work shifts at the restaurant reducing the burden to pay hourly wages and help the restaurant struggle through the first few opening months and the harshest of the state’s restrictions due to the pandemic.
When the VBC went dark, leadership at the VBC encouraged everyone to bring all creative ideas to the table that could help keep staff busy and create revenue. The first idea was from the Food and Beverage team to make money while also distributing inventory that would be expiring soon. The idea was to set up concession carts and bars to serve the hundreds of people who now found themselves going
outside and enjoying the park (at a safe distance from others). Hotdogs, lemonade, beer and mixed drinks were served on the patio in front of Propst Arena to the delight of many. Much of the bagged foods, like chips, were donated almost immediately to the Boys and Girls Club for their lunch program.
Later, after restrictions were slightly eased and indoor events were allowed at highly reduced capacities (but touring shows were still grounded), one staff member had the creative thought to invite local artists to perform on the brand-new state-ofthe-art stage in Mars Music Hall (which had opened exactly two months ahead of the pandemic). These events were dubbed “Mars Local Lineup” and were free to attend. The series occurred every Friday and Saturday night for several months and proved to be a great way to showcase the talented local musicians in our area, as well as give the community a place to enjoy live music during a time when ongoing quarantine mandates were taking a mental toll.
After working for months with artists and promoters to try and find creative ways to bring touring shows back to Huntsville, the VBC team pitched the idea of creating an outdoor stage in one of its parking lots. Promoters loved the idea of a makeshift outdoor venue as an option for an exciting and safe environment for both artists and patrons. Playing into the space-theme of the VBC facility, the temporary outdoor stage was named 3rd Rock as a reference to Earth’s location from the Sun. The logo for 3rd Rock illustrated the two closer planets, Mercury and Venus, as eighth note music symbols.
When the outdoor stage was first announced, there was an estimated number of 12 events that would
be performed throughout the summer. Once things started moving forward, COVID restrictions were further reduced, and live events were able to begin moving indoors. During its run, 3rd Rock hosted four shows: April 17 - Blackberry Smoke & North Mississippi AllStars; April 30 - Black Jacket Symphony presents Queen’s ‘A Night at the Opera’ with Marc Martel; May 14 - .38 Special; June 18Tedeschi Trucks Band; July 16 - Black Jacket Symphony presents Eagles’ ‘Hotel California.’
On September 1, 2020, the VBC joined the national Red Alert RESTART initiative which represented a major call to action – imploring the U.S. Congress to pass the RESTART Act (Z.3814) as quickly as possible to offer economic relief to the Live Events Industry which had been shuttered since March. As part of its involvement, the VBC’s facilities went red along with hundreds of other venues and iconic locations across America. The goal was to raise public awareness that the Live Events Industry was on Red Alert for its very survival and create congressional pressure to act quickly.
When football season finally kicked off, SEC Saturdays and NFL Football Sundays in Mars Music Hall made its debut. Another free event, guests gathered in reduced capacity to watch SEC football games on the giant screens in the new music hall. Then as Havoc’s hockey season began, full time administrative, operations, engineering staff, and others volunteered to work concessions and security to help keep expenses down for the VBC.
There was one recurring event that developed during this time which provided an unexpected revenue stream. From May 2020 to June 2021, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing rented space in the VBC to host onboarding sessions for their new hires.
Through it all, VBC leadership including senior management and the Board of Control, oversaw the organization and led the team of full-time staff to the other side of the pandemic. Unfortunately, part-time staff were not employed during that time, but no full-time employee lost their job even as the VBC felt continuous pressure to earn and save money. The VBC stepped up tremendously and found creative ways to not only make the most of the “down time,” but to also continue providing a fun and safe environment for the community it serves.
left: Westminster Christian Academy’s graduation in North Hall.
Black Jacket Symphony: Queen
VBC HOME TO STAR-STUDDED TRIBUTE SHOWS
The Von Braun Center is quickly becoming known as the place to host televised tribute concerts with three events topping the Center’s list of the highestgrossing concerts in its 50-year history.
Starting in 2021, the sold-out Lee Greenwood’s AllStar Salute became the third highest-grossing event held at the VBC at that time, bringing outof-town guests from all over the country to fill hotel rooms and creating an estimated economic impact of $1 million for the City of Huntsville.
Just two short years later, in April 2023, the George Jones: Still Playin’ Possum tribute became one of the top five highest-grossing events held in the VBC and had an estimated economic impact of over $1.2 million for the City of Huntsville. Both events were later televised nationally, with the George Jones event being picked up by PBS to air the Huntsville concert multiple times in 2024.
On October 9, 2024, the third installation of televised tribute shows took place in Propst Arena with Songs and Stories of Dean Dillon. This latest tribute broke the record for the highest-grossing concert in the VBC’s 50-year history and had an estimated economic impact of more than $1.7 million for the City of Huntsville. Over $1 million was invested into the production of Songs and Stories of Dean Dillon, which was produced by EMG Presents, and will be televised nationally at a later date.
During these tribute shows, artists and their families travel to Huntsville to perform live during the recorded concerts and pay tribute to the person being honored. Artists who have performed during these shows include: Cody Johnson, Jelly Roll, Brad Paisley, Wynonna Judd, Dustin Lynch, Michael Ray, Billy Currington, George Strait, Gramps Morgan, Jamey Johnson, Justin Moore, Larry Fleet with special guest pro-golfer John Daly, LeeAnn Womack, Mark Chesnutt, Neal McCoy, Pam Tillis, Randy Houser, Riley Green, Ronnie Dunn, Sammy Kershaw, Tim Watson, Zach Top and many others.
However, more important than the great music celebrated on stage and the economic impact, these tribute shows also have a philanthropic impact on the local community. During the taping of the 2021 television special, Greenwood in partnership with Helping A Hero awarded two adapted homes to two deserving veterans – SFC Scott Barkelow, USA (Ret) and SSG Michael Brown, USA. The homes were provided by Louis and Patti Breland of Breland Homes in Huntsville. Following the George Jones special, Nancy Jones in partnership with Concerts 4 A Cause, The Wounded Blue and the VBC presented a fundraising check of over $82,000 to benefit the family of Officer Garrett Crumby following his death and Officer Albert Morin who was critically injured in a shooting on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. The funds
were raised through guitar sales where buyers were able to choose an artist from the tribute’s lineup to autograph. The Dean Dillon tribute donated 100 free tickets to Vet Tix (a nonprofit organization that provides event tickets to currently serving and veteran members of the US military and their families), as well as a portion of ticket sales to Concerts 4 A Cause for their ongoing efforts to utilize music and celebrity-driven events to raise awareness and funds for a variety of causes. With some of those funds, Concerts 4 A Cause purchased 100 guitars at Dean’s request which he donated to Madison County’s three public school systems to provide resources to potential future songwriters.
These tribute shows are becoming known for their historic show-stopping music moments like a duet by Wynonna Judd and Jamey Johnson; a rendition of “Soul Man” by Sam Moore and T. Graham Brown with Lee Brice, Michael Ray, Janie Fricke, Darryl Worley, and Little Texas frontman Tim Rushlow; and a joint performance by Riley Green, Zach Top and Justin Moore singing “Leave Them Boys Alone.”
“We are thrilled to continue bringing these blockbuster tribute shows to the State of Alabama,” said VBC Executive Director Steve Maples.
FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS, THE VON BRAUN CENTER HAS SUCCESSFULLY HOSTED VARIOUS EVENTS, DRAWING ENTHUSIASTIC AUDIENCES AND EVENT PLANNERS TO NORTH ALABAMA — REGIONALLY, NATIONALLY, AND INTERNATIONALLY.
Cody Johnson, 2022, photo by Josh Bartlett
A FACILITY THAT DOES IT ALL
THE VBC WAS DESIGNED TO USHER IN A NEW ERA OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE CITY OF HUNTSVILLE.
Downtown Huntsville, 2024, photo by Marty Sellers
For the past 50 years, the Von Braun Center has successfully hosted various events, drawing enthusiastic audiences and event planners to North Alabama – regionally, nationally, and internationally.
The VBC was designed to usher in a new era of entertainment for the City of Huntsville; however, even more significant was the opportunity for the city to expand its capacity for hosting events that well-exceeded the scope beyond local civic meetings and area business conventions.
What continues to set the VBC apart is its capacity to partner with and foster local arts groups, as well as its dedicated commitment to creating signature events for the community to enjoy—always with the goal of enhancing the quality of life for residents and having a positive impact on the local economy.
ENTERTAINMENT YEAR ONE
In its first year, the VBCC presented several major acts: Truman Capote, Linda Ronstadt, Merle Haggard, Van Cliburn, Elvis, and Johnny Cash.
The Arena’s first rock concert featured the Electric Light Orchestra with Sugarloaf and Jo Jo Gunne. The Doobie Brothers, The Jackson Five, Jimmy Buffett, The Allman Brothers Band, Jethro Tull, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, Charlie Pride, Chet Atkins, and more drew large, enthusiastic crowds.
A karate expo, The Harlem Globetrotters, “Godspell” by UAH, Ringling Brothers Circus, a National Hockey League exhibition game, and an appearance by 7-foot-4-inch wrestler Andre the Giant demonstrated the Center’s versatility. Civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy spoke in July. B.B. King played in November, as did the rock band Chicago.
December brought The Temptations, and Cher watched her husband Gregg from backstage as The Allman Brothers performed.
Lofty arts events had their place, too. The Royal Shakespeare Company presented “The Hollow Crown,” with eventual “Poirot” BBC series star David Suchet. The Huntsville Museum of Art showcased etchings by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Durer, toys from 1875 to 1950, and Dutch, Flemish, and English masterpieces.
paid for VBCC,” said new Executive Director Bill Luther in a 1985 Huntsville Times interview. “City Liquor and lodging income is the lifeblood. A percentage of that revenue is earmarked for paying off its original $15.5 million cost.”
The community’s excitement was at an alltime high, and the city of Huntsville could not get enough of its new “gem.”
Virtually overnight, the VBC transformed the city. Huntsville morphed from a sleepy, mid-sized Southern town into a cultural mecca that became known as a city renowned for its scientific and entertainment sophistication.
THE FIRST DECADE
By its tenth year, the VBCC was still gaining popularity. “Drinks and Hotel Rooms have
In its first decade, the Center hosted more than 7,000 events; attendance figures were close to 6 million, and box office sales exceeded $19.5 million - for all events combined. The budget for 1984-85 was set at $2.86 million, which was a substantial leap from the $490,000 budget of 1974-75.
“We are returning to the local economy much more than our subsidy in things like motels, hotels, and retail sales,” continued Luther. “The income to the city was many more than the profits the promoters made.”
top: Opening night of VBCC Arena with Holiday on Ice.
RAINS CAME, BUT SO DID THE CIRCUS
By Marcia Smith
“The rain may have made the going tough, but it didn’t dampen the spirits of hundreds of youngsters lined up on downtown streets Wednesday to watch the circus come to town.
Clinging tightly to their mothers’ hands, the children watched wide-eyed as the elephants, horses and llamas stepped out of the circus train at the Southern Railway Depot and began their trek toward the Von Braun Civic Center.
Leading the parade of animals was a car carrying local dignitaries, followed by several radio and TV personalities atop some ponderous, but placid looking elephants. Horses, llamas and ponies brought up the end of the animal train.
Following the animals was the ‘man with the golden shovel.’ His function was evidently necessary, as several mothers were overheard telling their children to watch their steps.
Starting at Jefferson Street, the parade moved along the south side square, turned right on Fountain Row and passed in front of city hall and the public library. Traffic moved slowly as those doing their normal business downtown lingered to catch a glimpse of the circus animals.
Small children in sunshine-yellow rain slickers and their mothers, unsuccessfully attempting to shield their young with umbrellas, watched as the parade turned right on Williams Avenue then continued through Big Spring Park to the Civic Center.
Come rain or come shine, the circus will have eight performances, today through Sunday at the Civic Center.
Adult tickets are $4, $5, and $6. Children under 12 are allowed a $1 discount on all tickets. All seats are reserved.”
*Before the 1975 Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus at the VBCC, the last time the circus came to Huntsville was in 1916 when 130 horses died due a fire in the manger they were being held in. Local Huntsville resident, Howard Harbin, was nine years old during the 1916 circus and recalled in an interview with the Huntsville Times the horrific experience. “I can remember all this commotion. I could see smoke coming up from a little rise, a hill, just ahead of the big top. Then all these horses coming at us from over the hill…Seems somebody was smoking and flipped a cigarette into that manger…I remember, and always remember their hides ablaze and senses gone. The horses’ trainer blew this bugle and what happened was unbelievable. Those horses, on fire, stopped dead and ran to that trainer, lining up. Just like they were ready to perform. Just like they were trained. The trainer mounted his horse and mercifully began shooting each burning animal as he passed.”
