Best Seats at State Farm Arena
State Farm Arena is home to the Atlanta Hawks and, most months, to whoever is currently the biggest touring act in the world — Billboard ranks it among the three busiest concert venues in the country. It sits on the western edge of downtown Atlanta with a MARTA platform directly underneath it, a few blocks from Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia Aquarium. Inside it’s compact by NBA standards, around 17,000 seats, and the concourses run a full 360 degrees and open straight onto the court, so you can watch the game while you wait for food.
The practical thing to know is to take the train. The honest thing is the opportunity: the Hawks won their division last season and still finished 27th in the league in attendance, so on a Tuesday in January the building is better than the noise inside it. That cuts both ways, because a lower-bowl seat here costs what an upper deck costs in most NBA cities. Here’s how to spend that extra money wisely.
Seating Overview
Read the room by its ends. The court runs north–south, so the lower-bowl sidelines are 105–111 on the west and 116–122 on the east, with the baselines at 112–115 to the north and 101–104 to the south. Both team benches share the east sideline — Hawks in front of 118, visitors in front of 120 — which is unusual and worth knowing, because the sideline everyone assumes is the “cheap” one is actually the one with the players in it.
The trap is what sits in front of you. In the bench-side sections, the double-lettered rows (AA and up) are Players Club inventory, so the first row a normal ticket buys is Row Q. A listing that says “Section 118” can mean fifteen rows further back than the seat map implies, and the resale sites don’t flag it.
Above the lower bowl sits a thick band of clubs, suites and terrace boxes, and above that the 200 level. That sandwich is why the 200s feel higher than the number suggests, and why Row A up there is worth chasing — it’s the front edge of the upper deck rather than the back of anything.
Best Seats for Atlanta Hawks Games
Sections 107–109, west sideline. The cleanest unobstructed look at the court in the building, straight across from both benches so you get the coaching, the timeout huddles and the substitution scrum in front of you rather than behind you. You pay a premium for the sideline, and rows past the low twenties start to lose the sense of speed.
Sections 118–120, east sideline. Same sightline quality, and you’re directly behind the Hawks and visiting benches, which is the reason to pick this side over the other one. The catch is the Players Club row structure — check that your row is lettered singly, not doubled, before you buy.
Sections 113–114, north baseline. The cheapest way into the lower bowl without landing in a corner. Baseline compresses the far half of the court, so it’s a seat for watching dunks and rebounding, not for reading a play develop.
Best Seats for Concerts at State Farm Arena
The stage goes up at the south end, in front of sections 101–104, which flips the geometry entirely. The sections you’d skip for a Hawks game become the good ones.
Sections 112–115, north end. Dead head-on to the stage from the lower bowl, far enough back that the whole production reads at once instead of one lighting truss at a time. This is the block the arena built its Concert Club directly above, which tells you what the sightline is worth.
Sections 105–107 and 120–122, the lower bowl nearest the stage. Close without being on the flat floor, and angled enough that you’re looking at the performer rather than the side of an amp stack. Push further up the sidelines and you trade the angle for distance.
Skip the back of the floor. The floor is flat with no rake, so past the first several rows you’re looking at the backs of heads unless the tour builds a high stage. A lower-bowl seat costs less and sees more.
One habit that saves you money here: the seating map is redrawn for every show. Sections behind the stage get curtained off or dumped as limited-view, and a section that’s a great Hawks seat can be dead behind the stage for a concert. Pull the event-specific map before you buy, not the generic arena chart.
Best Value Seats
Row A of the 200-level sidelines. The front row of the upper deck sits on top of the terrace level, so you get a center-court view for upper-deck money and nobody’s head in front of you. It’s the best price-to-view ratio in the building and it goes first.
Sections 207–211, the Chick-fil-A Fan Zone. Built where the suite wall used to stand, and open to the general public for the first time in the arena’s history — 1,093 seats with chef-driven food and drink and one of the few places inside the building to buy Chick-fil-A. New, cheap, and the seats have chairbacks rather than benches.
Cheapest Way In
Upper-level corners and ends. Hawks upper-deck seats regularly start in the teens, which for an NBA game with a division-champion roster is close to free. The corners are the honest pick over the ends — you lose the symmetry but keep the depth perception.
