Riocentro is an exhibition and

convention center A convention center (American and British English spelling differences, American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a Convention (meeting), convention, where individuals and groups ...

located in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Built in 1977, it is the largest exhibition center in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

Notable events

1981 May Day attack

On April 30, 1981, during a

May Day May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere's March equinox, spring equinox and midsummer June solstice, solstice. Festivities ma ...

music concert, Riocentro was the target of a terrorist attack by hardliner members of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985). Sergeant Guilherme Pereira do Rosário and then-Captain Wilson Dias Machado, nowadays a Colonel, were responsible for detonating two bombs at the venue. Around 9 p.m., however, one of the bombs exploded in the lap of Sergeant Rosário, killing him and seriously wounding Machado. A second bomb exploded a few miles away at a powerhouse responsible for providing electrical energy to Riocentro; it was thrown over the fence and exploded on the ground, and the electric power supply was never interrupted that evening. The government immediately blamed left-wing radicals for the attack. This theory had no support at the time of the event and nowadays there is strong evidence that the attack was planned by the hardline sector of the government to convince the moderate sector that the left-wing urban guerrilla was still active and that a new wave of political repression was required. This episode marked the decline of the military regime in Brazil, which would officially end four years later.

Earth Summit

In 1992, Riocentro hosted the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Earth Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92, Cúpula da Terra), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 ...

Sports events

In 2007, Riocentro hosted a variety of events for the

Pan American Games The Pan American Games, known as the Pan Am Games, is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas. It features thousands of athletes participating in competitions to win different summer sports. It is held among athletes from nations of th ...

in several pavilions. Capacity of the pavilions ranges from 2,000 people to 4,500 people. When Rio was bidding for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

and Paralympics which it won in October 2009, four of its six pavilions were proposed as venues. During these games, Pavilion 2 hosted the Olympic

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

competitions, Pavilion 3 hosted the Olympic and

Paralympic The Paralympic Games or Paralympics is a periodic series of international multisport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Kore ...

table tennis competitions, Pavilion 4 hosted the

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

competitions, and Pavilion 6 hosted the Olympic

weightlifting Weightlifting or weight lifting generally refers to physical exercises and sports in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells, barbells or machines. People engage in weightlifting for a variety of different reasons. These can ...

and Paralympic

powerlifting Powerlifting is a competitive strength athletics, strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: Squat (exercise), squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athle ...

events. During the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for list of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil fr ...

, Riocentro was utilised as the headquarters of the International Broadcast Centre (IBC). In November 2022, the arena will host the Challengers Stage and the Legends Stage of the IEM Rio Major 2022, the eighteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championship.

References

External links

Official websiteRio2016.org.br bid package.
Volume 2. p. 18. {{Pan American Games venues handball Indoor arenas in Brazil Venues of the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic badminton venues Olympic boxing venues Olympic table tennis venues Olympic weightlifting venues Venues of the 2007 Pan American Games Sports venues in Rio de Janeiro (city) Convention centres in Brazil Boxing venues in Brazil Handball venues in Brazil Barra Olympic Park Event venues established in 1977 1977 establishments in Brazil Pan American Games handball venues Sports venues completed in 1977