The circus horses were buried quietly in what kids in those days called “the old burial yard,” located on the western side of Triana Boulevard between Ninth Avenue and Bob Wallace Avenue.
HUNTSVILLE TIMES ARTICLE RECALLING VBCC FIRST CIRCUS
MISS WORLD AMERICA
The VBCC and Huntsville, Alabama continued making history when, in 1978, Miss World America Pageant chose the new venue as the location for its competition.
A contract was signed on July, 21, 1978 between BBS Productions Inc., the company contracted to produce the pageant in America, and representatives from the VBCC, Huntsville Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Huntsville Hotel/Motel Association and the Huntsville Restaurant Association.
“The facilities of the Civic Center’s concert hall are some of the finest I have seen anywhere,” said Miss World America President Griff O’Neil during an interview with The Huntsville Times.
Huntsville was chosen over two other Southern cities and one in the Midwest.
During that weeklong event, the Huntsville community hosted a variety of parties and entertainment for the contestants and their guests. Events included a disco party and banquet at the Sheraton Inn, a welcome reception at the Von Braun Civic Center’s Ballet Room, a playday at Point Mallard, a banquet at the Huntsville Hilton, a wine and cheese party at the Art Museum, and the coronation reception held at the Center’s Exhibit Hall. Following the pageant, Huntsville Mayor Joe Davis hosted a private luncheon with the winner, 20-year-old Debbie Freeze of Mooresville, NC, and her parents. This nationally televised event featured actors Christopher George and Lynda Day George as two of the contest judges; television actor and daytime game show host, Geoff Edwards, as the master of ceremonies; and live entertainment provided by Rick James and the group Switch.
The four public events and ticket prices included opening ceremonies, Monday, September 25 at $7.50; evening gown competition, Thursday, September 28 at $10; swimsuit competition, Friday, September 29 at $12.50; and televised finals with crowning, Saturday, September 30 at $15.
ICE SYSTEM
For 50 years, with routine maintenance and upgrades, the Center has created ice in the arena using its original ice floor for community skating, traveling ice-shows, and ice hockey – making it one of the oldest continuously operating original ice floors in the country. At the urging of Howard Radford (mentioned in greater detail on page 23), the VBCC Board of Control added the ice system into the building plans for the arena. On March 3, 1975 (just 11 days ahead of the official opening), 18-year old Joey Dennis left his job as an HVAC Technician at the City of Huntsville and joined the VBCC’s Engineering Department making $4.11 per hour where he oversaw the arena’s ice system due to his refrigeration knowledge.
“I was earning $2.05 an hour working in Huntsville’s school system,” recalled Joey. “Steve Maples (who was still in high school at the time) and I were driving past the Center which had a chain link fence around the entire construction site. I pulled up to the gate and asked the guard if they were hiring. The guard was Percy Thompson who became a great friend of mine and worked at the VBCC for many years. Percy sent me in to see Bob Sewall – the Chief Engineer. After interviewing me, Bob said he was hoping for someone with more experience, but then two weeks later he called me in and said I was the most educated and experienced candidate who had applied.”
50 years later, Joey now oversees US Recreation Business Development at CIMCO which is a leader in sustainable refrigeration and supplies thermal solutions for industrial, recreational and commercial sectors. He worked at the VBCC through 1983 where he held the title of Director of Mechanical and Engineering. He went on to hold facility management positions at Gaylord Entertainment Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Infinite Energy Center before landing at CIMCO where he focuses on areas such as refrigeration and ice-making, energy conservation, facility maintenance, new construction and major renovations – all areas of expertise that he began developing in his early years at the VBCC.
“The VBCC for many years was the hottest building in the country,” Joey continued. “We had little
competition along the I65 corridor from Nashville to Birmingham. I think we did every band touring! All the staff had a lot of pride in our work and we wanted to be the best building on the tours, and produce the best ice in the league.”
Throughout the organization’s history, many projects and tasks have been executed in-house. From opening in 1975 to 2025, the Center maintains staff who perform routine maintenance and repairs throughout the facility.
“I’m proud to be one of many who started out with a goal of doing as many tasks in-house as possible.” Joey recalls, “When we painted the ice, we did it like painting a house – with brushes and paint rollers. Painting 17,000 Sq/Ft of 16-degree ice using brushes and paint rollers was not easy and it was a very slow process. My dad was a painter, and I was always helping him, so it gave me the idea to make a spray paint system. Rickey Rutland (still a very good friend of mine) was a welder who came to work for us. He and I made a 4-foot by 4-foot tank to hold the white paint for the base coat. The paint consisted of a powder we had to mix with cold water, so we put together an electric motor and an old boat propeller to quickly and easily mix the paint solution. We then added a pump to create the spray system. It worked well and was used for years until Jet Ice sold a better spray system that every NHL club and most all ice rinks use today.”
VBC staff still create and paint the ice in Propst Arena in-house. Operations build the ice one layer at a time, allowing each layer to freeze before painting it white. After the ice is painted and sparkling bright white, logos are placed, and multiple layers of clean clear water are added for a final freeze.
Being a Huntsville native, Joey had never heard of what is now one of the most popular pieces of equipment for any hockey facility – the Zamboni. Luckily for him, he was able to learn from the best when the equipment’s inventor, Mr. Frank Zamboni himself, personally delivered the ice-maintenance vehicle. “I helped him unwrap and put the machine together. He personally trained me how to operate and maintain it which was great because I had never heard of this piece of equipment before. It
was built with the old Volkswagen Beatle air-cooled engine which really helped me learn the machine quickly because the VW bug was my first vehicle. My dad and I restored it, and I drove it through high school.”
Johnson Controls was the Building Automation System (BAS) installed when the building opened. That BAS controlled all the HVAC and Ice Plant in the VBCC. In the early 80s, engineering staff purchased and installed equipment for a needed upgrade to the ice system. “Johnson Controls sent Cliff Wallace and I a copy of an article published in a technical magazine which detailed how the VBCC (the owner) installed the largest BAS system to-date in Johnson Controls’ history. At that time, they were the largest BAS manufacturer in the world. I still have a copy of that article.”
HUNTSVILLE EMBRACES THE ARTS
The Von Braun Civic Center opening in 1975 united many of Huntsville’s longstanding arts, music, and theater organizations under one roof, including the Huntsville Museum of Art, The Arts Council, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, and Broadway Theatre League. It also hosted countless performances by other local groups like Huntsville Ballet, Theatre Huntsville, Alabama Youth Ballet, Fantasy Playhouse Children’s Theater & Academy, Huntsville Community Chorus Association, and others.
However, while the addition of the VBCC to Huntsville significantly enhanced the arts scene and ushered in a wave of expanded offerings, Huntsville had been embracing the arts well before 1975. According to an article in The Huntsville Times, Huntsville’s population was exploding from 16,000 people in 1950 to 72,000 by the end of the 50s, with more to come. Dr. Wernher von Braun and his team of German rocket scientists were here (although their work developing missiles on Redstone Arsenal was not yet highly publicized), and the historic population growth from that period transformed sleepy little Huntsville from the “Watercress Capital of the South” to an unlikely center of culture in the Deep South.
HUNTSVILLE MUSEUM OF ART
The Huntsville Art League and Museum Association (HALMA), whose goal since 1957 has been to encourage the arts in the Huntsville community and establish an art museum, officially established the Huntsville Museum of Art (HMA) through City Ordinance No. 70-134 on August 13, 1970. The ordinance established a Museum Board of Directors appointed by the City Council. HMA moved to its first permanent facility at the Von Braun Civic Center in 1975, while
the rest of HALMA moved into The Mall. Joyce Griffin has been a member of the Huntsville Museum of Art’s (HMA) Board of Directors for the City of Huntsville since 1974 and remembers those days before the first real art museum in the civic Center. Early exhibitions were in a hallway of the Municipal Building. “These were traveling exhibitions from quality museums,” she recalled. “From there, board meetings and galleries were in the Hazel Green Chapel on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.” Griffin continued, “Museums are traditionally built around existing art collections.” That wasn’t the case with the Huntsville Museum of Art, which owned only a few works of art. At that time, Huntsville enjoyed the distinction of being The Rocket City. Still, the German cultural aesthetic Dr. von Braun and his team of engineers brought with them warranted the need for a progressive visual and performing arts center.
“It was up to the HMA Board to collect works of art to display. Art supporters felt it was time to create an art museum and develop along with Huntsville’s growth,” said Griffin.
From 1975 until 1998, the VBCC was home to the Huntsville Museum of Art, which boasted 16,000 square feet of floor space (12,000 square feet of which was devoted to flexible gallery space) and 12-foot ceilings.
“We had wonderful exhibition spaces and were able to have several in-house and traveling exhibits throughout the year,” said HMA Director of Education and Museum Academy Laura Smith.
A dedicated and convenient location in the heart of downtown Huntsville was critical to HMA’s growth, development, and continued success. During its 23 years within the Center, the Huntsville Museum of Art presented an
impressive assortment of exhibits, community and educational events, and culturally inspired programming. “We hosted educational classes for children and adults, workshops, and lectures and receptions for exhibitions throughout the year,” continued Smith.
The ambiance of visual arts on display made for a fitting backdrop as the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra hosted many afterperformance receptions inside the Museum. The two organizations formed a symbiotic
partnership within the Center. “When the Symphony performed, the Museum would open before and after concerts, giving attendees an opportunity to see art on display,” recalled Smith.
As the years progressed, the Huntsville Museum of Art grew significantly from staffing and membership to programming and exhibitions. Huntsville proved it wanted and would support an art facility.
Art Museum gift shop inside VBCC, 1976
“Images for Eternity: 3000 Years of Egyptioan Art from The Brooklyn Museum”
1976 traveling art exhibition on display in VBCC
HOOAH!
Huntsville ‘hooah’-ed its way into Dr. Seuss history after winning 20th Century Fox’s “Horton Hears You - Hometown Challenge” outside the VBC Propst Arena on March 6, 2008.
Billed as pre-promotion for the upcoming animated comedy film made from Seuss’ 1954 classic children’s story Horton Hears a Who!, Huntsville Mayor Loretta Spencer led a fired-up crowd of Huntsville Havoc fans wearing ‘Horton ears’ who were there to watch the upcoming Huntsville Havoc versus Columbus Cottonmouths hockey game.
The shout was boosted by over 300 soldiers from Bravo and Charlie Companies of the 832nd Ordnance Battalion on Redstone Arsenal, who were attending Havoc’s military appreciation night.
Together, they shouted, “We are here!” in a scream that, according to some reports, redlined decibel meters and tickled seismographs as far away as Tupelo, Mississippi!
Huntsville overshadowed competitors from Fresno, California; West Orange, New Jersey; and a large crowd gathered at Wollman Rink in New York City’s Central Park.
Participants received free passes to a special Huntsville movie premiere before the nationwide release of the film. It was released nationally in theaters March 14, 2008.
The video of Huntsville’s shout played at the opening of the film.
“I didn’t doubt that we would win,” said Sergeant 1st Class Steven Walker. “You get a bunch of soldiers together and give them an objective and mission, and they’ll do their best.”
Sgt. Walker said it took him until Monday morning to recover his voice after the winning yell.
Written in Dr. Seuss’ famous anapestic tetrameter, the story follows an imaginative elephant named Horton (Jim Carey) who hears a faint cry coming from a tiny speck of dust floating
through the air. The speck housed an entire city called Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic Whos asking for protection because “a person’s a person, no matter how small.”
The film grossed $300 million on a budget of $85 million and contained a powerful message about protecting life, no matter how insignificant it may seem.
In 1988, HMA began its inaugural Red Clay Survey, a regional juried art competition showcasing contemporary Southern art through a selection of work in all styles and media determined by jurors with strong curatorial credentials. This competition continues today and is presented every three years, bringing together over 100 outstanding works by artists from 11 Southern states and representing a cross-section of the best in regional contemporary art.
When current HMA Head of Exhibition
Installation and Design, David Reyes, joined the staff in 1995, plans were already in the works for a free-standing building for the Museum. “When I started, we knew there was going to be a building here in the park,” said Reyes. “I remember there was an architect’s model in the Museum’s main lobby when it was inside the Center. I came in at the beginning of that process. It was a great time!”
