Håkons Hall, sometimes anglicized as Håkon Hall and Haakons Hall, is an arena located at Stampesletta in Lillehammer, Norway. With a spectator capacity of 11,500 people, it is the largest handball and ice hockey venue in the country. Håkons Hall is regularly used for handball and ice hockey tournaments, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and banquets. The venue is owned by Lillehammer Municipality via the subsidiary Lillehammer Olympiapark, which owns all the Olympic venues in Lillehammer. The Norwegian Olympic Museum is located in the arena, which is located next to the smaller Eidsiva Arena. The hall opened on 1 February 1993 having cost 238 million Norwegian krone (NOK). It was built to host the ice hockey tournament at the 1994 Winter Olympics, and has since hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Paralympics, the 1999 IIHF World Championship in ice hockey, the World Women's Handball Championship in 1993 and 1999, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004, the 2008 European Men's Handball Championship and the 2010 European Women's Handball Championship. Lillehammer IK has occasionally played ice hockey matches at the arena. Construction Lillehammer received its first indoor ice rink in 1988, with the opening of Kristins Hall. That same year, the town was awarded the 1994 Winter Olympics, which required the construction of a larger venue for the Olympic ice hockey matches. The naming of the arena was decided by the Lillehammer Municipal Council in October 1988, as part of a broader branding policy, based on the history of the Birkebeiner. Håkons Hall is named for Haakon Haakonarson, a medieval king of Norway who as a child was transported across by mountains by skiers. Kristin and Håkon became the mascots for the Olympics, and the twin arenas at Stampesletta were named accordingly. Protests were made in Bergen, as local patriots felt it was not suitable that a sports venue had such a similar name to Håkonshallen, a medieval hall in Bergen. In June 1989, the municipal council voted to locate most of the Lillehammer venues in the Stampesletta area, and to place Håkons Hall adjacent to Kristins Hall. This was controversial and many councilors voted for the original decentralized plan, with the venues spread out through the municipality. The application for the Olympics called for building up to five ice venues in Lillehammer. For post-Olympic use, Kristins Hall was designated as the main ice rink for Lillehammer, while it was