Don’t wait for the box office. Prices are identical online and in person, and it only opens on event days, an hour before doors. Buy through Ticketmaster in advance.
Our Pick
Section 108 or 109, somewhere in rows M through T. You’re on the west sideline looking straight at both benches, high enough to see spacing and low enough to hear the game, and it costs less than a mid-tier upper-deck seat in New York or Boston.
What to Avoid (and What’s Worth Trying Once)
Double-lettered rows and Rows A–F in the lower corners. Sections 101, 106, 110 and 117 put you at an angle sharp enough that you’re turning your head all night, and being close doesn’t fix a bad angle — it sharpens it.
Behind-the-basket 200-level seats for concerts. Fine for basketball, useless for an end-stage show if the stage is on your end. Check the show map.
Worth it once: the Front Porch. Just inside Gate 2, above the main concourse, an open bar deck looks straight into the bowl. It isn’t a ticketed seat and the sightline is a distance shot, but standing there watching the room fill is one of the better ten minutes in Atlanta sports.
Premium Seating & Clubs
State Farm Arena’s premium program is spread through the building rather than stacked in one tower, which was the whole point of the renovation. Most of the best spaces sit at event level, a few feet from the floor.
The Best Premium Experience
The Delta SKY360° Club, event level north. The draw is the Hawk Bar — a bar built onto the hardwood itself, the first of its kind in the NBA, so you’re drinking at floor level with the court a few strides away. All floor-seat holders get access, food and drink are all-inclusive for Hawks games, and there’s a waitlist. Nothing else in the building is doing something another arena isn’t.
Best Value Premium
The Players Club, event level east. This is the insider call. It sits behind the benches with sightlines into the players’ tunnel and the postgame press conference area, so you watch the team walk out to the floor from a few feet away — and it comes attached to lower-bowl sections 117–121 rather than to a floor seat, which makes it a fraction of Sky360 money for a similar amount of access.
Other Premium Options
Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos Club, event level west, is the food-first room — all-inclusive with liquor, designed by ai3, the firm behind Cooks & Soldiers. Sharecare Social Club on the suite level swaps rows of seats for cabanas, terrace tables and couches, with a Bridge Bar looking down over the Hawk Walk Market. The Chase Concert Club, terrace level north, is concerts-only and small — 268 seats split between front-row, loge and theatre tables, plus a 47-seat party deck hanging over the lower bowl, all facing the stage head-on.
Suites & Group Options
The renovation cut traditional suites from 90 to 40 and replaced the rest with things that don’t look like suites: Veranda Suites down in the lower bowl, Georgia Natural Gas Greener Life Lofts above them, and Topgolf Swing Suites with simulators you can hit before, during and after the event. All-inclusive, single-night rentals bookable online or at (866) 715-1500, option 2.
State Farm Arena Seating Chart & Capacity
State Farm Arena holds 16,888 for basketball and 15,590 and up for concerts, depending on the stage build. That makes it one of the smaller arenas in the NBA — the 2018 renovation traded roughly 1,200 seats for social space and the arena never added them back. Announced attendance runs past 17,000 on big nights, which is standing room and premium areas doing the work.
Two quirks on the chart itself. The lower bowl runs 101–122 with letters for rows, and in the sections along the east sideline the double-lettered rows are club inventory, so the numbering starts at Row Q for the public. The 200 level runs 201–227 with a handful of “S” sections appended, and it sits above a full band of terrace and suite space rather than directly on the lower bowl. The official interactive map is at statefarmarena.com/events/seating-charts, and for concerts the event page map is the only one worth trusting.
Getting the Best Tickets
Atlanta is one of the softest NBA ticket markets in the league, which makes this a buyer’s building: weeknight games against non-contenders sit unsold into the day of, and prices drift down rather than up.
Save the early money for the nights the market actually moves — Knicks and Celtics visits, opening night, weekends. Concerts run the opposite way; this is a top-three venue nationally by ticket volume, so major tours go on presale and stay gone.
Get Atlanta Hawks, Events or Concert Tickets at State Farm Arena through our partner Vivid Seats.