For the 1996-97 season (HMA’s last season held within the Center), the Museum presented an internationally touring exhibition: The Spendors of Burghley House. On tour from England, this show was one of HMA’s first major blockbuster exhibitions.
The paintings were massive, and only a few Museum staff members to help move them. “We ended up reaching out to Civic Center staff because we needed extra help loading out these huge crates,” remembered Reyes. “They had access to guys who routinely loaded in and out big production shows, so we had them send their best guys to help us with those gigantic crates. Whenever we had problems, the team at the Center would figure out ways to help us.”
Reyes continued, “We also had (and still have) specific needs with our temperature and humidity controls. And that’s always one of the big challenges for any building that houses artwork. The Center’s Maintenance department was really good at helping us
Youth attending Military Appreciation Night at a Havoc hockey game, donned elephant ears and joined the crowd yelling “We are here!”
Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times
maintain that environment so we could host world-class exhibitions.”
In 1998, HMA relocated its operations to its own building on Church Street, which is still in the heart of downtown Huntsville and in view of the VBC – separated only by the pond in Big Spring Park.
FANTASY PLAYHOUSE CHILDREN’S THEATER & ACADEMY
Created in 1961 by local parents wanting to provide a theater experience for their children, Fantasy Playhouse Children’s Theater & Academy (FPCTA) has grown into the leading theater arts education organization in North Alabama. Since the VBCC’s opening, the Center’s Playhouse has been their home performance venue. Today, FPCTA attracts the area’s highest caliber of volunteer artists, technicians, and performers to execute a production slate for thousands of families each year at the Von Braun Center Playhouse.
FPCTA provides theater arts educational opportunities each year to students ages 3 – adult with classes, camps, school partnerships, and private workshops. FPCTA’s newest offering is an In-School Touring Program, which brings professional theater directly to the schools, introducing students to the art of theater through age-appropriate, curriculum-based productions that are socially relevant, entertaining, and exciting.
HUNTSVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Huntsville Symphony Orchestra (HSO), Alabama’s oldest continuously operating professional orchestra, was founded by Huntsville cellist Alvin Dreger in 1955, who realized Huntsville was transforming into an international center for the booming aerospace industry. He saw firsthand that many of the area’s German newcomers were classical music enthusiasts and practitioners. From the first rehearsal on February 16, 1955, in the Butler High School band room (where they continued to perform until the opening of the VBCC), the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra has brought extraordinary musical and educational opportunities to the Huntsville community.
“Music self-played is happiness self-made,” Mr. Dreger wrote in January 1955. According to HSO’s website, this was his invitation to local musicians to organize an orchestra for the city.
To celebrate the opening of the VBCC, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra Guild (established in June 1960) held its inaugural fundraiser, Crescen-Dough, to fund an HSO-commissioned production of Galileo Galilei conducted by Dr. Marx Pales for the grand opening of the Center’s concert Hall on March 15, 1975.
Today, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra is one of the region’s premier music ensembles, having grown in tandem with the city of Huntsville. Each orchestra season offers a Classical Series, a Pops Series, and more intimate Casual Classics Concerts. The orchestra roster includes many of the nation’s best and brightest symphonic musicians, and HSO routinely engages featured soloists of international standing.
In August 2012, HSO Music Director and Conductor Gregory Vajda, born in Budapest, Hungary, received his naturalized U.S. citizenship papers. The 2012-13 New Year’s concert entitled New Year - The American Way opened with a special recognition of his citizenship in an emotional presentation by the Army Materiel Command Color Guard and U.S. Army AMC Deputy Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Darryl Williams. The VBC Mark C. Smith Concert Hall was at capacity that night, and the program included a mixture of vocals, brass, and strings with popular tunes by John Williams, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, John Philip Sousa, and Aaron Copland.
Opening day of the VBCC was highlighted by the Beaux Arts Ball sponsored by The Arts Council Inc. on March 14, 1975.
Rewind to the early 1960’s, certain members of the community felt Huntsville could do better than the meager arts facilities available at the time. Martha Rambo affiliated with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, Elvira Glover of the Huntsville Art League and Museum Association, Martha Hamm with Huntsville Community Chorus, Dexter Nilsson of Little Theatre, and others began voicing the need for housing and performance space for the arts. City Attorney Charles Younger and Councilman Joe Peters embraced the cause and pushed the idea of funding the arts through a liquor tax. A group of Huntsvillians traveled to Winston-Salem and met with Art Hanes to learn about the development of their already successful Arts Council. Following that meeting, and
another meeting where Mr. Hanes visited Huntsville to advise – The Arts Council Inc. was born in October 1962 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership-based organization and successfully worked with the Huntsville Art League and Museum Association to advocate for a civic arts center.
In January 2016, The Arts Council announced a rebrand and changed its name to Arts Huntsville.
“We have an incredibly vibrant arts scene, and we want to ensure greater local, regional, and national engagement with our artists and cultural organization,” Arts Huntsville Executive Director Allison Dillon-Jauken said during an interview with The Huntsville Times. “While we honor our history as The Arts Council, we recognize that we are not an elected government or exclusive organization. We can more effectively market our great regional arts scene as Arts Huntsville.”
Founded as a membership-based local arts agency, Arts Huntsville terminated its membership fees in 2018 to better support artists and arts organizations.
Today, Arts Huntsville serves and promotes the community’s local arts organizations from its offices within the VBC. Organizations it supports include large institutions such as the Huntsville Museum of Art and Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, as well as smaller groups such as the Huntsville Master Chorale and Opera Huntsville.
Additionally, Arts Huntsville hosts annual signature events, including the Panoply Arts Festival, Concerts in the Park, Art Tour of Homes, Monte Sano Arts Festival, and Christkindlmarket. They also curate a rotating art installation within the halls of the VBC, where local artists are featured, and outdoor art installations around the facility.
ARTS HUNTSVILLE
Concerts In The Park, 2022
BROADWAY THEATRE LEAGUE
The Broadway Theatre League (BTL) began as a fundraising project by the Business Professional Women’s Club (BPWC) in 1959. Organizations like BTL were already set up across the country.
They [BPWC] connected with New York theatrical agents who wanted to set up tours for Broadway shows once they had completed their runs in New York City on Broadway,” said BTL Executive Director Andrew Willmon during a 2019 interview with The Huntsville Times.
BTL’s original office was located on Governors Drive, and performances were black-tie affairs held at Huntsville High School. After the VBCC opened in 1975, BTL began hosting performances in the new Center but maintained its office headquarters on Governor’s Drive until 1996.
“It was unique that a town as small as Huntsville wanted and supported the presentation of touring Broadway shows,” a phenomenon Willmon attributed to the arrival of Dr. von Braun and his rocket team in 1950 and the growth that followed. Broadway Theatre League was run by Louise Rodgers and the Business Professional Women’s Club until 1993. It debuted two performances of Gene Kelly’s Salute to
Broadway in the new Von Braun Civic Center Concert Hall on November 17, 1975. The show starred Ken Berry, Howard Keel, Mimi Hines, and Lainie Nelson.
According to Willmon, the community has been the backbone of their success. No matter the economic climate, shows have almost always been sold out to season ticket holders, with a long waiting list to get one of the coveted seats. BTL’s popularity hasn’t waned during its more than 65 years, with more than 50,000 patrons enjoying performances each season.
“In 2001, Beauty and the Beast was the biggest show in the country,” Willmon said as he recalled a favorite memory. “When September 11 happened, it seemed like the whole world shut down for six weeks. I was still young and didn’t know to be worried, so I kept say ing, ‘Oh, it will be alright’ while everyone around me thought I was crazy.” In the end, the show sold 15,000 of 16,000 tickets.
Phantom of the Opera is one of the only shows that has been unable to come to Huntsville because its set pieces are so big they can’t fit through the loading docks.
“But that has been dealt with now,” Willmon said. “An upcoming $15 million expansion to the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall loading area will make it possible for massive shows like Phantom to come to the VBC in the future.”
Mark C. Smith Concert Hall lobby, 2024
Concert Hall lobby, 1975
PUTTING THEIR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF THE COMMUNITY WITH LOCAL SIGNATURE VBC EVENTS
Over the years, it became important to the Center’s management team to be innovative, in sync with the community, and intuitive about national entertainment trends. In the wake of the MTV generation of the 1980s, there was a movement across the country to reprise the 1960s Woodstock outdoor music festivals.
By the 1990s, these outdoor events had evolved from countercultural rebellions to citywide family gatherings to listen to a wide variety of music. The VBC brought huge shows and concerts to the arena and concert hall, but no one in Huntsville or North Alabama was doing outdoor music festivals.
Big Spring Jam 2010, WDRM Stage
Big Spring Jam 2008, fans cheering for T-Pain
BIG SPRING JAM STRIKES A CHORD
Recognizing how lucrative these ventures were becoming in Mobile, Birmingham, and Montgomery, VBC Director Ron Evans, Huntsville entertainment promoter Donn Jennings of DJ Promotions, VBC Assistant Director Steve Maples, and VBC Finance Director Mike Vojticek created Huntsville’s longest-running and most successful outdoor music festival.
In just ten short weeks, Big Spring Jam kicked off in Big Spring International Park adjacent to the VBC in September 1993 and ran for 17 years with only one rainout in its history.
A typical Jam lineup was comprised of 100 to 120 acts over five or six stages and was held each fall on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Big Spring Jam became something people living in North Alabama looked forward to each year.
The VBC formed a nonprofit organization called the Huntsville Heritage Foundation, which acquired all the volunteers and organized a community committee to select a different charity every year to which Jam proceeds were donated.
The VBC produced the festival, leased Big Spring Park, secured licenses and insurance, provided all the labor, built the stages, set up the vendor stations, and contracted with food vendors.
“We did not scrimp when it came to the cost of acts because audiences wanted to see the hottest bands on the music charts, and we were not only bringing them here, but we were catching artists like Taylor Swift early in their careers,” said Vojticek. “Everyone in the partnership played their part, which was wildly successful.”
The gates opened at noon on Friday and throughout the weekend, visitors could
enjoy great food and crafts while enjoying music by local and regional artists during the day.
Five stages featured country, contemporary Christian, rock, R&B, and even a children’s stage. Swift had just hit the country music charts and was on her way to fame when she agreed to attend the Jam.
“We got a commitment from her several months ahead of the show, and in 2007, her fee was $10,000,” said Jennings. “By the time she appeared at Big Spring Jam, she was getting $100,000 per gig, and she could have backed out on us but didn’t.”
Her show had the biggest crowd that year.
Some other big names who played “The Jam” included the Dixie Chicks, who had just won a Country Music Award the week before the show. After finishing their set, the VBC loaded them onto a golf cart and took them to the classic rock stage to watch the Doobie Brothers from the wings.
The Doobie Brothers waved the Chicks onto the stage, and the audience got a special ensemble treat. Little Richard, who attended Oakwood University and is buried here in Huntsville, played Big Spring Jam in 1994.
“Huntsville bought into the Big Spring Jam from the first day. It obviously grew over the next 18 years, but it became a real signature event for not only Huntsville but North Alabama. It was very high profile,” said Jennings during a 2016 interview with The Huntsville Times.
Other big-name musicians to play The Jam over the years were the Foo Fighters, Wilco, Black Crowes, Dwight Yoakam, Journey, Huey Lewis & the News, Randy Owen of the band Alabama, Kenny Chesney, Charlie Daniels, Collective Soul, Little Big Town,
Al Green, The O’Jays, Destiny’s Child, Keith Urban, Alan Jackson, Boyz II Men, The Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, Buddy Guy, Joan Jett, T-Pain, Cheap Trick, Allison Krauss and Union Station. And on and on.
According to a Huntsville Times article, “At its height in the early-2000s, the Big Spring Jam music festival drew more than 200,000 people to downtown Huntsville. The streets would be thick with people. Music fans. Families. Revelers.”
In 2011, Big Spring Jam was held for its final year because of rising booking costs and reduced available space downtown due to expansions and new construction.
“We were constantly moving the event around to accommodate the growth that downtown Huntsville was experiencing,” Jennings continued in the interview. “Festival organizers floated the idea of moving the Jam to John Hunt Park, which was met by a chorus of ‘You’ve got to be kidding?’ with concerns the festival would lose its flavor if it left downtown…These things have a shelf life, and I think in Huntsville, Big Spring Jam had a life and it was a very good one while it lasted.”
photos courtesy of Alabama Media Group
Big Spring Jam 2000, Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen.
