How State Farm Arena will shift from Atlanta Dream to Hawks to concerts
Seven events, six days, multiple floor configurations.
State Farm Arena has its work cut out for itself throughout the rest of this week, as it prepares to play host to two WNBA Finals games between the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries, the home opener for the Atlanta Hawks and concerts spliced in between. Hundreds of workers will be scurrying around the downtown arena each day, ensuring the marathon run of events unfolds smoothly.
The arena is no stranger to moving from one major event to the next with little downtime. Last year, State Farm was ranked the second-busiest NBA venue in the U.S., trailing only behind Madison Square Garden, according to a report from Billboard. Nearly 1 million people attended concerts, comedy shows and other non-sporting events between November 2024 and 2025.
Where this week differs from many of the others is that it culminates in a doubleheader on Saturday, which State Farm has never done outside of college basketball championships, said Amanda Mann, the arena’s executive vice president and chief facilities officer. Plus, two of its marquee events, Games 3 and 4 of the WNBA Finals, were added to the calendar less than two weeks ahead of them taking place, after the league and other stakeholders navigated scheduling challenges to have the Dream play at the larger venue than its College Park home court.
“We like to say around the office, it’s what we do,” Mann said. “We’re very used to weeks like this.”
State Farm, which has 17,000 seats, was initially booked for all three days of the Atlanta-based Finals games, with a Sombr concert scheduled on Thursday and Hawks games scheduled on Saturday and Oct. 29. There was some concern the Dream would have to play their biggest games of the WNBA season at the smaller Gateway Center Arena, which has a basketball seating capacity of about 3,500.
State Farm Arena leadership began thinking about the possibility of hosting Finals games as it was watching the Dream triumph in the second round of the WNBA playoffs, Mann said.
“Us planners and operators were like, there’s no way these games aren’t happening here, so let’s start thinking about the scenarios that this might entail,” Mann said.
After coordination between each of the stakeholders and ensuring State Farm could find enough staff on such short notice for reconfiguring the floor, housekeeping, security and other functions, Game 3 was rescheduled to Wednesday at 8 p.m. The time for Game 4 was also moved to 1 p.m. on Saturday. Where Game 6, if necessary, will be played on Oct. 29 still is unclear.
This week started with Monday night’s concert by rock titans Journey and Tuesday night’s show from Conyers-based Teddy Swims.
The logistics of these events, as well as the Sombr show and another from country artist Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds later this week, are planned out months in advance, Mann said.
Each show is assigned an event manager, who coordinates with all of the various departments to ensure that conversions — that is, the process of transforming the venue from one event setup to another — can happen within the time frame that’s allotted for one team to load-in and another to load-out.
A month or two out from the event, State Farm starts scheduling its staffing, and the conversions team begins working directly with who will be on the clock. The arena is ensuring they’re getting fresh people in every day so that they’re rested, alert and able to perform their jobs safely, Mann said.
Converting the arena floor from a concert configuration to the basketball court typically takes about five to six hours, Mann said, though each case is different. It’s an organized process.
“Safety first is everybody’s starting motto, but especially with conversions, because there’s stuff in the air, stuff rolling around on the ground, there’s hundreds of people, and they’re all separated into teams,” Mann said. “It’s very coordinated. It’s coordinated chaos.”
State Farm isn’t hosting an event on Friday, but it’s “by no means a dark day for us,” Mann said. Friday is a load-in and rehearsal day for the pro basketball doubleheader. Usually, State Farm takes the whole day of the Hawks home opener for operational run-throughs of the game, but they’ll have to do that the day before.