State Farm Arena Bag Policy
Bags up to 14″ x 14″ x 6″ are allowed, and for most events there is no clear bag requirement — a generous limit by NBA standards. Backpacks and hard-sided bags of any size are out, though single-compartment drawstring bags and fashion-backpack purses within the size limit are fine. Diaper bags with a child and medical bags are exempt from the size cap but get searched.
There is a bag valet. For a fee, you can check a non-complying bag or item at the tent by Gate 2 off Centennial Olympic Park Drive, open from about 90 minutes before showtime until an hour after it ends, same-day pickup only. Most arenas will simply turn you away; this one won’t. Bag rules do vary by event, so check the event page if you’re coming to a concert.
Key Venue Policies
No re-entry, at all. Once you scan in you’re in for the night, which matters more here than usual because there’s nothing to duck out for — no smoking areas anywhere on the property either.
Fully cashless. Card or tap only at every ticket, food and retail point. Chase ATMs sit at the Gate 1 and Gate 5 entrances on the main concourse and across from Section 221 upstairs.
Reusable water bottles are prohibited, which trips people up because most arenas now allow an empty one. Drinking fountains are outside sections 102 and 104 on the 100 level and outside 201, 205 and 223 on the 200 level.
Alcohol stops at the start of the fourth quarter for Hawks games and 30 minutes before the end of other events, two drinks per ID per transaction, with ID checked for anyone who looks under 30. Cameras with detachable lenses or fixed lenses over three inches are out; phones and small point-and-shoots are fine. iPads are permitted at Hawks games but not at concerts. Signs cap at 11″ x 17″ and flags are banned outright.
For accessibility, every parking deck has accessible spaces on a first-come basis, and Guest Services inside Gate 1 handles wheelchair escorts, assisted listening devices, sensory bags and weighted lap pads — all free with an ID left as deposit.
Getting to State Farm Arena
Take MARTA. The arena is one of the few American buildings where the train genuinely beats driving, because the station sits underneath it and downtown Atlanta traffic around Centennial Olympic Park on an event night is exactly as bad as you’d expect.
State Farm Arena Parking
Four official lots, all bookable through ParkMobile, and pre-buying is meaningfully cheaper than rolling up. State Farm Drive (1 State Farm Dr) and the Diamond Deck (100 Lower Andrew Young International Dr) are both under a one-minute walk, with the Diamond Deck doubling as the player and artist entrance. The Ruby Lot (199 Alabama St SW) is under three minutes and the Sapphire Deck (127 Centennial Olympic Park Dr NW) is under five, directly across the street.
The move worth knowing: check whether Mercedes-Benz Stadium has anything going on the same night before you book. The two buildings share a street grid and a set of decks, and a Falcons or United match turns a fifteen-dollar parking night into a sixty-dollar one. The Georgia World Congress Center decks along Marietta and Northside are the release valve — a ten to fifteen minute walk, and they almost never sell out.
Public Transit (MARTA)
The station under the arena is SEC District Station, renamed in December 2025 from GWCC/CNN Center — and before that Dome, Philips and Omni, so trust the current name over anything printed. It’s on the Blue and Green lines, the fare is $2.50 each way plus a one-time $2 Breeze Card, and you come up a long escalator that puts you at Gate 4. Five Points, two blocks east, connects all four lines and is the better bet if you’re coming from the north side or the airport.
Rideshare
Uber and Lyft pickups work off the surrounding streets rather than a fixed zone, and the arena’s own advice after a big event is to take the train instead, which tells you what postgame surge looks like. If you’re set on a car, walk north on Marietta past the Omni or east toward Five Points before you request — five minutes on foot regularly halves the price.
State Farm Arena Insider Tips & Hacks
Seven gates, a barbershop, and a food program run by a chef who grew up here. State Farm Arena rewards showing up early more than most NBA buildings, because a lot of the good stuff isn’t your seat.
Arrival & Entry Strategy
Use Gate 7 if you have CLEAR. It’s a dedicated CLEAR lane on Andrew Young International Boulevard, free to use with the app, and on a sold-out concert night it’s the difference between four minutes and twenty-five.
Gate 2 is the main door and the busiest. It’s on Centennial Olympic Park Drive behind the big ATLANTA letters, next to the box office, and it feeds straight into the Front Porch. Gate 4 by the MARTA escalator and Gate 5 on State Farm Drive are consistently faster.