VBC SAYS ‘PINCH DAT TAIL AND SUCK DAT HEAD’ WHEN N’AWLINS COMES TO HUNTSVILLE
New Orleans culture has always been on display in Huntsville, but after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Big Easy in 2005, many residents made Huntsville their new home.
The brainstorming management team at the VBC wanted to create an inclusive community event that would satisfy the City’s craving for crawfish (one of New Orleans’ favorite delicacies) while capturing the festival atmosphere of Mardi Gras.
“April is the best time of year for crawfish in Huntsville,” said VBC Director of Sales
& Event Services Marie Arighi. “Huntsville had just lost its only crawfish festival in 2010, and we felt a need for another one.”
The Von Braun Center launched the Heads-N-Tails Crawfish Boil in the South Hall in 2011.
Huntsville let the good times roll - laissez les bon temps rouler - with a Jimmy Buffet Tribute Band, Lil’ Brian & The Zydeco Travelers, and Live Bait.
The festival continued growing on an upward trajectory over the next three years, adding more family-oriented features like face painting, balloon art, and inflatables for the kids.
In 2014, looking for any excuse to tie Huntsville’s craft beer craze to delicious food, the 4th Annual Heads-N-tails Crawfish Boil & Craft Beer Festival debuted with record attendance thanks to its craft beer garden and sampling stations.
While kids bounced around on the inflatables and got their faces painted, the adults bounced around to Mambo Gris Gris and Roux du Bayou tunes.
By 2015, the VBC significantly expanded its footprint, adding a large dance floor and patiostyle seating around a larger beer garden.
With more than 7,000 people in attendance, they consumed 4,500 pounds of crawfish and seafood while dancing to the tunes of Nathan & The Zydeco Cha Chas.
By 2018 and 2019, the VBC had added an arcade and other Cajun-inspired foods. Still, the 2020 Covid pandemic brought the Festival to an end.
MAYOR BATTLE
Huntsville’s current Mayor, Tommy Battle, has often quipped that he drove up to Huntsville from Birmingham in 1980 to ‘check it out’ and never drove back.
The first concert he saw at the Center was Three Dog Night in what is now known as the VBC Mark C. Smith Concert Hall.
“Listening to them harmonize and sitting there and being able to hear that music was one night I will never forget,” Battle said. “You have certain shows you never forget and that was one of the shows that was just classic. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Here I am in Huntsville, Alabama, and we get to see this great band.’ It was truly one of those nights that is always in your memory.”
Coming from Birmingham, where there were bigger venues, he said Birmingham had nothing on the new VBCC.
“I was sitting in a nearly 2,000-seat venue that was pulling crowds from all over North Alabama. When you attend a show there, you walk away with memories.”
MAYOR’S CUP
Long-time Huntsville residents may have their nostalgia tickled by the memory of the Mayor’s Cup.
Their gymnasiums rest eight miles apart, and their athletic legacies are vastly different. However, Alabama A&M University (AAMU) and the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) built an intriguing crosstown rivalry – and the Von Braun Center was often the stage.
Both universities long ago established a Mayor’s Cup competition that involved a myriad of sports, including track, volleyball, and women’s basketball. With AAMU’s move to the Southwestern Athletic Conference and its NCAA Division I status, the two universities operated within separate divisions and were unable to continue playing against each other in all sports. Men’s basketball was the most notable among the rivalry events, with a final game in November 2013 on the neutral territory of the VBC Propst Arena.
When the rivalry shifted the basketball game to the Von Braun Center, early in Tommy Battle’s tenure as mayor, there was a last-minute uh-oh moment. There was a rivalry. There was a mayor. But there was no cup.
“We were scrambling for a trophy to make sure we had a good trophy for it,” said Battle. “My wife’s grandfather was a birddog breeder and had the national championship birddog, so we had many trophies down in our basement from his time as a national championship birddog breeder. We got one of those trophies. We screwed that birddog off the top and put a basketball on top of it. We took the name plate off it which said, ‘National Birddog Champion’ and put ‘Mayor’s Cup’ on it instead. So, we recycled a very good trophy.”
“It was great fun for the city,” long-time AAMU coach Vann Pettaway said. AAMU dominated the basketball series, 20-5, including the last meeting, in front of 2,546 at the VBC. Both schools were always cognizant of the fan support, begging for more of their loyalists to shift the atmosphere in the arena.
One year, Pettaway made the promise – “the dumbest thing I did,” he said – that he would “coach the second half in my BVDs (underwear)” if AAMU fans did not outnumber the UAH fans. Some of his friends among the AAMU fan base had a great idea – they showed up for the game in blue clothing, disguised as UAH fans.
Downtown Huntsvilee, 2024, photo by Marty Sellers
OTHER MEMORABLE FOOD-INSPIRED VBC COMMUNITY EVENTS
If there has ever been a tastier way to bring the community together, food is the universal language in Huntsville. In 2010, the VBC’s South Hall was transformed into a seaside beach shack for an annual Shrimp Blast.
In its first year, $2 of the $10 ticket went towards Governor Bob Riley’s BP Oil Spill Emergency Relief Fund. When combined with additional fundraisers across the state, $65 million was raised that summer, which was used to mitigate the catastrophic spill’s economic and environmental impacts –including those on Alabama’s coastal counties.
Headlined that first year by Grammy awardwinner Delbert McClinton, the evening was such a hit that the Shrimp Blast continued through 2013 and saw foot-stomping performances by the Turner Family Band, Don Gallardo & How Far West Band, Jason D. Williams, Tangerine Tambourine, Black Eyed Susan, and Rollin’ in the Hay, to name a few.
Local & National Chefs Cooked Up Some Vittles at the Annual Taste of Home Cooking School.
Always keeping a close eye on trends that may interest the surrounding Huntsville communities, the VBC management team noticed the growing popularity of cable TV chef challenges, food preparation competitions, and online social media quick meal videos.
Having captured the spiciness of culinary enthusiasts from 5-star chefs to weekend grill-daddies, local diner cooks to mom’s famous tuna casserole aficionado, the VBC partnered with Mix 96.9 to host the Annual Taste of Home Cooking School & Expo which had all the flourishes of a culinary masterpiece.
Huntsville’s own chef and restaurateur, Chef James Boyce (who brought the delectable Cotton Row, Commerce Kitchen, Pane e Vino Pizzeria, and Grille-on-Main to Huntsville), along with culinary specialist and author Michelle Roberts, headlined the first annual cooking school in 2013.
Located in the VBC’s South Hall, the free expo opened at noon, ran until 6:00 p.m., and consisted of cooking demonstrations, giveaways, and tastings.
From 4:00-5:00 p.m., Chef Boyce headlined a VIP Q&A in the Mark C. Smith Concert Hall for those who wanted to ‘step up their game’ after the expo. Michelle Roberts taught the Cooking Class, which offered two hours of tips and tricks in the kitchen from 5:30 to 8:30. The 3rd Annual Taste of Home Cooking School & Expo in 2015 introduced a new farm-to-table concept at the ALFA Farmer’s Market, followed by the cooking school – again taught by Michelle Roberts.
BURPEE CHALLENGE
Huntsville fitness coach and weight loss author, Joe Martin, approached the VBC with a compelling idea: How would you like to put Huntsville in the Guinness World Records?
Burpees are a two-part exercise despised universally by even the best athletes because they are hard. Very hard.
Burpees require the participant to start from a bent knee position, drop into a standard military push-up, and, in one motion, leap up off the ground into the air and then drop back down and do it again.
To break the world record, Martin would have to gather more than 275 people who would perform synchronized burpees for two straight minutes, non-stop.
“I thought to myself when I saw it, ‘What kind of an idiot would do that?’ but at the time, I thought it was for one minute, and although it would be hard, it could also be fun to break a world record. I knew I could get at least 300 people together to do it.”
After partnering with the VBC and tying the competition to the annual Rocket City Tailgate Challenge event, Martin got commitments from 386 participants, including his mother.
When the Guinness record adjudicator arrived, he informed Martin the record required two minutes of burpees rather than one. By the end of the two minutes, the Burpee team in Huntsville was certified for breaking the Guinness World Record.
But the victory was bittersweet.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” Martin’s mother warned. “But in truth, most people who participated said the same thing!”
THE ROCKET CITY TAILGATE WAS A TOUCHDOWN FOR FUN & WORLD RECORDS
Modern-day college football is a way of life for the Southeastern Conference. In Alabama, anticipation of football season starts on the first day of August while it is still over 90 degrees outside, and the kiddies are wearing water wings in place of school backpacks.
The Rocket City Tailgate Challenge was born from the Von Braun Center management team’s brainstorming sessions. The team
wanted to create a unique, community-wide event that would give early momentum to the spirit of gridiron competition.
Free to the public, the family-friendly Rocket City Tailgate Challenge in 2014 and 2015 became an indoor sports exposition featuring an indoor football field, inflatables, face painting booths, and plenty of food and entertainment.
It was also a day of competition that included a Cook-off Challenge, the Youth Athletic Challenge, a Corn Hole Tournament, and
a Guinness World Record challenge of the most people doing burpees simultaneously (which was broken during the event). The Cook-off Challenge awarded trophies and a cash prize of $1,000 to be donated to the winner’s favorite nonprofit.
LIVE, LAUGH & LEARN IN THE TENNESSEE VALLEY, FAMILY FUN FEST WAS A ONE-OF-A-KIND COMMUNITY FUNDRAISER
Not only was the Family Fun Festival & Expo the only event of its kind in North Alabama, but there was a great need for it.
Regardless of the school or the economic conditions of its students, classrooms across America need more teaching resources. It was no different in Madison County. To support education at the most elementary level, the VBC partnered with local nonprofit Free 2 Teach to host an annual fundraiser that provided free school supplies and learning resources to Madison County’s three public school systems.
Free 2 Teach, a 501(c)(3) organization that opened in January 2011, was started by former schoolteacher and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle’s late wife, Eula Battle. Promoted as ‘Free Admission with a donation to Free2Teach’, donations could be made through monetary contributions or school supplies.
The annual theme Live, Laugh & Learn in the Tennessee Valley offered free activities like train rides, bungee jumps, bumper cars, a rock-climbing wall, a buckin’ bull, face painting, and inflatables. It also provided a variety of educational activities.
Family Fun Fest taught the fundamentals of gardening and basic sports skills, from basketball to kickball. It also offered free health screenings and explanations for why health is important at any age.
The kids could visit and talk to local law enforcement, firemen, and emergency services personnel, who are considered ‘heroes’ in community circles.
“The Family Fun Fest had an adult educational component to it, too,” said Marie Arighi.“It offered a two-way conversation between local businesses and their potential clients about how to provide hands-on education to the children.
“The VBC incentivized the community to show their community pride by investing in
Free 2 Teach as a quality-of-life issue.”
The festival challenged its exhibitors and sponsors with promotions like Pennies2Teach, a month-long Penny Drive. The company that raised the most money received a trophy and public recognition at the festival.
Put on hold in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, Family Fun Fest was exhibited in the South Hall of the VBC from 2014 to 2019.
It grew to be the largest indoor educationrelated Festival in the southeast, with over 10,000 participants in its last two years.
SLEIGH BELLS RING, VBC WAS LISTENING
For more than 40 years, the Huntsville Christmas Parade has marched through the streets of downtown Huntsville to the cheers of locals, but 10 years ago, the parade’s future was unclear.
Local TV station WAAY 31, hosted the signature daytime parade on a Saturday in December; however, after changes in ownership, the station’s direction changed, and leadership determined they would no longer present the parade. A public announcement had not been made, but the behind-thescenes word made its way to locally-owned radio station WRSA (Mix 96.9) that the Christmas parade would not happen that year unless another organization stepped up. The team at Mix reached out to VBC staff with an idea – the two organizations (that had already partnered with each other on events in the past) could join resources and produce the parade together.
“Here we are, Huntsville’s heritage Christmas Music radio station. How could we sit back and let the parade be canceled?” asked WRSA General Manager Nate Adams Cholevik. “You may as well cancel Christmas!”
Not only did the two organizations save the Huntsville Christmas Parade, but they leveled up the event significantly.
Rather than being held on any random Saturday afternoon in December, the team moved it to a permanent spot at 6:00 p.m. on the first Tuesday evening of December every year. To ensure a quality event for the community, parade coordinators limited parade entries and enforced an approval process with three main points: One, entries must have lights (what’s more magical than seeing stunning, lit floats parading through the streets?); two, entries must follow the theme for that year (another new addition to the parade); and three, absolutely no entry could include Santa (there is only one Santa and he would now be riding his sleigh
at the end of the procession – signaling the end of the parade). A panel of judges and cash prizes help incentivize participant’s creativity. These changes quickly turned a simple parade into a colorful nighttime extravaganza that has become a free holiday tradition for the community.
