Thirty years after the 1996 Summer Olympics put Atlanta on the global sports map, downtown is once again the staging ground for a mega-event — and the venues built to catch that crowd extend well past the turnstiles at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. For fans without match tickets, or with a spare afternoon between games, four downtown destinations have emerged as the tournament’s alternate stages.
The most obvious is the official FIFA Fan Festival, once again unfolding across Centennial Olympic Park for 16 days of the month-long tournament. Capacity tops out at 15,000, and the setup pairs live games on giant screens with a local food vendor market, a crafts market, and a kids’ play area. General admission is free by daily reservation; VIP packages run up to $325.
A block away, Centennial Yards — the neighborhood-scale redevelopment of the former Gulch — has debuted Cosm, a “shared reality” venue that functions as a mini Las Vegas Sphere. A 12K LED dome hosts games, music, and other live events, while the same complex houses The Hall, a sports bar, and The Deck, a rooftop lounge with a straight-shot view of the stadium. It is the highest-tech way to watch a match downtown without stepping inside it.
For anyone put off by Fan Fest scale, The Center — the reopened and rebranded former CNN Center — is running a quieter alternative just blocks from Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Its food hall and 24,000-square-foot atrium, which the developers say houses Atlanta’s largest full bar, opened just days before the tournament kicked off.
Uptown-adjacent visitors have another option in 207 Peachtree, the historic building at Peachtree Street and Andrew Young International Boulevard that opens this summer with live music, a sports club anchored by a panoramic television, and a rooftop lounge. Nearby, South Downtown is running its open-air Smorgasburg Atlanta food festival every Saturday, giving fans yet another reason to keep walking once the final whistle blows.
Original reporting: Madeline Shapiro (Atlanta Magazine)