Doors open 60 minutes before tip-off, not 90 like a lot of arenas. Hawks season members get in at 75 minutes. For concerts and other events the door time is on the individual event page and it moves.
Gate 6 doesn’t open for Hawks games. It’s on Andrew Young Boulevard and only runs for select events, so don’t route yourself there on a basketball night.
There are only two escalators up. Inside Gate 1 and inside Gate 2, both to the 200 level. If you’re in the upper deck and you came in a different door, you’re walking. Elevators are inside Gates 4, 5 and 7 and are prioritized for guests with accessibility needs.
Food & Drink Strategy
Eat inside. Chef G. Garvin, an Atlanta native, runs the culinary program with Levy, and the concourse pricing here has stayed deliberately fan-friendly — this is not a building where you pre-load at a bar to avoid a $19 hot dog.
Hawk Walk Market on the east concourse is the food hall. It spans sections 116–122 with a bar that runs the length of two free-throw lines, and it’s where the Chick-fil-A is, near section 121.
J.R. Crickets, near Gate 5, is the local order. Lemon pepper wings from an Atlanta institution that turned up in Donald Glover’s Atlanta. Dolo’s Pizza is next to it if wings aren’t the move.
Skip the lap. The Smashburger and the Mediterranean falafel are duplicated at sections 107, 114, 118, 211, 221 and 227, so whatever’s closest to your seat is the same food as the stand three sections away.
Beat the line at the Scofflaw Beer Barn. It’s on the 200-level north concourse between sections 213 and 217, and it’s a dedicated bar rather than a food stand — the taps got redistributed away from food counters in the last refresh specifically so beer lines move.
Killer Mike’s SWAG Shop and the Front Porch
Get a haircut during the game. Killer Mike’s S.W.A.G. Shop — Shave, Wash And Groom — is a four-chair barbershop built into the Front Porch just inside Gate 2, an exact replica of his Edgewood storefront down to the brick and the barber pole, and it takes walk-ins. OutKast plays in the background and framed Wilkins, Maravich and Mutombo jerseys hang on the wall. Killer Mike calls it a blue-collar suite. It’s the only one in an American sports arena and it’s the single best reason to arrive early here.
The Front Porch itself is the best free view in the building. Open bar deck, panoramic look into the bowl, and it’s where the box office and the team store sit, so you can do everything in one stop.
Exit Strategy
Leave through a different gate than you came in. Gate 2 and the Centennial Olympic Park Drive sidewalk absorb most of the crowd, which means Gate 5 onto State Farm Drive and Gate 7 onto Andrew Young empty fast.
If you parked in the decks, wait ten minutes. Diamond and Sapphire stack up immediately and clear fast, and the Front Porch bar stays open long enough to make waiting better than sitting in a ramp.
Photo Ops & Traditions
The ATLANTA letters on Centennial Olympic Park Drive are the signature shot — big sculptural block letters right outside the box office, and they read best at dusk with the arena lit behind them.
The Dominique Wilkins statue sits outside the building and is the one piece of Hawks history the renovation kept front and center. Worth knowing why: the franchise has never won a title in Atlanta. Its only championship came in 1958, in St. Louis.
The Omni’s old center-hung scoreboard hangs in the lobby. The arena sits on the Omni Coliseum’s footprint, and the board still carries the Omni logo alongside the Hawks and Thrashers.
Families & Kids
Kids under two are free on a lap, and anyone two or older needs a ticket.
Strollers have to be checked at Gate 1. They’re welcome in the building but not past the Guest Service Center, so plan on carrying a toddler or budgeting the walk.
The CareSource Mother’s and Nursing Room is inside Gate 1, next to Guest Services, and family restrooms sit inside Gates 3 and 6, on the 100 level outside sections 106–107, and on the 200 level outside 220 and 227.
Sensory bags and weighted lap pads are free at Guest Services, checked out with an ID. The arena has been a KultureCity Sensory Inclusive Venue of the Year.
Autographs & Player Access
Get there at doors and go to the north baseline. Sixty minutes out, warmups start at the ends and the lower bowl is nearly empty. On a night with 15,000 in a 17,000-seat room, an usher is far more relaxed about a kid at the rail than they’d be in a sellout building.