“More important than quantity, we strive for quality entertainment to create a great parade,” said Cholevik. “We accept about 70 to 80 floats, which make it an hour-long parade.”
Except for 2020, when parade coordinators pivoted and hosted a free Christmas fireworks show in the parking lot of Joe Davis Stadium with socially distanced viewing from cars and tailgates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mix 96.9 and the VBC have grown the parade each year, hitting a record attendance of 20,000, according to the Huntsville Police Department in December 2023.
Parade themes are now voted on by the community.
The crowd howled in 2022 when a float carrying a real station wagon dressed out with an uprooted Christmas Tree on the roof and all the characters from the movie Christmas Vacation with the Griswolds waving from the platform. On point for that year’s theme of “Favorite Christmas Movies.” Another company built a giant 12-foot leg lamp from A Christmas Story that year and put it on a float.
THE VON BREWSKI BEER FESTIVAL IS A CRAFTY WAY TO DRAW A CROWD IN FEBRUARY
In 2016, the Von Braun Center jumped on the hogshead with its first winter beer festival.
With a wink and a nod to Huntsville’s historic space industry and a celebration of North Alabama’s spirited craft brewing industry, the Von Brewski Beer Festival has grown to around 150 brews on tap, provided by more than 50 breweries.
Thousands of guests gather for the festival’s opening in time for the countdown of the official tapping of the kegs. Scheduled on a Saturday in winter, the event is designed to lift the community out of its malaise following the bustle of the Christmas holidays.
Attendees sample beer not only from Huntsville brewers but from brewers across the world! Once inside, guests navigate through the festival using a tasting map and
mini pencil, keeping track of the beers tasted. Once inside the festival, the first stop is the Pretzel Necklace Station – a staple of all great beer festivals – where guests DIY their own tasty pretzel necklace, making for an easy, hands-free snack! Hydration Stations are also placed around the room for easy access to free water. On the way, every guest receives a limited-edition souvenir glass with the event’s mascot – Sir Von Brewski –riding his brew-ship across the front.
Volunteers from the local grassroots organization, Free The Hops, provide the pourers at each station to help make the event happen.
“If you ever need a Von Brewski mascot, I’ll volunteer for the job!” said a third-year attendee at the 2024 festival who brought five friends along to enjoy the atmosphere. One of the friends was a designated driver who ensured the revelers paced themselves and maintained a level of acceptable sobriety.
Attendees waiting for doors to open, 2023
PREDATORS
On September 19, 1998, the Nashville Predators played their first game ever - albeit a preseason exhibition - at the Von Braun Center. The Predators’ ownership wanted to make the biggest possible splash for their regular season opener in Nashville, so they opted to play all the preseason exhibition games on the road. Huntsville was the perfect locale for the Predators, who spent part of their training camp here. The Predators beat the Panthers 4-2, erasing a 2-1 deficit. Still, The (Nashville) Tennessean observed, “the biggest rounds of applause” came in the second period. That’s when a pro-Crimson Tide audience, their team idle that day, celebrated the PA announcement that Auburn had lost to LSU, 31-19.
Huntsville Channel Cats, 1998
Nashville Predators, 1998
SPORTS
FOR THE VBC AND HUNTSVILLE, EVERYTHING LINED UP PERFECTLY OVER THE LAST DECADE TO MAKE THE ROCKET CITY BECOME A HOTBED OF SPORTING EVENTS.
Sunisa Lee (2020 Olympic All-Around gold medalist and Uneven Bars bronze medalist, and 2024 Olympic AllAround and Uneven Bars bronze medalist) competing at Elevate The Stage in VBC Propst Arena, 2022
U.S. National Table Tennis Championships, 2024, photo by Bud Gambrell
TheVon Braun Center’s relationship with sports is filled with tenants and transients. The latter would include a frenetic cacophony of clattering bowling pins in a makeshift mega-bowling alley in a convention space; cameo appearances by Alabama and Auburn basketball teams; the hoisting of doleful bass onto scales at the weigh-in of a pro bass fishing tournament; the grunts and lunges of a national martial arts championship; and the grace and leaps of the SEC Gymnastics Championships.
“You see a lot of things happening here in a small-big city that gives the feeling of being in a big city,” says Mayor Tommy Battle.
Huntsville’s sports tourism industry has been robust since Mayor Loretta Spencer’s creation of the Huntsville Sports Commission in 1999. The magic phrase in tourism is “heads in
beds,” and myriad events for both youth and adult athletes, from soccer to softball, volleyball to tennis, brought competitors to the area and filled hotel rooms. A comfortable deposit sat in the Lodging Recruitment Fund, as the annual economic impact of sports tourism began surpassing the $10 million annual mark by the early 2010s.
There is an old adage. The best way to make a small fortune in minor league sports is to start with a large fortune. Some of the Center’s sports tenants proved that to be the case, whether it be soccer, football, hockey or basketball – but each bring their own appeal.
There were (and continue to be) some magnificent success stories among those tenants, both at the box office and in the standings. After Huntsville’s baseball team, the Huntsville Stars, reached the Southern
League playoffs in 2003, the winter of 200304 and spring of 2004 saw the VBC’s Havoc hockey, Flight basketball and Vipers indoor football all advance into postseason play. Huntsville was the only city in the country where all four of its minor league teams’ most recent seasons included playoff appearances.
For the VBC and Huntsville, everything lined up perfectly over the last decade to make The Rocket City become a hotbed of sporting events – including local, regional, national and international competitions. The Huntsville-Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Huntsville Sports Commission and the VBC staff itself invested time and resources to woo event organizers from across the country. Knight-Eady, a Birmingham-based sports management group, entered the picture, promoting college basketball and gymnastics events.
Excellent facilities were in place city-wide, from The Ledges golf course to John Hunt Park to the Huntsville Aquatics Center and, yes, the VBC Propst Arena and other spaces within the Von Braun Center. The money was there to pay rights fees to event organizers and cover costs to ensure splendid events. In the meantime, Huntsville kept popping up like a dandelion on seemingly every “Best Places …” sort of list. The area had become part of the national conversation. Geography made Huntsville a convenient place to travel to, while its attractions made it an intriguing place to visit. The hospitality industry played a key role by providing comfortable and affordable lodging options and multitudes of locations for a good meal or tasty craft beverage. And the most appealing factor? The VBC’s front yard –Downtown Huntsville – was revitalized.
Word travels in the sports industry. All those puzzle pieces mentioned above, paired with successful and memorable events, made Huntsville attractive to event planners. Things
Cliff Wallace’s children, Betsy and Carrie, attended every UAH hockey game the first season. His third daughter, Leslie, was born the night before UAH won their first championship. The team sent the winning puck to Leslie in the hospital. She still has it to this day.
began to grow almost exponentially, and the Von Braun Center was the beneficiary.
“Certainly, a lot of partners are involved in making things happen here,” said VBC Executive Director Steve Maples. “The City and Mayor Battle have been fantastic supporters of what we do. The CVB has been a longtime partner since day one, and the Sports Commission has become an extremely important partner for us.”
Let’s take a look, sport-by-sport, at the VBC’s legacy in sports:
ICE HOCKEY
Preposterous as it may seem to an outsider, ice hockey is the sport historically most synonymous with the Von Braun Center. After two decades of operation, the Huntsville Havoc can lay claim as the most successful, long-term sporting venture in the city’s history. Three Southern Professional Hockey League titles for the Havoc, attendance that is typically more than 90% capacity, a pair of college national championships on home ice, and the chosen site of the debut game of the NHL’s Nashville Predators are pretty good for a resume.
On September 25, 1975, the Center hosted NHL’s Atlanta Flames and Minnesota North Stars during a pre-season exhibition game. Then, in 1985-86, the University of Alabama in Huntsville fielded its first NCAA-sanctioned intercollegiate hockey team, having begun as a club team in 1979 behind the leadership of Joe Ritch, now a prominent Huntsville attorney and civic leader. UAH won a club team national championship, and Ritch had an 85-4-1 record. Then came the NCAA days, a new coach in Doug Ross, and more national success, including two NCAA Division II championships. Reflecting on the growth into a hockey powerhouse, Ritch once said, “We thought we were going to drive to Arab and we ended up on Mars.”
The Center was the site of the two championships, with a 7-1, 3-0 domination of Bemidji State in March 1996, then a 6-2, 5-2 sweep in March 1998. However, the NCAA soon deemphasized Division II hockey, so UAH moved to Division I in that sport. The Chargers won four conference titles, but scheduling and recruiting grew to be almost insurmountable challenges. Doug Ross, who won 376 games in his 24 years as Chargers head coach, resigned after the 2006-07 season. As a geographic outlier, UAH was not tendered an invitation to join a conference after a major realignment of leagues in 2021. Unable to survive as an independent, UAH decided to suspend the hockey program.
PRO HOCKEY
It hasn’t always been smooth skating for Huntsville’s pro hockey teams. The Huntsville Blast survived only the 1993-94 season in the East Coast Hockey League, averaging 1,580 attendees before being sold and moved to Tallahassee. The Huntsville Channel Cats arrived in 1995, winning the Southern Hockey League title, then moved to the Central Hockey League, where they reached the playoffs four consecutive years and won the 1999 title. However, the two Knoxville doctors who owned the club weren’t happy with the attendance and made a very public PR blunder in threatening to move the club if the numbers didn’t increase. Instead, they sold to Boaz businessman John Cherney. He made the controversial decision to change the nickname to Tornado – a fresh wound for many in this storm-ravaged area – and then suspended operations for two years. He brought the team back as the Channel Cats in 2003-04 before a low-key, no-ego man named Keith Jeffries galloped to the rescue. The Huntsville Havoc overcame the mistakes of past franchises and, in 2023-24, celebrated their 20th season in existence. They won three championships in their first 19 years and averaged more than 800 fans per game, which was higher than the league average.
THE SECRET SAUCE? HAVOC!
The enthusiasm and big crowds for UAH hockey spawned support for a professional team in Huntsville. Former Havoc player and coach, John Gibson, recalled many Saturdays when UAH played in the afternoon, “and they’d fill the place, and after the game, they’d move everybody out. Then we’d play at night and fill it.” The Huntsville Blast, Huntsville Channel Cats, and UAH’s hockey program preceded Huntsville Havoc, but worked together in creating a foundation for a stellar professional hockey team; however, the elements and timing had to be just right. “The reason they’ve been a success is because of the effort they put in, the sweat equity,” Mayor Tommy Battle said. “They’re always trying something different … Night after night, they’re sold out, and they bring a good level of hockey to this town.”
One man gives the perfect perspective. His name hangs on the wall in the Von Braun Center Propst Arena on his retired jersey –number 17. Few names are more synonymous with professional hockey in Huntsville than Chris George, and even fewer offer a better perspective on the sport’s continued success at the Von Braun Center.
“I think it’s local ownership and community involvement,” George said of the Huntsville Havoc. (Owners) Keith and Becky Jeffries have created a culture there that gives back to the community, and the community acknowledges they put on a great product. The hockey is almost secondary sometimes, with all the stuff that goes on for the fans.”
The Havoc, which celebrated its 20th season in 2023-24 just as the Von Braun Center was approaching its 50th, has been profoundly generous with charitable endeavors. One is led by George and his wife, Amy. The Melissa George Memorial Neonatal Fund provides equipment for Huntsville Hospital and is named for their late daughter. It is annually supported by the Havoc with a designated game, complete with unique jerseys and sellout crowds. After 18 such games, the fund is on the cusp of $1 million raised through the Havoc. “That’s just crazy,” George says.
This community involvement is a nice bit of symmetry since the VBC’s arena was very much designed as a community ice rink before the opening of the Wilcoxon Ice Plex.
“It’s because Keith Jeffries has done such a great job,” said former VBC Executive Director Ron Evans. “Whatever he inherited in terms of interest in hockey when he bought the team, it could have easily been frittered away. But he and his organization did not do that. They’ve done an outstanding job.”
“It’s not me,” Jeffries quickly argued. “We’ve had some good people through the years. Nobody does it by themselves. And God has continued to bless this building and this business.”
“It’s been stable for 20 years,” continued Jeffries. “And this building has continued to improve the facilities throughout those 20 years. You look at what it was, what it is now, and what they’re continuing to do. And Huntsville has grown like mad, bringing people in from places that were hockey markets. So, it’s all of it combined. I don’t know that there’s a secret sauce.”
