10 years ago, a place like Impact Arena would have probably been obsolete in Bangkok. There was not enough demand for a mega event hall for concerts, exhibitions and other shows. Started in the 1990’s, the development of the Impact Arena came to a halt during the Asian financial crisis with an unclear future. Finally, in 1998, the Thai government revived the project as it was meant to be one of the main locations to host the 13th Asian Games.

Impact Arena is located in Muang Thong Thani (which means as much as the “Golden City”) and it was originally planned as a self contained satellite city of Bangkok. It is about 40 km away from Bangkok downtown area.

In the year199, Impact Arena was renamed to Impact Exhibition Center and one year after that the Impact Convention Center was built. Development didn’t stop here and in 2003 the Impact Exhibition Center’s expansion was completed….only to be followed by the opening of the column-free IMPACT Challenger exhibition halls just recently in the year 2006.

So what is happening at Impact as of today? Many of the biggest exhibition shows are held at the Impact Center now. There is only one other major competitor which is the BITEC Exhibition Center. Such prestigious shows as the Bangkok Motor Show are held at the BITEC and it is going to be difficult for the Impact Center to draw those kind of shows for 2 reasons: The BITEC Center is more established as a exhibition location and secondly, the BITEC Center is more centrally located than the Impact Center.

Where the Impact Arena is very successful is drawing big name music acts into Bangkok. Before the Impact Arena, there was no real place to have big acts like for example Oasis, Black Eyed Peas, Linkin Park or Deep Purple playing. Now this is different and many of the most popular acts are always stopping in Bangkok when they are touring around Asia. Another big event that was held at the Impact Arena were the MTV Music Awards that was not just shown in Thailand but on all MTV stations across Asian countries.

Also, shows like for example “Disney on Ice” were being shown in the Impact Arena as it is suitable for many different kinds of different events.