The Palace of Auburn Hills

 Deep within the jungle we call Oakland County, once laid a sports and entertainment mecca, this mecca was known as the Palace of Auburn Hills. Opened back in 1988, it was home to the NBA's Piston for almost its entire life, and was the spot for many concerts during its time. It closed in 2017 (not even 30 years after it opened! What a waste!) and rotted for 3 years before it was demolished.

Even though I live in Michigan, I didn't go to the Palace very often. My family isn't very interested in basketball or sports in general, and the stuff I wanted to go see was usually at the Fox Theatre or elsewhere. I did however, attend only 3 events at the Palace in my life. Here are all of them.

My first Palace experience was back in 2011, when I saw The Wiggles there for the first time. This is the same concert I talked about in a previous post, and like I said over there, I don't remember a thing. Mostly because we didn't save anything aside from the ticket stubs.

My second time was also to see The Wiggles, a year later in 2012. Greg Page the yellow Wiggle returned this year, so I can say I've seen the original Wiggles live.

It's still one of my biggest flexes. I'm not kidding.

Some photos from that. We didn't get too many pics this time around, but most of them were kinda crappy. These are the only semi-decent ones. 😂

My third and final time at the Palace was in 2017, and it was to see Disney on Ice with my mother and my late nana. This was only a month before the Pistons moved out, so I went during the final few months of operation. You can tell by then they were getting a bit cheap with the tickets. This one is just text!

Inside Out had come out two years prior, and that film was featured a bit during the show.

The Palace closed in October that year and was demolished 2020. I didn't get to see it during that time.

HOWEVER, I did see it AFTER it was demolished.

I took this pic as we were driving by around 2022. Even though the building itself had been gone for 2 years by that point, the sign itself still remained, fully lit and everything, and essentially acting as a glorified billboard. It's gone now sadly, and they turned the whole lot into some industry park or some crap.