CHEERS! ALCOHOL SALES AT THE VBCC
After years of trying, the Center’s Board of Control was ready to go before the City Council in May of 1991 to ask yet again for permission to sell alcohol during arena events. However, two hours before they were to make the request, board members learned they didn’t have to ask.
Until this point, alcohol was never allowed in the arena, and requests to sell beer there had been denied by City Council. The issue of alcohol sales at arena events initially came up over a pending contract between the Center and Huntsville Basketball Inc. League officials had been holding out on the contract until the beer issue was resolved. During the meeting called to vote on the alcohol amendment for the arena, the Board found out it could have been selling alcohol there all along.
Before 1980, any change in the Center’s alcohol policy had to go before City Council, but City attorneys said that an overhaul in 1980 of the state’s alcoholic beverage code gave agencies like the Center the final world on alcohol sales.
The Board agreed that alcoholic beverages would be sold only during food and social functions, conventions, trade and consumer shows, and performing arts events. Events where the target audience was under 21 would be excluded (along with collegiate and amateur sporting events).
Four of the Board’s seven members who attended the meeting – Chairman Martha Simms, Richard Harris, Frank Morring and Loretta Spencer – voted for the change.
Alcohol was already being sold for some events in the Playhouse and Concert Hall.
“I have great confidence in our ability to make the judgement to sell beer at basketball games and certain other events,” said Mrs. Simms.
Riley Green, 2020, photo by Kobi Childers
BASKETBALL
Millionaire Ted Stepien created the Global Basketball Association in 1991, hyping things up by introducing a white basketball. It must have seemed a good idea at the time. He hired long-time basketball maven Mike Storen (father of renowned broadcaster Hannah Storm) as the league commissioner.
Among the GBA teams – along with franchises as far-flung as Albany, NY, and Wichita, Kans., and with plans for two European teams to barnstorm the US – were the Huntsville Lasers, awarded to the city in May 1991.
Storen once remarked, “There are no bad markets, just bad marketers and bad marketing. As far as I can remember, there isn’t a sign at the city limits that says, ‘Welcome to Huntsville, Bad Basketball Community.’” But signs weren’t great for success of the team or the league. The Lasers went 33-31 in the first season under head coach Jim Sleeper, a wonderful name for a man spending a peripatetic career as a minor league hoops coach. The star was Mike Ratliff, a 6-10 Wisconsin native who’d had a cup of coffee in the NBA at Kansas City.
The Lasers lasted only one season. Ditto Storen. The whole league collapsed barely a month into its second year.
The National Basketball Association wagered that Huntsville was not a bad basketball community. In 2001, Huntsville was among the inaugural sites when it created its NBDL – the D for development, as in a minor league operation to cultivate talent. The league chose the southeast as the NBDL home, hoping to grow more interest here in the NBA.
Huntsville, Mobile, North Charleston, SC, Roanoke, Va., Asheville, NC, Columbus, Ga., Fayetteville, NC and Greenville, SC,
were the original eight, each of the teams owned by the NBA – a business model entirely different from other minor leagues. Part of that model was “a pitch that if you help us establish and grow this league, we’re going to fill your building with a lot more concerts. And you can’t completely just slam the door on the NBA” recalled Ron Evans.
Bob Thornton, a salty NBA journeyman power forward, was named the Flight’s head coach. The Flight had some local flavor.
Greg Stolt, a former Grissom High star who played at the University of Florida, was the sixth man. Michael Wilks, a dandy little guard, was the first Huntsville call-up to the NBA (he’s currently an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder). The third season brought the arrival of arguably the best-known player ever to be assigned to a Huntsville team, the charismatic Mateen Cleaves, a guard only two years removed from an All-America and national championship-winning career at Michigan State. Antoine Pettway, a former Alabama guard, was also on the squad.
All in all, it was a terrific product. The Flight had some quasi-household names, played opponents bringing in other household names as players and coaches and with a versatile lineup of hungry prospects, and generally demonstrated relentless hustle –if not always polished.
“The Huntsville Flight and G-League (formerly NBDL) basketball were no match with SEC football weekends. Fans were quite sparse whenever we had games on a Saturday or bowl game day,” said Stolt via email from Shanghai, who is vice president for the NBA’s marketing and business operation in China.
“Perhaps something that headquarters didn’t plan for when setting the season schedule … All of us players were in the same boat, hoping to use the minor leagues to open up better opportunities for our careers. I think most players and staff did benefit their careers from the time played in Huntsville.”
The first edition of the Flight finished 26-30, then year two brought a 22-28 mark under coach Ralph Lewis. In 2003-04, the Flight qualified for the playoffs for the first time but lost in the championship series to the Asheville Altitude.
They were back in the playoffs in 2004-05, finishing the regular season at 27-22, but a fourpoint loss at Asheville in the championship game grounded the Flight for good. Other teams followed suit. The NBA’s business plan was a flawed one. Still, it pivoted toward a broader geographic base, established a farm system between NBDL teams and NBA counterparts, and in 2017 became the G-League – a nod to the corporate sponsorship from Gatorade. More than 30 teams are in the G-League, stretching from Delaware to Mexico City, and many playing in the same cities as their NBA partners. Our Huntsville Flight, for instance, is now the Cleveland Charge.
With a pro basketball sneaker-print in Huntsville, the NBA tried to capitalize. In the fall of 2002, the Atlanta Hawks and Indiana Pacers played an exhibition game, one of several NBA ventures hosted in the VBC.
College basketball, it turns out, was a greater draw to Huntsville audiences than the big leaguers. There were sporadic neutral-site games through the years involving Alabama and Auburn before the advent of the Rocket City Classic in December 2016, when the Crimson Tide met Arkansas State. Bama returned three more times, then Auburn made its first visit in two decades in December 2023.
The enthusiasm, ticket sales, and corporate support for the Classic encouraged another bold move. Led by the Knight-Eady team out of Birmingham, Huntsville was awarded the Conference USA basketball tournament for the 2023-24 season, with a two-year contract and option for more.
Rocket City Classic 2016
SEC GYMNASTICS
The VBC has never responded as impressively under such challenging circumstances as it did during the 2021 Southeastern Conference Gymnastics Championships, especially with Covid-19 still affecting the nation. Huntsville has also never responded so eagerly to an event, as all 2,200-plus available tickets were sold out within two hours.
“We had to navigate through numerous obstacles, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” reflected VBC Executive Director Steve Maples.
A few weeks before the 2021 SEC Gymnastics Championships were to be held in New Orleans, the Southeastern Conference announced the event would take place at the VBC Propst Arena – the announcement was made after a whirlwind combined courtship from the VBC, Huntsville Sports Commission, Huntsville-Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Knight Eady, and the City of Huntsville – entities that all came together to do one thing: convince the SEC and ESPN’s SEC Network that Huntsville would be the perfect place to hold their upcoming event which would occur in less than two months.
Covid-19 affected virtually every decision, every tweak, and every bit of new construction for the event. For fans’ safety, tickets were sold in pods so families could sit in clusters and still have a safe distance from other fans. Keeping the athletes as isolated as possible was paramount for the SEC, what with national competitions looming later in the season.
In an effort to provide a memorable experience for the student-athletes, and further develop the relationship between the Center and the SEC, all hands were on deck to elevate the event from the first moments of each team’s arrival to the closing awards ceremony.
Each of the eight teams arrived separately in South Hall by driving their school’s buses straight
inside through rollup doors. The lights in the venue were off, and projected along the entire north wall were hype videos for that specific team’s players with music playing over the sound system. From inside a bus, one student excitedly tweeted, “You won’t believe this. We’ve got a police escort from the hotel!”
Once off the buses, student-athletes and team staff enjoyed a “blue carpet” style greeting (SEC colors are blue and gold) with additional team hype videos playing on monitors along the path through the facility. The route led to East Hall, where an enormous makeshift locker room was created. Each team had large, partitioned spaces for the athletes to relax, work with athletic trainers, and –a subtle important touch – preen in front of mirrors hung by each entrance, assuring hair, makeup, and uniform fit was just right. Each makeshift locker room was outfitted with a custom Gobo projecting the team’s logo onto a wall within their space, and custom takeaway items like water bottles and facemasks all sporting the Championships’ logo were thoughtfully provided by the Huntsville collective.
Specific to gymnastic events, gymnasts need carpeted routes from the locker room to the floor. This was another opportunity for VBC staff to get creative! There are exterior doors in the back of East Hall that open to a secluded parking lot across from a maintenance entrance into Propst Arena. VBC Operations created a carpeted walkway running the entire route, fully covered and enclosed with heated tents (blue and gold uplighting, and potted plants were strategically placed for aesthetics).
Attendees walking up to Propst Arena were greeted by a custom hand-drawn 10x10ft logo of the Championships (a feat that took local entrepreneur, Matt Reed, over 10 hours to create).
The Championships were executed beautifully and were broadcast live by ESPN’s SEC Network. The University of Alabama claimed the Championship title.
What an entrance for SEC Gymnastics and ESPN into Huntsville, and what a day for the Von Braun Center.
“It was pretty awesome to host the event and watch athletes of that caliber,” said Maples. “And they left here impressed!”
“WE
HAD TO NAVIGATE THROUGH NUMEROUS OBSTACLES, BUT I WOULDN’T HAVE IT ANY REFLECTED VBC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEVE
NUMEROUS OTHER WAY,” STEVE MAPLES.
SOCCER
The Huntsville Fire pretty much failed to spread in 1997-98, when a dying Eastern Indoor Soccer League team in Daytona Beach moved here in mid-season 1997.
Cullen owned the Speed Kings and said his team would need to draw 3,000 fans per game to survive in Daytona. They drew 600 for their opener. Now, about that, making a small fortune in sports…
Cullen unloaded the team within a month, and new owner Gary Dresden announced on July 10, 1997, that the club would move to Huntsville and be rechristened the Fire. The Fire joined teams from Tupelo, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Columbus, Ga., and Savannah. The home opener was set for August 7. Some 2,500 fans witnessed the opener, and the Fire limped home 13-11, finishing fourth.
Fans witnessed a drastically different sport from traditional soccer. Only six players per team on the field, a 14 x 8-foot goal, and the boundaries established by the boards from a traditional hockey rink. The Fire was much improved in 1998 but fell to a new team in Biloxi in the playoff semifinals. The team was fourth in the seven-team league in attendance at 2,534 per game. In September, Dresden complained of “significant financial losses” and fired his staff; he sought local investors to help keep the team afloat. But Ron Evans, then the executive director of the VBC, recalled the demise was more a fault of a poorly designed league than the local ownership.
VBC BOARD CHAIR RETIRES AFTER 32 YEARS
After 32 years of dedicated service, Mr. Wayne E. Bonner retired from the Von Braun Center Board of Control. Mr. Bonner served as a Board of Control Member until he was elected Chairman of the Board in 1998. He is the longest serving Chairman of the VBC Board of Control and held the position for 24 years before retiring from the VBC Board of Control in August 2022.
The Von Braun Center has achieved tremendous success over the years. During his leadership, the following projects were successfully planned and completed:
• South Hall Addition
• Arena Renovations
• Concert Hall Renovations
• Propst Arena Digital Signage
• Propst Arena Lighting
• Mars Music Hall
• Rhythm on Monroe
• Mark C. Smith Concert Hall Steel Rigging Upgrade
• Propst Arena Backstage Expansion
• Propst Arena Exterior Enhancements
A retirement celebration was held on October 19, 2022 in his honor at the VBC Mars Music Hall where Mayor Tommy Battle proclaimed the day Wayne Bonner Day! Mr. Bonner was also presented with a custom plaque made from the VBC’s famous Ginkgo tree’s branches that were shed earlier in the year, as well as a custom Tennessee Volunteers football jersey with his name and the number 32.
Wayne Bonner, Steve Maples, and Mayor Tommy Battle at groundbreaking ceremony for future site of Mars Music Hall and Rhythm On Monroe, 2018
ARENA FOOTBALL
The Tennessee Valley Vipers checked several boxes. One, to quench the off-season thirst for sports in a football-crazed area. Two, to serve as a different sporting entertainment option that could get rowdy and loud versus Huntsville’s minor league baseball franchise which had grown a bit staid. And three, to provide a steady new off-season tenant for the VBC. They came with an owner/president a bit loud and rowdy himself, a Californian named Art Clarkson, who owned an impressive resume of minor league operations.
“I think Art was the greatest minor league sports promoter in the country at one time,” said Joe Stroud, the Vipers’ general manager. However, he could be polarizing and stubborn, and humility was never one of his greater virtues – and that’s how friends might have described him. But as a promoter, he was an endless pool of energy and ideas.