The Players Club has the tunnel view. If you’re buying premium for one reason, it’s watching the team walk out from a few feet away.
Merch, the App and Venue Quirks
The Hawks Shop only opens for Hawks home games. It’s inside the center entrance, so if you’re coming to a concert and want team gear, buy it online — there’s no walk-up store on non-basketball nights.
The app is functional, not great. It handles mobile tickets, parking and suite rentals and runs a Chase-sponsored rewards program, but sits around 3.9 stars — load your tickets to your phone wallet before you leave the hotel.
Chase cardholders get their own inventory. Chase Preferred Seating is a filter on Ticketmaster that surfaces seats reserved for Chase debit and credit cardholders — often better locations than what’s showing on the public map.
Free Wi-Fi is “Arena Free Xfinity WiFi.” For anything going wrong in-seat, text your issue and location to 404-878-3030.
Umbrellas are allowed under 33 inches — a rare yes in an arena policy list, and useful given how Atlanta rains.
Is the NHL Coming Back to Atlanta?
Short answer: maybe, but not here. The Thrashers played at this building from 1999 to 2011 before becoming the Winnipeg Jets, and the 2018 renovation optimized the bowl for basketball in a way that removed permanent ice capability. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has said directly that State Farm Arena is no longer suitable for an NHL franchise long-term and that an arena in the northern suburbs — closer to where the Thrashers’ fanbase actually lived — would give a team a better chance.
Both serious efforts reflect that: Krause Sports & Entertainment is building The Gathering at South Forsyth, and a group fronted by Anson Carter has proposed a Gehry-designed arena at the old North Point Mall site in Alpharetta. Neither is downtown, and the league has no formal expansion process open for Atlanta. If hockey returns to Georgia, you’ll drive north on GA-400 to see it.
Atlanta Dream Games
The Atlanta Dream. The WNBA team plays most home games at the 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena in College Park but moves its biggest dates here — five regular-season games in 2026, the most any WNBA team scheduled at an alternate venue that year. If you want to see a Dream game in a real arena, those are the dates to target.
Things to Do
Cosm is across the street and it’s the thing to do before a game. The immersive dome venue opened at Centennial Yards and shows live sports and films on a wraparound screen; general admission has run around eleven dollars and it opens at 10am daily. Get there early — seating in the dome is first-come.
The rest is the standard downtown cluster within a ten-minute walk: Centennial Olympic Park, the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola and the College Football Hall of Fame. Less obvious, and better: the Municipal Market on Edgewood — Sweet Auburn Curb Market to locals — a twelve-minute walk east, closed Sundays and Mondays.
Hotels Near State Farm Arena
You’re staying in the Centennial Park District, and the good news is you can walk to everything. The bad news is that this is a convention town — when the Georgia World Congress Center has a big show, rates triple and parking goes with them. Check the GWCC calendar before you book, and reserve gameday weekends at least a month out.
Best Areas to Stay
Centennial Olympic Park is the obvious target: everything within a half-mile of the park is a five-to-ten-minute walk to a gate, and it’s the most pedestrian-friendly stretch of downtown Atlanta. South Downtown, just below the arena around Centennial Yards, is where the new hotels and restaurants are landing and is a slightly quieter, more interesting base. Peachtree Center, six blocks east, is where the big convention hotels are and where you’ll find rooms when the park district is full — you’ll take a two-stop MARTA ride or a twenty-minute walk.
Hotel Recommendations
The Omni Atlanta at Centennial Park is the one physically attached to the experience. Exit Gate 7, walk west on Andrew Young, and you’re at the door — the arena’s own site gives directions for it, which no other hotel gets. Huge, busy, reliably good service, and the on-site Top Draft Sports Lounge means you don’t have to go anywhere on a rain night. Parking runs steep, so leave the car.
Hotel Phoenix in South Downtown is the interesting new one — opened at the end of 2025, rich and art-heavy rather than corporate, with a terrace and pool and Zephyr Southern Brasserie downstairs from chef Shaun Hergatt doing lamb chops and skirt steak that people go out of their way for. Valet only, and the entrance takes a minute to find.
