Beach Volleyball Tournaments Coming to LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge

The LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge is bringing a new sport to this Great Smoky Mountains resort destination – beach volleyball. It is part of a series of sports tournaments that make up the longest booking in the three-year history of the $45 million facility.

Franklin Fieldhouse, a sports company in Franklin, Tenn., has contracted the LeConte Event Center for 13 outdoor beach volleyball and indoor basketball tournaments that cumulatively will attract several thousand young athletes and their families to Pigeon Forge.

Activity begins May 27-30, 2016 with the AAU Memorial Day Mountain Jam, a boys’ basketball tournament. That will be the first AAU event in the LeConte Event Center.

The series continues through June 26 and also includes the AAU Southeastern Girls’ Championship.

“Beach volleyball is the sixth sport for the LeConte Event Center, proving that our facility and our city are great destinations for team sports, especially youth sports,” said Phil Campbell, facility manager at the LeConte Event Center.

The LeConte Event Center, which opened in 2013, previously has hosted events for basketball, volleyball, cheer and gymnastics. A road race exactly 5 miles, 916 yards long is scheduled during the RetroWeekend that starts April 29.

Beach volleyball accounts for eight of the 13 Franklin Fieldhouse events. Competition categories include men’s and women’s doubles, junior doubles and coed teams. Sand courts will be installed outside the north end of the 232,000-square-foot LeConte Event Center.

“These events span almost five weeks, and that’s the longest stretch of time that one client has booked our facility. We are eager for Franklin Fieldhouse to bring a new crop of visitors to Pigeon Forge,” Campbell said.