“Art did a great job. A tremendous job,” said Ron Evans, who more than once butted heads with Clarkson. “We had a lot of difficulties, but there was never a lack of respect on my part for the job he did as a sports promoter.”
The Vipers were a charter member of af2, ostensibly a developmental league for the Arena Football League, a “major” league with 18 teams from coast to coast. The AFL rules called for a field 85 feet wide by 50 yards long, with goalposts half the width of traditional football. Eight players were on the field per team, and most played offense and defense. There were other unique wrinkles – hockey-style dasher boards formed the sidelines in all the arenas, and collisions could be bruising – but it was a relatively simple game to follow and enjoy.
“It was a different game than the football game we knew,” said Tommy Battle. “They’re scoring about every time they got the ball, or
somebody intercepted, and they scored the other way. It was always 72-65 or something like that. But it was great.
It didn’t hurt that the occasional familiar name dotted the Vipers’ roster, like Andy Fuller and Reggie Worthy from Auburn, Alabama A&M’s Brad Jefferson, and Scottsboro’s Eric Scott. Chris Anderson, the former Huntsville High running back not far removed from his starring days at Alabama, joined the front office team. The 25-year-old head coach in 2000 was a man who has become a familiar name to TV viewers, ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill.
“He spent a lot of time at one of the TV stations, and I think that’s what got him interested in getting into TV,” Stroud says. “He had a charismatic personality.” Stroud noted that Luginbill also had some experience in the arena style of play, which gave the Vipers a massive advantage over some bigger-name coaches who only knew “outdoor” football.
The 2000 Vipers went 10-6 and made it to the Arena Cup game, losing to Quad City, and averaged nearly 6,000 per game. “People just flocked to it,” Stroud says. They did business as the Vipers for five seasons, with a 63-17 record. Alas, Clarkson was growing disenchanted with some restrictive af2 rules and regulations, and because he felt the af2 wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain for local ownership who were facing greater financial obligations.
After the 2004 season, Clarkson made a rare misstep. He rechristened his team, the Tennessee Valley Raptors, and moved them to something called United Indoor Football. (Clarkson always maintained Tennessee Valley was essential to draw from a larger geographic area than merely Huntsville, pointing to local TV’s affection for the phrase, and Raptors was his second choice when af2’s legal folks wouldn’t let him use Pythons.)
The Raptors, frankly, stunk. They were 6-9. The novelty effect, always a challenge for minor league sports, had worn off, the new league’s rules were blah, and the talent was thin.
Clarkson moved his team to Rockford, Ill., in 2006. While Huntsville pondered what to do with all that artificial turf rolled up and stashed away. The CEO of Huntsville Sports Ventures (initials HSV … get it?), Keith Jeffries, galloped in again and bought the club. The Vipers name was back on the masthead.
However, the 2006 and 2007 teams were a combined 10-22, and the glory days of big wins, hundreds tailgating before games, and thousands in the seats seemed eons ago. Enter Dean Cokinos, the choice for Vipers head coach in 2008. The lantern-jawed former
college running back led the team to a 10-6 mark, then into the playoffs, culminating with a one-point win at Spokane for the franchise’s only Arena Cup as Cokinos rolled the dice with a two-point conversion gamble in overtime.
Thirteen months later, af2 was absorbed into a new-look Arena Football League, putting Huntsville on a roster with some majormarket cities. But the team was lured to Gwinnett County in suburban Atlanta after the 2010 season.
Among those enamored with the Vipers through the years was a fan named Jeff Knight. He was determined to fill the vacuum, so his Southern Sports and Entertainment company landed a spot in the Southern Indoor Football League for 2011, maintaining a key bit of consistency
Named the Hammers – borrowing from our state bird, the Yellowhammer – the team limped home at 4-8. The league name changed 2012 to Professional Indoor Football League, but the record didn’t. Enter, again, Cokinos. Brought back to coach in 2013, he took the Hammers to a league championship with a seismic 26-point win over Richmond in the title game. However, the magic never returned. The following two Hammers teams avoided the playoffs, and in September 2015, PIFL announced it was folding. Along with the league’s death came the end of indoor professional football at the VBC.
by keeping Joe Stroud on board as GM.
CONVENTIONS AND MEETINGS
IN THE FIRST TWO MONTHS OF OPERATION, CONVENTIONS ALONE BROUGHT IN $1 MILLION FOR THE VBCC.
While the arena and theater received well-deserved attention and media buzz, the concept for a new downtown Huntsville complex didn’t include just entertainment—conventions and meetings were a large part of the initial mission.
“Now that we have our beautiful Von Braun Civic Center, more and more conventions are being scheduled in Huntsville. This we love! Our fair city has much to offer, and it is with great pride that we show visitors all the sights,” reported Mary Sylvia Armstrong in a Huntsville Times April 12, 1975 article titled “Huntsville is Becoming A Top Convention City.”
In the first two months of operation, conventions alone brought in $1 million for the VBCC. Cliff Wallace, VBCC’s director from 1975-80, predicted the future of the convention market, “The new money that comes into the city from the conventions will become the means by which the community prospers.”
Some of the first conventions included the National Secretaries Association, the Instrument Society of America, the Women’s Council of Alabama, the Telephone Pioneers of America, and the Alabama League of Municipalities.
During the construction phase in the early 1970s, Center director Paul Radford persuaded the VBCC Board of Control to promote the facility to groups outside of Huntsville.
“By 1974, the Board had convinced the City of the importance of conventions and tourists,” recalled Bob Stagg (original VBCC Board member). “The City authorized the VBCC Board to form a division referred to as the Huntsville-Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau.” The Huntsville-Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) reported to the VBCC Board until 1992. Stagg transitioned
to the CVB Board and still serves as of 2024. “From inception to today, I’ve touched one or the other of them,” said Mr. Stagg, a retired Teledyne Brown engineer.
Judy Ryals became director of the HuntsvilleMadison County Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1978 and retired in late 2023 after 45 years. “The VBC has always been very impactful to the economy due to bringing people into the community where they spend money in the hotels, restaurants, and attractions,” said Ryals. “A lot of people knew Huntsville was north of Birmingham, but that was about all. We were one of the first cities really to have a facility that nice –us and Birmingham.”
The South, North, and East halls had not been built when the Center opened. “It was a small footprint, but it was state-of-the-art at the time.” Before Huntsville could offer large meeting facilities, Ryals recalled that groups had gathered at the old Carriage Inn or Sheraton Motor Lodge, where schools held proms and dances.
The convention and meeting industry has pumped millions into Huntsville’s economy through the years. State association meetings were initially the target, but the city now attracts international conferences. In the convention world, “Huntsville has been very competitive, particularly in the Southeast region,” Ryals continued. “It’s due to the facility at the Von Braun Center. We
“It’s a great partnership between the two organizations in promoting conventions and meetings and attending tradeshows nationwide to spread the word about what all Huntsville and our surrounding communities have to offer.”
Five decades later, no one can doubt the downtown arts, entertainment, and meeting complex has raised Huntsville’s profile in multiple ways. “I have sold meetings, conventions, conferences, and tradeshows - what is known as the “meetings industry” in downtown Huntsville for over 35 years, with 25 of those years being at the Von Braun Center,” said VBC Director of Sales and Event Services Marie Arighi. “I have watched downtown grow from having one hotel to the many we have now. Huntsville went
In 1997, the American Bowling Congress held the opening event in Huntsville, Alabama which was the driving force behind building the South Hall.
Original facility layout
Facility layout in 2024
active downtown scene. I have represented Huntsville and the VBC throughout the country at many industry events and can say from first-hand experience that our once unknown city is now being actively sought after by event planners (both nationally and internationally).”
Stagg recalled thinking when the Center first opened, “It’s not going to flash us over national news, but we’ve moved up a notch in the world.” That sentiment was made into a reality that continues pushing the City of Huntsville and surrounding areas forward today.
Presently, 90-92% of VBC’s business is convention-related, and 8% represents entertainment events. Additional downtown construction, such as hotels, restaurants, and new office complexes, supports the continued need for dedicated exhibit and convention space.
“We like to say, ‘We can do anything in this building,’” continued Arighi. “And our team has proven that time and time again.”
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT FOR THE CENTER’S FUTURE
“Sometimes I tell people to imagine Huntsville without the Von Braun Center,” said VBC Executive Director Steve Maples. “They can’t do it. It’s the Center of downtown. Absolutely everybody has memories of going to something at the VBC.”
Maples is as enamored with the facility today as he was on his first day of work nearly 48 years ago. With a career spanning almost five decades, he leaned back in his office chair and reflected on his journey with the organization.
It all began when he crossed paths with VBCC Board Chair Tom Thrasher, who saw potential in a young Maples - urging him to pursue higher education with a promise
that the Center would cover the costs. That investment forged an unwavering bond between Maples and Huntsville’s premier event space.
“Since 1975, the VBC has created a legacy that is unparalleled in the community,” said Maples. “It is an icon, a pillar of Huntsville and North Alabama, and still today there is truly no other organization or business like the VBC in the region.”
In the age of online media and virtual experiences, the Center remains a physical landmark uniting people together – in person. “We are in the business of cultivating experiences. Whether it’s giving local theater groups and young dancers a stage to perform on, providing a space for graduates to share the moment of receiving their diploma with family and friends, bringing someone’s favorite touring band to their hometown, hosting thousands of industry professionals as they share information and secure deals, or creating family traditions of cheering for
Huntsville Havoc ice hockey each seasonnearly every type of moment, big and small, happens at the VBC.”
The Center has been the community’s place through time. It is a place for firsts—the first ballet performance, the first professional sporting event, the first concert, the first circus, the first prom … maybe even the first kiss. The VBC is as indelible on the local landscape as the Saturn V rocket.
And just as Huntsville is neck-deep in sending man back to walk on the moon, the VBC is focused on expanding its footprint in Huntsville. The past has been glorious, but what does the future hold for the facility?
More. Of everything.
“We are thrilled to celebrate our 50th anniversary with the community,” said a smiling Maples. “Let’s create another 50 years of memories together!”
HUNTSVILLE HOSPITAL
In addition to having a variety of entertainment options in a community, having access to quality healthcare is a top concern for businesses, individuals, and families considering a move to Huntsville and Madison County.
Established in 1895 for charitable purposes by a concerned group of women, Huntsville Hospital (HH) is now the second largest hospital in Alabama, serving hundreds of thousands of patients as the regional referral center for North Alabama and Southern Tennessee.
In recent years, the hospital has expanded its services throughout the region with the development of Huntsville Hospital Health System, which includes hospitals in Huntsville, Madison, Athens, Decatur, Boaz, Guntersville, Fort Payne, Red Bay, Sheffield, and Scottsboro, Alabama, as well as Fayetteville, Tennessee. The Health System includes more than 2,500 patient beds and 19,500 employees.
Over the years, Huntsville Hospital has received numerous accolades, the most recent being named #2 in Alabama by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Regional Hospitals” rankings, as well as making Forbes’ list of “America’s Best-In-State Employers” in 2024. Additionally, for 28 years Huntsville Hospital’s Community Health Initiative has provided $13.6 million in financial support to 53 different agencies that share the hospital’s mission of helping those in need (organizations like the Community Free Clinic, Arc of Madison County, HEALS Inc., United Cerebral Palsy, Kids to Love, and more).
Huntsville Hospital has been a longtime supporter of the Von Braun Center which also serves the North Alabama and Southern
Tennessee region! The hospital has been a lead sponsor for many years of the Senior Expo, along with other community events including the VBC’s signature Family Fun Fest where Huntsville Hospital provided the HH Mobile Medical Unit promoting preventive health care through community screenings and education.
Support of the VBC doesn’t end with the Center itself. Huntsville Hospital has also provided longtime support to onsite tenants, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra and Broadway Theatre League throughout the years. Additionally, they were the Official Medical Provider for Huntsville’s Channel Cats, and now Huntsville Havoc (who recently completed their 20th season)!
Jason Isbell performing at Huntsville Hospital’s annual fundraiser in 2016
In 1879, Halsey brothers William Leroy and Charles Henry, founded W.L. Halsey Company – a retail grocery delivery business. Their facility began as a 60,000 square-foot warehouse and has grown into over 200,000 square-foot of state-of-the-art distribution. Servicing a majority of Alabama, Middle Tennessee and sections of Mississippi, Kentucky and Georgia.