Signia by Hilton at the Georgia World Congress Center is the splurge and the best-rated big hotel in the district. Thirty-eight floors, a serious pool deck, and Nest on Four is a legitimate sports bar rather than a lobby afterthought. It’s a twelve-minute walk to the arena, past Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Embassy Suites at Centennial Olympic Park is the family answer — suites, a cooked breakfast, an outdoor pool, eight minutes on foot. Rooms lean to doubles rather than queens, which matters if there are four of you.
Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Downtown on Baker Street is the comfortable middle: rooftop pool, and self-parking included in most rates, which is unusual downtown and worth real money over a weekend.
The Glenn Hotel, Autograph Collection is the closest boutique, a block up Marietta in an older building with thick walls and a good rooftop. Rooms are small and the stadium-facing side is loud on event nights — ask for the other side.
Budget Options
Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta-Downtown on Ted Turner Drive has its own fenced self-parking lot, which in this part of town is worth more than the room rate difference. It’s a ten-minute walk and you trade design for reliability.
REVERB Downtown Atlanta is the closest cheap bed to the arena, music-themed and genuinely fun in the lobby, with rooms that are large and slightly unfinished around the edges. Parking there is expensive enough that you should book a spot elsewhere and walk.
Bars and Restaurants Near State Farm Arena
Downtown Atlanta used to empty out after work, and the honest truth is that for years the pregame answer here was a hotel bar. That’s changed fast. Centennial Yards, the $5 billion redevelopment of the old railroad gulch between the arena and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, has started opening in pieces — and the block directly across from Gate 2 now has more life on a Tuesday than it used to have on a Saturday.
Best Pregame & Postgame Bars
The Irish Exit is the new default. Second location after New York, right across from Cosm, with a retro transit-style flip board clacking over the bar, a properly poured Guinness and a mural splitting the difference between Atlanta and Ireland. Opens at noon every day, and it’s a two-minute walk to the arena.
Park Bar on Walton Street is the unglamorous, correct choice — a downtown institution that’s been the pre-arena stop for two decades, cheap drinks, wings that deliver, and a short-rib plate that’s better than a bar has any right to serve.
Peachtree Sporting Club is the upscale swing: a 20-foot video wall, golf and hockey and bowling simulators, and craft cocktails, on the third floor near the Peachtree Center MARTA stop. Closed Mondays.
Der Biergarten on Marietta pours liter steins and does a schweinshaxe you can split three ways, ten minutes north of the arena. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Elliott Street Deli & Pub is the local secret — a divey, warm sandwich-and-cheap-beer spot on Elliott Street with a view of the stadium and the best pastrami downtown.
Best Restaurants in the Area
Ted’s Montana Grill on Luckie Street is the walkable sit-down answer: Ted Turner’s own restaurant, bison burgers, ten minutes from the arena and used to turning tables before tip-off.
STATS Brewpub on Marietta is the big-group play, enormous with a wall of screens, next to the College Football Hall of Fame. It doesn’t open until 4pm on weekdays.
Slutty Vegan on Edgewood is worth the fifteen-minute detour for the experience as much as the burger, which is good enough that meat eaters don’t notice. Expect a line.
Mary Mac’s Tea Room on Ponce is the Atlanta meal if you have an afternoon before an evening game — fried chicken, tomato pie, pot likker and cornbread, running since 1945 and still full every day.
Why You Should Go
Come on a Tuesday in January, when tickets cost less than dinner and the room is two-thirds full, and you’ll understand what State Farm Arena actually is: not a cathedral, but a room Atlanta rebuilt in its own image — open concourses you can watch the game from, a barbershop above the front door, lemon pepper wings on the way to your seat, and a train that drops you underneath all of it.
Centennial Yards across the street is finally becoming the entertainment district this city has promised itself for thirty years. Get there when doors open, take the escalator up to the Front Porch, and watch the place fill from above with a drink in your hand before you ever sit down.
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Written by Brad Richards. Founder of Gameday Guides. This guide includes insights from personal visits as well as updated info from team sources, fan forums, and stadium policies. We aim to help you plan with confidence — enjoy your gameday. If you have any tips, if we missed anything or you have a question, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email.