Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. Its successor, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, was built adjacent to the south and opened on August 26, 2017. The Georgia Dome was demolished on November 20, 2017.[7]
The Georgia Dome was the home stadium for the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) and the Georgia State University Panthers football team. It hosted two Super Bowls (XXVIII and XXXIV), 25 editions of the Peach Bowl (January 1993–December 2016) and 23 SEC Championship Games (1994−2016). In addition, the Georgia Dome also hosted several soccer matches since 2009 with attendances over 50,000. In its 25 years of operation, the Georgia Dome hosted over 1,400 events attended by over 37 million people.[8] The Georgia Dome was the only stadium in the United States to host the Olympics, Super Bowl and Final Four.[9][10][11]
At its debut in 1992, the Georgia Dome was the second-largest covered stadium in the world by capacity, behind the Pontiac Silverdome; it has since been surpassed by many others including AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales and Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain.
History[edit]
Facility information[edit]
The Georgia Dome was completed in 1992 at a cost of $214 million, making it one of the largest state-funded construction projects in Georgia history.[12][13] The stadium seated 71,228 for football, approximately 80,000 for concerts, and 71,000 for basketball when the stadium fully opened and 40,000 for basketball and gymnastics when the stadium was sectioned off (one half closed off by a large curtain).[14] For most Georgia State football games, the dome was configured with 28,155 seats, with tickets for only the bulk of the lower level and the club-level seats on sale.[4][15] The record for overall attendance at the Georgia Dome came during a college football game, with 80,892 at the SEC Championship Game in 2008.[16]
The Dome had 5,740 club seats and 171 luxury boxes. The executives suites fit 16-24 people, while eight super-suites added in 2007 were capable of accommodating 57-96 guests.[17] There were also four restaurants/bars. There were 12 escalators and 9 elevators.[18][19][20]
The structure was located on 9.19 acres (3.72 hectares) of land; the Dome had a height of 271 ft (83 m), a structure length of 746 ft (227 m), a structure width of 607 ft (185 m), and a total floor area of 102,150 square feet (9,490 m2). The stadium was the largest cable-supported dome in the world. Its roof was made of teflon-coated fiberglass fabric and had an area of 374,584 square feet (34,800 m2). From its completion until the December 31, 1999, opening of the 20-acre (8.09-hectare) Millennium Dome in London, it was the largest hooked domed structure of any type in the world. Matt Hartley Lighting, LLC designed the lighting for the concourse of the Georgia Dome.[21]
Renovations[edit]
In 2006, the Atlanta Falcons and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority announced a $300 million renovation to the Georgia Dome.[24][25] The project was separated into two stages. The first stage, which took place before the 2007 NFL season, focused on updating the premium seating areas, including the creation of eight 'super-suites' as well as an owners' club, most of them now incorporating new plasma TVs.[18][26] In 2008, the exterior of the stadium was repainted, replacing the original teal and maroon color scheme with a red, black, and silver theme to match the Falcons' team colors; the stadium's original teal seats were replaced with red seats in the lower and upper levels and black seats in the middle level. The entrance gates and concourses were also renovated and updated before the 2008 football season.[27][28] In 2009, the video screens in both end zones were relocated to a new exterior monument sign on Northside Drive. The interior end zones each received a new and considerably wider HD video screen that significantly enhanced views of replays, as well as graphics and digital presentations. A new sound system was installed in the same year, replacing the previous system that was nearly 20 years old.
In 2008, the Georgia Dome started showing safety videos before games, presented by Deltalina, flight attendant "mascot" of Delta Air Lines. The videos satirize Delta's massively popular "Deltalina" inflight safety videos. The videos' theme was "Delta Safety First".[29][30]
[edit]
Three years after the completion of the Dome, the integrity of its roof became an issue. During a Falcons pre-season game in August 1995, a severe rainstorm caused water to pool on the fabric, tearing part of the material, and causing a section of the roof to fall into the stadium. The storm was intense enough that the roof panels could be seen moving during the game, and the water and roof material later fell with enough force to smash seats in the upper decks and knock holes in concrete floors. The collapse occurred after fans left the stadium, and no one was injured during the incident. The roof was eventually repaired in a way that prevented similar incidents from occurring in the future.[31][32]
In the 2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak on March 14, 2008, during the 2008 SEC men's basketball tournament, a tornado ripped two holes in the dome during the Alabama–Mississippi State quarterfinal game, delaying the game for about an hour. The quarterfinal game to follow between the Kentucky Wildcats and Georgia Bulldogs was postponed until the following day.[32] The resulting damage forced the rest of the tournament to be moved to the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, now known as McCamish Pavilion, at Georgia Tech.[33]