[1] The DPAC hosts over 200 performances a year including touring Broadway productions, high-profile concert and comedy events, family shows and the American Dance Festival.

[3] After talks with ClearChannel fell through,[4] the City negotiated a theater operating agreement with Nederlander Organization and Professional Facilities Management.

The city borrowed $33.7 million for the center's construction through certificates of participation ("COPs"), instruments commonly used to finance municipal facilities.

[5] The theater hosts, on favorable rental terms, the seven-week American Dance Festival summer series, which had previously been presented in the 1,232-seat Page Auditorium at Duke University.

[3] Naming rights were budgeted to bring in $800,000 annually, but in 2007 when the project was $400,000 under that estimate, the city agreed to draw up to $200,000 a year from its general fund to partially make up the difference.

[3] The Durham city council agreed to an additional $200,000 request in April 2009 for video and trash facility installation.

However, the theater has far exceeded projections for attendance, activity, gross revenue, net income after operating expenses.

The theater was cited in a CNN Money and Fortune Magazine article ranking the City of Durham as number one in its list of "25 Best Places to Retire."

The Durham Performing Arts Center was cited as contributing "to the growth of leisure and hospitality jobs in North Carolina over the past five years" by the Triangle Business Journal.

On July 16, 2012, less than three years after the grand opening of DPAC, it was announced that the Carolina Theatre was ranked among the top 100 theaters in the world in attendance for the first time in its history.

[11] Local bookings by 2008 had included a Triangle production of A Christmas Carol and the biggest-name acts of the 2009 edition of the American Dance Festival.

[16] Other comedians and performers include: Tony Bennett, Carol Burnett, John Cleese, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Whoopi Goldberg, Gabriel Iglesias, Martin Lawrence, Jay Leno, Steve Martin & Martin Short, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Diana Ross, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Jerry Seinfeld, David Spade, Ringo Starr, Wanda Sykes, ZZ Top, Chris Tucker, Mike Tyson, Robin Williams and more.