In Reply to: Surprise they are lying about needing ballroom posted by russsmith on April 27, 2026 at 13:44:43
The Washington Hilton ballroom where the White House Corespondents Association (WHCA) dinner was held is a little under 30,000 square feet. A typical seating ratio for that kind of facility would be 1 guest per 15 square feet, or 2,000 guests. For the WHCA event, they squeezed in 2,500. From what I've seen reported from attendees, everyone agreed that the seating was pretty tight.
The proposed White House ballroom has been stated to be 90,000 square feet. At the typical ratio, it would seat 6,000. At 90,000 SF, it would be over 2 acres--about half the size of an entire baseball field (not just between the foul lines). This would also be nearly 6 times the size of the largest palace ballroom in Europe (The Palace of Caserta, outside Naples).
The proposed ballroom is actually ridiculous overkill.