Mississippi Coast Coliseum & Convention Center

Elvis never made it — he died before the grand opening. Charley Pride sang the first concert here instead, in November 1977, and Blue Öyster Cult played the first rock show on April 16, 1978. That early calendar set a pattern: the Mississippi Coast Coliseum hosts whoever will draw a crowd to 11,500 reserved seats or 15,000 festival-packed bodies. By the 2000s, that meant minor-league hockey teams that folded and returned and folded again, Larry Holmes beating Mike Weaver by sixth-round technical knockout, Sun Belt Conference basketball tournaments, and the annual crawfish festival — one of the largest in the country, held over two April weekends. It meant Ozzy and Mötley Crüe during their peak years, Depeche Mode on the Devotional tour, Aaron Lewis and Fred Durst recording an acoustic version of "Outside" during the 1999 Family Values Tour, and Miranda Lambert making return visits. Hurricane Katrina flooded and wind-damaged the arena in August 2005. The Sea Wolves cancelled two full seasons; repairs took until October 2007. When the doors reopened, the Coliseum kept doing what it had always done — Guns N' Roses in 2023, WWE Raw for the first time in eight years in 2013, Cruisin' the Coast weekend events, regional concerts, trade shows in the adjacent convention center. The arena sits at 2350 Beach Boulevard, and the reason to go is simple: this is still the primary venue for anything on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that needs an enclosed room and a crowd.