Believe Music Hall

The temple that returned to the night

In Mechanicsville, the Believe Music Hall building was already operating as a club long before it bore this name. It is a former Neo-Romanesque and Renaissance-style church, built in the 1890s. In 1958, St. Stephen's Missionary Baptist Church was established there, at 181 Georgia Avenue, the street that is now Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. The first evening service of that era was preached by Martin Luther King Sr. Years later, the same nave, remembered in the circuit as The Church, hosted the first nights of Iris, the promoter that Glenn Goodhand had founded in 1996. When the congregation reclaimed the temple, those parties left. The property reappeared in 2011 as Museum Bar, both a restaurant and nightclub, until an accident damaged the tower in 2013. The building held up, was repaired, and remained waiting for new programming.

Illenium and the return of Iris

Glenn and Madeleine Goodhand, at the helm of Iris and the Imagine festival, partnered with Mahesh Harjani to return the church to music. The renovation, costing nearly two million dollars, reorganized about 1,400 square meters across three floors. The official opening arrived on February 16, 2019, with Illenium on the dancefloor. The name completes the story the team had been telling since the nineties: first Learn to Believe, then Imagine, and finally, Believe. The club occupies the temple where that Atlanta night had begun.

A nave with lasers, mezzanine, and basement

The Main Stage is built on two levels, with an open dancefloor, three bars, a kitchen, and a mezzanine overlooking the stage. The main system is d&b audiotechnik. In front of the audience, the venue features the largest LED wall in Atlanta, accompanied by lasers and effects. In the basement, the Wish Lounge operates as a room with its own lineup and a more intimate atmosphere, separated from the large nave. Outside, there are two terraces. Eden is a patio with a bar, heating in winter, and music. The Terrace is an elevated viewpoint of the skyline, with a DJ booth and VIP area. General admission is 18+. There is accessible access and restrooms, and the parking indicated by the club is the red and yellow lots on Central Avenue.

Local electronic music and touring concerts

The core of the programming remains electronic. Iris keeps the ESP 101 cycle, Learn to Believe, in the house, and distributes club, bass, and drum and bass sets across the Main Stage and the Wish Lounge, alongside other promoters. The club also hosts concerts, parties of other styles, and private events, so the lineup changes with each date. The schedule is set by the night: for Iris sets, doors usually open at 22:00 and the usual closing time is around 03:00, with early bird tickets for some dates. Whoever enters finds a converted church, a huge video wall, and an Atlanta dancefloor that took the name of the phrase with which Iris had been starting the night for years.