A jewel of the town's architectural heritage, it is housed in the former casino, which included a party hall, gaming rooms and theater. Built at the request of Napoleon III, it was later extended with the construction of an Art Nouveau Opera House.
Right in the center of town, in a green setting, it boasts an environment unique in France: 18,000 m² in the heart of the city, 5 minutes' walk from over 1,200 hotel rooms...
Harmony between nature and architecture
The Palais des Congrès is located in the city center, in the heart of a 6-hectare park bordered by Lake Allier. This privileged location means that all delegates have easy access to the Palais des Congrès on foot from their hotel.
Harmony between the 19th and 21st centuries
Built at the request of Napoleon III, the Casino was restored to its original condition and enriched with contemporary spaces in 1995. It became the Palais des Congrès, a venue entirely dedicated to business tourism. The mix of architectural styles on the Palais des Congrès facades extends to the interior, offering a setting
a unique setting in France.
Harmony between your expectations and our commitments
Listening carefully to your objectives is the priority of the Conventions & Seminars Department. Depending on your requirements, we can take charge of all or part of the organization: trade shows, audiovisual equipment, personnel, accommodation, catering, entertainment and decoration. The Palais des Congrès' internal and external services are coordinated by a single point of contact with whom you'll have a one-to-one relationship before, during and after your event. A technical solution for every event. We provide you with high-performance equipment managed by a team of professionals.
UNESCO heritage
The Grand Casino de Vichy, the emblematic building of the spa town, went through 3 major phases. Inaugurated on July 2, 1865, its construction was included in the imperial decree of 1861, as a demonstration of Napoleon III's determination to make Vichy the great French spa town. Architect Charles Badger designed the Casino de Vichy in the Beaux-Arts style, very much in vogue during the Second Empire, which consisted in freely sampling the major architectural genres, foremost among which was the classical style. Its main façade, opening onto the park, is adorned with caryatids representing the four seasons.
At the time, the Casino was more akin to a Kursaal. First of all, it was the first to include a theater. It also had several gaming rooms (small horses and billiards), a reading room reserved for gentlemen, a conversation room for ladies and a vast ballroom dedicated to balls. Gambling was anecdotal in this early period.
Such was the success of Vichy's entertainment cures that, by the beginning of the 20th century, the casino was too small. In 1903, the curtain went up on an Art Nouveau-style Italian-style theater with almost 1,500 seats (the largest in France when it opened). The former theater was transformed into a gaming hall (roulettes, baccarat, etc.).
As the new century began, everything in Vichy was getting bigger: the spa and the casino more than doubled in size. From then on, the Grand Casino made Vichy the Queen of the spa towns and the summer capital of music.
Then came dark times, and when the curtain fell on the tragedy of the Second World War, it was no longer time to celebrate, and Vichy's fine momentum came to a screeching halt. In 1988, the town bought back the dilapidated building and, after an extensive renovation campaign, set up its Palais des Congrès.
Periode d‘ouverture : Ouvert toute l‘année
All year round.
