The Ford Center is a multi-use indoor arena in downtown Evansville, Indiana, with a maximum seating capacity of 11,000. It officially opened in November 2011 and is mainly used for basketball, ice hockey, and music concerts. It is home to the Evansville Thunderbolts minor league hockey team in the SPHL and the Evansville Purple Aces men's basketball team, representing the University of Evansville. The UE women's basketball team also played at Ford Center from the venue's opening, but moved its home games back to its campus starting with the 2017–18 season.

Evansville is a city in and the county seat of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. With a population of 118,414 at the 2020 census, it is Indiana's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the most populous city in Southern Indiana, and the 249th-most populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Evansville metropolitan area, a hub of commercial, medical, and cultural activity of southwestern Indiana and the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area, which is home to over 911,000 people. The 38th parallel north crosses the north side of the city and is marked on Interstate 69 immediately north of its junction with Indiana 62 within the city's east side.