The Atlantis is a music venue in Washington, D.C., that opened on May 30, 2023.[1][2][3] The venue was designed to evoke the original 9:30 Club at 930 F Street NW,[a] which itself was first called The Atlantis.[4][5] The new venue opened exactly 43 years after the original 9:30 Club.[6] The venue, adjacent to the current 9:30 Club on V Street NW, has a relatively small capacity of 450 people.[1] The Atlantis is owned by Seth Hurwitz and is a part of I.M.P. a Maryland-based live music promotional group that includes the 9:30 Club, The Anthem, the Lincoln Theater, and Merriweather Post Pavilion.[7][1]
History
Grand opening
During a private soft launch opening on Sunday May 28,[8] D.C. power pop/punk band, Venray was the very first to perform, opening for the local go-go band, Trouble Funk. The much vaunted grand opening on May 30, 2023 featured the Foo Fighters,[1][9] performing there two years after Dave Grohl first revealed that the venue was being built.[10][11] As part of the celebration of the opening, Mayor Muriel Bowser proclaimed May 30 to be "9:30 Club Day" in Washington, D.C.[12]
Ticket lottery
The Atlantis planned 44 performances during its inaugural season, scheduled to run from May through September 2023, in celebration of the 44 years since the opening of the 9:30 Club.[11][13] In another nod to 9:30 Club history, tickets for all 44 shows were priced at $44.[4] Tickets were initially released through a Ticketmaster request lottery system, drawing over half a million requests for the 20,000 tickets.[14] This lottery distribution approach and fixed ticket price were limited to the initial run of concerts, with The Atlantis switching to a more usual ticketing system going forward.[4][14]
On August 28th 2024, Jack White made a surprise performance at the venue to promote his new album, No Name.[15]
Notes
^Washington Post features writer Travis M. Andrews noted that the club is not a replica of the original 9:30 and Dave Grohl of the club's opening act Foo Fighters commented "This is the new old 9:30 Club. The 9:45 Club" and added "I feel like this is the 9:30 Disney, 9:30 the ride."[1]