The iconic Palace of Fine Arts Exhibition Center provides an astonishing venue for your event that’s sure to impress your guests before they even walk in the door. With its Greco-Roman rotunda and colonnades, immaculately planted grounds, lagoon, and super-spacious exhibition center and theater, this San Francisco treasure brings the wow factor to corporate events, private parties, trade shows, conferences, galas, weddings, and more.

Managed by Non Plus Ultra, San Francisco’s premiere events management company, the Palace of Fine Arts is conveniently located just moments away from the Golden Gate Bridge. Take a look below at some of the versatile uses of this iconic landmark:

• 140,000 sq. ft. of indoor space
• 5,000-person capacity
• On-site management
• On-site parking
• 55’, 48’, and 37’ foot tall ceilings
• Smaller Concourse Level Areas
• Hangar Pavilion (17,000 sq. ft.)
• Atrium (13,500 sq. ft.)
• 10 break-out rooms and classrooms (1,000 – 2,800 sq. ft. each)
• 4 Smaller Mezzanine Level Areas (2,100 – 3,700 sq. ft. each)
• 135-person performing arts theater
• Power and Wi-Fi capabilities
• Truck loading dock

• Ceremony Hall
• Bridal Suite and Groom’s Room
• Event security
• White folding chairs, tables, and linens for 150 people
• Event logistics management
• Timeline creation and execution
• Vendor confirmations and checklists
• Rehearsal prep and management
• Day of event team with 1 event lead and 2 assistants

• Ground Floor – 120,000 square feet
• Mezzanine – 20,000 square feet
• 55’, 48’, and 37’ foot tall ceilings
• Multiple break out rooms
• Power and Wi-Fi capabilities
• Truck load-in dock

Following the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was inspired to show the world how it had risen from the ashes. So, in 1910, business and civic leaders convened to discuss making the city the site of the century’s first great world’s fair, a grand exposition to honor the completion of the Panama Canal. In two hours, $4 million was raised and San Francisco beat competitors like New Orleans and Washington, D.C. to host the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Widely considered the most beautiful structure at the exhibition, the Palace of Fine Arts is the work of California architect, Bernard Maybeck. Inspired by a Piranesi engraving that features a Roman ruin reflected in a swimming pool, Maybeck’s masterpiece was the mirror of a ruin that existed, not for its own sake, but to show “the mortality of grandeur and the vanity of human wishes.” Like other features of the fair, the Palace was meant to come down at the close of the fair — and the rest… is history.

Now by hosting your event here with Non Plus Ultra, you and your guests can write the next chapter of this icon in the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco.  Get swept away in the history and romance of the Palace of Fine Arts and book your event with us today!