The April 2025 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will mark the 25th anniversary of the first general conference held in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.
In the 25 years, the building has welcomed hundreds of speakers, teaching on a variety of gospel topics.
The Conference Center has also been the scene of numerous life-changing moments, including announcements of hundreds of locations worldwide for new temples and lowering the age requirement for full-time missionaries.
Between April 2000 and October 2024, the Conference Center hosted 1,755 total general conference talks. That number doesn’t include talks given outside the Conference Center between April 2020 and October 2021 due to COVID-19 precautions; it also doesn’t include the Saturday afternoon session of April 2007 general conference, which was held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle during its rededication.
Of the 1,755 talks given in the Conference Center:
- 382 were from members of the First Presidency.
- 579 were from members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
- 481 were from General Authority Seventies.
- 227 were from female leaders.
- 43 were from members of the Presiding Bishopric.
- 43 were from members of the Sunday School or Young Men general presidencies.
The Conference Center reached its 25th anniversary on April 1, 2025. Here’s a look at the building’s history and legacy as well as at general conferences over the past quarter century.
Groundbreaking and construction
A plan to build the Conference Center was first announced during April 1996 general conference. The late President Gordon B. Hinckley noted the many people who wanted to attend the proceedings in the Salt Lake Tabernacle — where general conferences were held from 1867 until October 1999 — but were stuck outside due to space constraints.
While no hall could ever be large enough to accommodate the entire church membership, President Hinckley wished to create a place in which much larger numbers of people could attend general conference in person.
“The structure we envision will not be a sports arena. It will be a great hall with fixed seating and excellent acoustics,” President Hinckley said at that time. “It will be a dedicated house of worship, and that will be its primary purpose.”
A year later, during April 1997 general conference, President Hinckley announced a summer groundbreaking date for the not-yet-named assembly hall.
“We may not fill it initially, but we are building for the long term,” he said at that time.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held July 24, 1997 — the 150th anniversary of Latter-day Saint pioneers arriving in the Salt Lake Valley.
Construction was a “bold undertaking,” as President Hinckley later said during April 2000 general conference. A consortium of three large construction companies handled the project, an October 2000 Ensign article reported; on any given day during the height of construction, as many as 1,000 workers were on site.
“While engineers say that most of what was done in constructing the Conference Center had been done before, rarely if ever had it been done on such a scale,” the article states.
It was also a challenge to plan a building partially embedded in a site that slopes downhill from Salt Lake City’s Main Street on the east side to West Temple Street on the west, the article continues. To keep the auditorium free of obstructing support columns, workers used steel roof trusses of up to 290 feet, capable of supporting loads between 250 and 525 pounds per square foot. Additionally, the structure needed to be capable of withstanding earthquakes.
“It will be built as well as we know how to build in this season of the history of the world, and I hope that it will stand for as long as the earth lasts and serve the purpose of the kingdom of God,” President Hinckley said during the July 1997 groundbreaking ceremony.
First general conference, dedication
By April 2000, construction on the new Conference Center was ongoing but complete enough to hold general conference. During his opening address, President Hinckley shared how the black walnut tree he’d planted 36 years earlier became the Conference Center’s pulpit.
Additionally, all three members of the current First Presidency — President Russell M. Nelson, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring — spoke throughout April 2000 general conference, as did President Jeffrey R. Holland, the current acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
President Hinckley dedicated the Conference Center during general conference on Sunday, Oct. 8, 2000. In the dedicatory prayer — given at the end of the Sunday morning session — he blessed the building to be “a gathering place for Thy people, where they may assemble to hear the word of the Lord as it is spoken by Thy servants who stand as prophets, seers and revelators and as witnesses unto the world of the living reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. …
“From this pulpit may Thy name be spoken with reverence and love. May the name of Thy Son be constantly remembered with sacred declaration. May testimony of Thy divine work ring forth from here to all the world.”
Following the dedicatory prayer, the congregation offered the Hosanna Shout. Additionally, prior to the Sunday morning session of October 2000 general conference, President Hinckley oversaw a cornerstone ceremony, the Liahona reported.
A stainless-steel time capsule, placed within the cornerstone, includes a small replica of a beehive, carved from the same walnut tree as the Conference Center pulpit; April and October 2000 issues of church magazines; a hard hat used in the building’s construction; and photos of the first ticket holder to enter the Conference Center for general conference.
The capsule also holds a triple combination scripture set signed by members of the First Presidency, which at that time consisted of President Hinckley, the late President Thomas S. Monson as first counselor and the late President James E. Faust as second counselor.
Today, the completed Conference Center is a 1.4-million-square-foot structure, built over an entire city block with its granite coming from the same deposits used for the Salt Lake Temple during the 1800s, according to the church’s website.
The 21,000-seat auditorium is one of the largest in the world, big enough to fit a Boeing 747 airplane. Except for during COVID-19 precautions and portions of Temple Square construction, over 100,000 people attend general conference across its five sessions each April and October.
The Conference Center is home to the world-renowned Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and to the choir’s national broadcast, “Music & the Spoken Word.” Its organ boasts 7,667 pipes, but only about 170 are visible to the audience.
The Conference Center is also filled with beautiful art, including galleries featuring Jesus Christ, Book of Mormon scenes, temples and church leaders.
Notable announcements and events
A number of significant announcements have been made in the Conference Center between April 2000 and October 2024, including:
- April 2001 — President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced the Perpetual Education Fund, which provides financial support for Church members in developing areas seeking education to improve their employment opportunities.
- April 2005 — The late Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles introduced the missionary guide “Preach My Gospel.”
- October 2012 — President Monson, then the President of the Church, announced that minimum age requirements for full-time missionaries would be lowered from 19 to 18 for men and from 21 to 19 for women.
- April 2018 — Current Church President Russell M. Nelson announced that ministering would replace home and visiting teaching.
- October 2018 — Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles announced that church meeting blocks would be two hours long instead of three and gave an overview of the at-home study guide “Come, Follow Me.”
Additionally, notable events have been held at the Conference Center over the last 25 years, including:
- December 2000 — Grammy Award-winning singer Gladys Knight was the first musical guest to perform with the Tabernacle Choir in the Conference Center, during the choir’s Christmas concert, Church News reported.
- February and March 2002 — During the 2002 Olympic Winter Games hosted by Salt Lake City, the church launched “Light of the World: A Celebration of Life,” the first theatrical spectacular held in the Conference Center. It ran for 14 performances from Feb. 5 to March 2, before a total audience of more than 290,000, Deseret News reported.
- November 2002 — The church began its annual “Luz de las Naciones” (“Light of the Nations”) event, a celebration of Latin American culture.
- June 2018 — The church held its historic “Be One” event, a First Presidency-sponsored celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the 1978 revelation extending the priesthood regardless of race, Church News reported.