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A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions and palaces, especially historic mansions and palaces, contain one or more ballrooms. In other large houses, a large room such as the main drawing room, long gallery, or hall may double as a ballroom, but, a good ballroom should have the right type of flooring, such as hardwood flooring or stone flooring (usually marble or stone).[citation needed]. For most styles of modern dance, a wooden sprung floor offers the best surface.
In later times the term ballroom has been used to describe nightclubs where customers dance, the Top Rank Suites in the United Kingdom for example were also often referred to as ballrooms. The phrase "having a ball" has grown to encompass many events where person(s) are having fun, not just dancing.
Ballrooms are generally quite large, and may have ceilings higher than other rooms in the same building. The large amount of space for dancing, as well as the highly formal tone of events have given rise to ballroom dancing. The largest balls are now nearly always held in public buildings, and many hotels have a ballroom. They are also designed large to help the sound of orchestras carry well throughout the whole room.
A special case is the annual Vienna Opera Ball, where, just for one night, the auditorium of the Vienna State Opera is turned into a large ballroom. On the eve of the event, the rows of seats are removed from the stalls, and a new floor, level with the stage, is built.
Sometimes ballrooms have stages in the front of the room where the host or a special guest can speak. That stage can also be used for instrumentalists and musical performers.
This list only includes ballrooms with permanent wood floors. The size of the floor only includes the largest contiguous area without obstructions. The websites and materials about some places add up multiple spaces, rooms, and balconies, and floors. However, this list ranks ballrooms based on the size of one single open space with a hardwood floor.
Currently Existing Hardwood Floor Ballrooms in the United States
^This rough estimate is based upon photos and not from measurements. Two unofficial pages say that the ballroom is 45,000 square feet, and that the building itself is 300 ft x 150 ft. [1]Archived 2012-03-22 at the Wayback Machine[2]Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine From picturesArchived 2013-08-18 at the Wayback Machine, the dancable area without columns is currently smaller than the building although very large. It was billed as the "Largest Dancing Pavilion on the Great Lakes," in
David Nasaw, Going out: the rise and fall of public amusements,(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 90.