After expanding their services to include a Fresh Meat Division and Produce Division, mobile fleet services (including over 50 tractors, 7 straight trucks, and 45 multizone temperature-controlled trailers), a commercially equipped test kitchen and dining area, and operating as two locations; the original location in downtown Huntsville which is now their Cash and Carry facility, and the main warehouse complex in Madison, this family-owned business has created a reliable one-stop-shop for all of their customer’s needs and is now known as Halsey Foodservice (HFS).
Built on integrity, a firm handshake, and a clear commitment to quality and service, Halsey Foodservice has formed sincere partnerships with their customers –the VBC included.
The partnership between Hasley and the Center started in the 1980’s when VBCC Chef Tommy Armstrong began purchasing from them to ensure he had quality ingredients to serve the thousands of guests who expected delicious meals when attending catered events at the new North Hall.
Success is a two-way street, and whether it’s been high-end menu items requested by event planners months in advance or more casual fare for the many concession areas located within the Center, the two organizations have established a friendly and professional partnership benefitting both businesses. In fact, HFS has hosted their annual themed Halsey Foodservice Food Show since 1991 at the VBC beginning in East Hall before moving into South Hall where it continues today. They’ve also been
HALSEY FOODSERVICE
sponsors of events over the years like the VBC’s 40th Anniversary Open House, 5K Music Run, and televised tribute shows like the George Jones and the Dean Dillon tributes. Additionally, Halsey Foodservice has been proud supporters and sponsors for the addition of Mars Music Hall and Rhythm on Monroe.
With a dedicated professional staff, state-ofthe-art facility, and 145+ years of experience, Halsey Foodservice has what it takes to make sure their customers always get the best quality, highest level of service and most competitive pricing. And while a lot of things have changed over the years, their business is still based on the same high level of integrity, that firm handshake and a crystalclear commitment to quality and service by understanding and meeting the customer’s needs with reliability and consistency. They keep their eye on the future for growth and opportunity, but just like the VBC, will not forget their past. They embrace their past, just as they embrace Huntsville as their home.
Halsey Foodservice Food Show 2024
MATHENY GOLDMON ARCHITECTURE + INTERIORS
Transformative spaces are not created with formulas. This is a motto that local firm, Matheny Goldmon Architecture + Interiors, is built on. Since 2006, Matheny Goldmon has focused on the art and discipline of design, while striving to enrich the quality, aesthetics, and experiences of their clients and community.
Their approach is founded on understanding the unique needs of their clients and developing a customized process to produce a specific and original result on every project with conciergelevel service. Their most successful projects are beautiful, inspirational, and responsive to the practical needs of the individual client.
Matheny Goldmon’s long list of local clients include Campus 805, Ditto Landing, U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s Rocket Park, Lincoln Mill, Times Plaza, The Orion, Clinton Row, Botanical Garden, and more. However, the list of venues within the VBC alone that have been touched by Matheny Goldmon’s team is even more impressive!
Endeavoring to provide a diligent and professional experience while making the design process fun and fulfilling, Matheny Goldmon provides clients the following five results: Transformative Designs; Exceptional Service; Timeless Materials; Strong Sense of Place; and Tailored Interiors.
• Propst Arena
2011 Lobby and Seating Renovations
2021 Backstage Expansion and Renovations
• Mark C. Smith Concert Hall
2011 Lobby and Seating Renovations
2024 Backstage Expansion and Lobby Renovations
• Mars Music Hall
2019 New Build
• Rhythm on Monroe – Restaurant and Rooftop Bar
2019 New Build
• North Hall/Saturn Ballroom 2023 Renovations
• South Hall
2024 Pre-function/Lobby and Meeting Room Renovations
Huntsville International Airport at the Port of Huntsville is an essential channel connecting Huntsville and North Alabama to the rest of the world. Whether travelers or cargo, through jets, trains or trucks, the entire globe is within easy reach of Huntsville.
Huntsville International Airport serves 1.5 million customers annually with nonstop flights to 13 cities including desirable leisure locations Orlando and Las Vegas. With superior connectivity to major airline hubs, air travel from Huntsville is truly just one stop to the world!
The Port of Huntsville is North Alabama’s inland port and remains the major national and global gateway into our region through Huntsville International Airport (HSV) and the International Intermodal Center. The latter is a U.S. Customs Port of Entry and is ranked 21st in the United States for international air cargo volume.
Throughout the VBC’s 50-year history, the two organizations have worked in concert to bring high-profile dignitaries and famous performers to Huntsville. From sitting presidents to comedians, singers and performing groups of all kinds – HSV has provided an easy point of entry into the city within short driving distance to their performance location at the VBC.
PORT OF HUNTSVILLE
But the connection between the VBC and HSV doesn’t just end with the stars traveling to and from their performance venue; the two organizations bring tens of thousands to Huntsville annually for large conferences and conventions held at the Center. Big annual events like Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium, the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, and National Children’s Advocacy Center’s International Symposium on Child Abuse bring attendees to Huntsville from all over the world. For many of those travelers who have an end destination at the VBC, their first greeting and last glimpse of the city’s unsurpassed Southern hospitality and natural beauty is via Huntsville International Airport.
THE ORTHOPAEDIC CENTER
For more than two and a half decades, The Orthopaedic Center (TOC) has been recognized as the Tennessee Valley’s leader in orthopaedics, spine surgery and sports medicine. For more than 20 of those years, they have been supporters of the VBC!
Thousands of area residents have received world-class care from the Valley’s most trusted and experienced group of orthopaedic surgeons and medical specialists who have been specially trained at some of the most prestigious medical centers across the country. Their pioneering efforts in orthopaedic research, and focus on clinical teachings have brought unparalleled expertise to north Alabama and south central Tennessee.
With convenient locations in Albertville, Ardmore, Athens, Decatur, Fayetteville, Florence, Guntersville, Hampton Cove, Huntsville, Madison, Rogersville, Scottsboro and Winfield; board-certified orthopaedic surgeons and physicians; on-site, state-ofthe-art diagnostic and treatment technology including customized orthotics/prosthetics and physical therapy; along with complete general and specialized care for all musculoskeletal problems – it’s no wonder TOC is one of Alabama’s largest highlyrecommended orthopaedic, spine and sports medicine centers in the state.
Huntsville is known as “The Hockey Capital of the South.” Since professional hockey has been in the VBC, TOC has provided
consistent care and support of the players and teams. Being the primary care provider for annual physical exams, injury support, physical therapy/training, and rink-side care, TOC is a proud supporter of North Alabama’s favorite team’s – first Huntsville Channel Cats and now Huntsville Havoc!
If you have orthopaedic problems and are considering professional care, we think you’ll agree The Orthopaedic Center is right for you.
HUNTSVILLE
Convention & Visitors Bureau Promotes Madison County as Meeting Site, Visitor Destination, and Tournament Host
For those planning a visit or hosting a meeting or event, the award-winning Huntsville/ Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau is here to assist you!
Our knowledgeable and experienced Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) team is here to make your planning process easy. From recruiting conferences, securing room blocks and meeting space, proposing and planning spectacular after-hours events, and suggesting activities to make your stay unforgettable, we are ready to help.
With so much to see and do in Huntsville, the Convention & Visitors Bureau team is available to help plan the perfect trip! Stay in the know about all the great places to eat, drink, and play in Huntsville and Madison County, sign up for the e-newsletter, visit the website, www.huntsville.org, follow the CVB on social media, and search for the hashtag #iHeartHsv to see what others are doing in The Rocket City. The Convention & Visitors Bureau offers a wide array of complimentary services for planners of all types.
Created in 1970, the Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) began as a division of the Von Braun Civic Center and was responsible for marketing its facilities, events, and programs. In 1991, with the city’s growth and the need to promote the entire community, the Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Madison County Tourism Board merged to create the full-service agency of today.
Throughout its existence, the Convention & Visitors Bureau has maintained a close relationship with the Von Braun Center. This partnership has been instrumental in promoting our region as a top conference destination. Together, we have worked
to enhance the visitor experience, create memorable events, and showcase the unique offerings of our community, which has had a profound impact on the economic vitality of Huntsville and the surrounding region.
As we embark on the next 50 years, we are excited to continue this important partnership.
“On behalf of the Board and Convention & Visitors Bureau staff, congratulations to the Von Braun Center on 50 years as the region’s premier meeting and event facility! We look forward to continued success as partners, bringing visitors of all types to our community,” states Jennifer Moore, Convention & Visitors Bureau President & CEO.
Again, congratulations to the Von Braun Center on this significant milestone.
Thank you for being an integral part of our community, and here’s to another 50 years of excellence and collaboration!
HUNTSVILLE COCA-COLA
Huntsville Coca-Cola is always striving to stay at the forefront of the distribution industry for its customers and employees; whether that’s our benefits, distribution, products, technology, or more. Huntsville Coca-Cola has a long history of service and has evolved over time.
The world’s best-known taste was born on May 8, 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia when Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy where it was placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink. From that one iconic drink, Coca-Cola has grown into a total beverage company. Today, Coca-Cola’s beverage portfolio has expanded to more than 200 brands and thousands of beverages around the world, from soft drinks and waters to coffees and teas.
In 1902, Pratt Bottling Company bottled Coca-Cola for the first time in Huntsville, Alabama. Pratt Bottling Company was the predecessor to The Coca-Cola Bottling Works, which J. F. Chambers purchased in 1916. Mr. Chambers incorporated the
company as Huntsville Coca-Cola Bottling Company in 1928. With numerous name changes and acquisitions throughout the 20th century, Huntsville Coca-Cola has grown to serve a large territory consisting of Madison and Limestone counties.
In 1973, just two years before the Von Braun Center opened, the company started with two bottling lines producing soft drinks for itself and other bottlers in the Southeast. In 1983, Huntsville Coca-Cola signed an amended contract with The Coca-Cola Company which allowed the company to produce other brands of cola. That same year, the management team formed a production company, Big Springs, Inc. At one-point, Big Springs, Inc. was offering over forty types of beverages in numerous packages to customers throughout the region.
Over time, the economics of bottling its own products and producing for others no longer made sense. Big Springs, Inc. made the decision to cease production in the early 21st century. Huntsville Coca-Cola could offer a more favorable price to its customers by purchasing products from other bottlers rather than producing the product itself. Growth has continued, and today Huntsville Coca-Cola distributes more than four million cases a year.
Since the Von Braun Center first opened its doors to the public on March 14, 1975, Coca-Cola has been in the building. The long-term partnership between the two organizations has included more than just stocking the numerous concession areas throughout the facility. Huntsville CocaCola recognizes the importance of supporting the local community and has sponsored the
different sport franchises who call the VBC home, as well as numerous VBC signature events over the years including being the Soft Drink Sponsor for all 17 Big Spring Jams. Whether at concerts, sporting events, dance recitals, conferences, plays, circuses, Broadway Theatre League or Huntsville Symphony Orchestra performances –Huntsville Coca-Cola has celebrated every moment with each guest who has created a memory at the Von Braun Center.
Current facility, 2024
Original facility, 1939
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1977
Waiting in line for Elvis tickets
Rally during President Nixon visit to Huntsville, 1974
VBCC catering staff - Daniel Laboudiere, Chef Jimmy Johnson, Bruce Mitchell
I’ve been to countless concerts and events over the years at the VBC, but by far my most favorite memory was watching my son walk across the stage in the arena and get his diploma. Thank you for the memories!
Went to see Elvis at the VBCC with my mom. Still have my ticket stub. He was the king!
Best memory is of kid’s expo in the 90s – was so much fun to go to with my mom growing up!
Saw many great concerts at the VBCC in the late 70s and early 80s, but my favorite memory is seeing Nate Bargatze with my grown children in 2024.
I remember my father taking me to see President Nixon when he was in Huntsville and they had just started constructing the arena part. It was just the inner steel frame, but it looked huge compared to anything else Huntsville had at the time.
I remember when it was the VBCC. Saw Kansas (twice), Boston, and Foghat (with Montrose) there. Went there with my first love for my Senior Prom and took her to The Nutcracker! Oh the memories.
I’ve been cheering for Havoc hockey since they started. Great team – great fans –great memories!
My first concert was Mötley Crüe with Whitesnake as their opening act at the
I’ve been taking my kids to see the Christmas Parade every year since they were born. They’re 8 and 5 now, and it’s our favorite holiday tradition!
The VBC has been the soundtrack to my life.
Nothing beats seeing Hulk Hogan take on Andre the Giant in my hometown.
I met my future husband at the VBC!
I danced on stage in the Concert Hall as a kid during recitals, as a teenager in North Hall during prom, and as a new bride in Saturn at my wedding reception. The VBC will always hold a special place in my heart!
