Two decades of cheers ring at Bryce Jordan Center

For 20 years, the Bryce Jordan Center has been the hottest ticket in town.

From the moment the venue opened in January 1996, attending an event at the Jordan Center has been giving people a thrill as they took in concerts, athletic events and graduations.

It all started with basketball and graduation. It only grew from there.

“This is such an impressive building,” said Mary Readly, of State College, a computer support specialist who worked as a ticket taker when the arena first opened.

She spoke to the Centre Daily Times as the venue was getting ready to open its doors for Penn State’s fall 1995 semester graduation. Instead of happening in December that year, caps didn’t fly until January, when the Jordan Center welcomed its first crop of graduating students.

It has been the go-to location for graduations for both the university and State College Area High School ever since.

The undeniable biggest name to play one of those commencements? The president of the United States. Bill Clinton was the commencement speaker at the 1996 spring event, when his 25-car motorcade cut through campus. He shook every graduate’s hand before attending a private reception at the Jordan Center.

The biggest act to play a concert? That’s a harder question simply because of the volume. There have just been so many.

There are the legends. In 2015 alone, the Jordan Center hosted arguably the biggest act in country music, Garth Brooks’ return to the stage after years in retirement, and one of the original rock stars, former Beatle and honest-to-Queen knight Paul McCartney. In 2014, it was Billy Joel. Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner have also graced the stage.

Then there are the chart-toppers, the newer acts with sensational followings. Zedd and Kanye West have both brought out fans. Florida Georgia Line had country fans partying, and the Backstreet Boys and Taylor Swift have brought teenage girls to tears with excitement.

“When Phish came, people camped for days,” said Director of Marketing and Sales Bernie Punt.

Some acts have grown along with the Jordan Center’s popularity. Take Luke Bryan.

In an interview with the Centre Daily Times in 2010, he said that what made performing fun was the energetic fans. He said he loved to play to a “big” crowd of 8,000 people or so.

“Certainly, you always dream of headlining big tours and big arenas,” Bryan said then. “It’s all about the little steps and the process.”

That was right before he opened for Jason Aldean at the Jordan Center in front of about 16,000 people.

Since then, Bryan’s career has boomed. He will be back on stage in Centre County, headlining his own show in April. Aldean will be back in February.

Technology has changed the way things have been done at the Jordan Center over the years. Ticketing went from slips of paper issued at the front office to phone orders to Internet sales that can clear out a whole arena full of seats in less than a minute. Punt said Brooks monitored the sales of tickets for his original short stay in April 2015, then brought the total up to six shows over two weekends after he saw how many people were interested in attending.

But there has been more to the change than just how you get in to the show. The experience has changed with technology, too.

In 1996, not everyone had a cellphone, and if you did, it might not have a phone or Internet.

Today, shows are built with the idea that everyone in the seats has a phone in hand, something they can use to interact with the show, texting pictures and posting about the experience on social media. The old habit of holding up a lighter and swaying with a favorite ballad has been replaced with flipping on the flashlight on an iPhone and having thousands of points of light dance in the dark.

“The BJC has a lot of tools to continue what it has done so well since 1996. That being said, we always want to monitor the trends in our industry to be as good as we can be,” said General Manager Al Karosas.

It is popular with some of those top acts. Brooks told reporters at a press conference before the opening night of his 2015 stint that when he planned his tour, it was designed around one simple thought. Which locations from previous tours had been the most fun. In 1997, Brooks sold out a five-show stretch in record time and had such a great time at the Jordan Center, he brought his daughter back to tour campus when she was picking colleges.

But the primary goal, officials say, is to satisfy the people in the seats, not on the stage.

“We want to try and give everyone the opportunity to experience live entertainment. Seeing a basketball game or a concert live is so much more fulfilling than watching it on a TV or listening to a song on your iPod. I hope we continue to provide top-notch service, spectacular basketball games and a diverse sampling of other amazing live entertainment events for our fans, whose support will guide us for the next 20 years and beyond,” Karosas said.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 11:27 PM with the headline "Two decades of cheers ring at Bryce Jordan Center."