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Entertainment for the Corporate Set
Even travelers visiting Houston for business meetings or a convention need to get out and enjoy the fabulous city during their free time or perhaps even as an organized networking event. Luckily, this world-class metropolitan city is filled with limitless opportunities for leisurely enjoyment no matter what that might entail. First, take an in-depth look at the famed Houston Theater District then explore the region’s most popular and well-known golf courses; and if shopping is more to your liking, learn about what the Galleria Area/Uptown Business District has to offer shoppers of all kinds and check out the new up-and-coming BLVD Place.

Houston theater district
Houston is recognized as an important city for contemporary visual arts. With more than 2 million visitors annually, the renowned Houston Theater District is an impressive cultural and entertainment center that occupies 17 blocks in the heart of downtown. The district features nine renowned performing arts organizations and several smaller ones that perform in the district’s four esteemed venues: Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, Wortham Theater Center, the Alley Theatre and the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, the district is home to the high-energy Bayou Place entertainment complex and three amazing outdoor venues that make up Houston First.

With 12,948 seats for live performances and 1,580 movie-viewing seats, the Houston Theater District ranks second in the country for the number of theater seats in a concentrated downtown area. Plus, it is one of only five U.S. cities with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines: the Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Ballet and the Alley Theatre. Take a closer look at all of Houston’s amazing theatrical and musical venues that deliver the penultimate in cultural experiences for locals and visitors alike.

— Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts

Since opening in 1966, millions of patrons have seen countless stage and musical performances at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts. Today, Jones Hall is home to the Houston Symphony and the Society for the Performing Arts, which annually welcome more than 400,000 visitors to more than 250 events. Covering an entire city block, Jones Hall’s brilliantly lit grand entrance, with its stunning curved-travertine marble façade, sits behind eight-story columns to create a theatrical ambiance for the drama waiting within. Constructed as a monument to Jesse Holman Jones, a key player in FDR’s cabinet who added 35 buildings to Houston’s city skyline, Jones Hall was made possible through an endowment in his name as a lasting gift of music and culture to the city. The brilliant interior architecture creates unparalleled versatility for showcasing various art forms. Overhead, 800 moveable hexagons can be raised or lowered to alter the physical circumstances of the rooms and manipulate acoustics, and the auditorium literally can shrink from 2,911 seats to 2,300. Plus, the hall’s vibrant red velvet seating, golden teak walls and a sweeping loge just add to the splendor.

Houston Symphony: Founded in 1913, the Houston Symphony is one of America’s oldest performing arts organizations with a distinguished musical history. Today it is widely acclaimed as one of the top orchestras in the world. The orchestra has grown and matured under the direction of distinguished leaders, the latest of which is Maestro Hans Graf, who took the podium in September 2001 as the symphony’s 15th music director. Each year the Houston Symphony performs around 170 concerts for more than 350,000 Houstonians at Jones Hall plus summer performances at the Miller Outdoor Theatre and The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands.

Society for the Performing Arts:
The Society for the Performing Arts (SPA) is the largest nonprofit organization of its kind in the entire Southwest. Each year SPA presents an entire season of internationally acclaimed performances from traditional to avant-garde, from large orchestras and dance companies to recitalists and solo performers. Formed in 1966 with the opening of Jones Hall to bring in audiences when the Houston Grand Opera was dark, SPA has presented more than 1,000 performances and has been the presenter of Broadway musicals for 26 years.

— Wortham Theater Center

Built at the height of the 1980s oil bust, the Wortham Theater Center was funded entirely by more than 3,500 private sector donors. The 437,500-square-foot performing arts mecca was completed four months ahead of schedule and under budget, a testament to Houston’s ability to get things done. The Wortham Center has exuberant architecture and an array of public spaces both expansive and intimate, with jewel-box theaters, a soaring six-story Grand Foyer, a delicately scaled Green Room and the Founders Salon. Despite its size, no seat is more than 138 feet from the stage in the facility’s two performance spaces: the Alice and George Brown Theater and the Lillie and Roy Cullen Theater, named for major philanthropic donations from the Brown Foundation and the Cullen Foundation, respectively The Brown Theater is the larger of the two spaces with 2,405 seats a 17,000-square-foot stage used primarily for major performances by the Houston Ballet and the Houston Grand Opera. The 1,100-seat Cullen Theater hosts smaller opera and ballet productions and other arts groups, such as Da Camera of Houston, Mercury and Houston Metropolitan Dance. Its intimate size is ideal for solo artists, chamber music, small touring shows and recitals. Since 1987, performances at The Wortham Center have entertained more than 8 million people.

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