The National Palace of Culture, located in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is the largest multifunctional congress, conference, convention and exhibition centre in Southeastern Europe. It has 8 stories and 3 underground levels, with 13 halls and 55 conference rooms with capacity from 100 to 4000 seats. The congress centre has a wide variety of technical equipment at its disposal in order to host different types of events, such as concerts, coneferences, exhibitions and shows. It has an area of 123,000 m? on eight floors and three underground levels. The National Palace of Culture has 13 halls, 55 conference rooms with capacity between 100 and 4000 seats, 15,000 m? of exhibition area a trade centre and a car park.
The construction of the building was finished in less than 4 years, although planned to take 12 years. The gala opening was in March 1981 as part of the festivities organized to celebrate 1300 years from the foundation of the Bulgarian state.
In July 2005, the National Palace of Culture was proclaimed the best congress centre in the world for the year by the International Organization of Congress Centres.
