The 11 acres of grass beside Mercedes-Benz Stadium look, on an ordinary afternoon, like nothing more than a well-kept lawn. On the evening of Friday, September 18, they will fill with food trucks, a vendor village, lawn games, and folding chairs angled toward a big screen. The occasion is BackYARD Fest, the free, open-air block party that The Home Depot Backyard stages each year as the capstone of its summer movie series. Gates open at 5:30 p.m., the entertainment runs from 6 to 9, and at 9 p.m. the screen lights up with ATL, the 2006 coming-of-age film set in the city that surrounds the lawn.
That the party happens at all is a story about what Atlanta chose to do with a hole in the ground. The Home Depot Backyard sits on the footprint of the Georgia Dome, the Falcons' home until it was closed and demolished in 2017. In April 2017, with the wrecking ball still to come, Arthur Blank, the team's owner and chairman of AMB Group, stood with then-Mayor Kasim Reed and Home Depot chairman and CEO Craig Menear to announce that the site would not become another parking crater or another tower. It would become a park — a 13-acre greenspace, later described as 11 acres of usable lawn, for game-day tailgating on Sundays and community events the rest of the year.
"While we have stores across the country, Atlanta is our hometown," Menear said at the announcement. "Fans and community members are going to have the best backyard in sports." Blank framed the whole stadium project as a bet on the Westside, describing Mercedes-Benz Stadium as "a catalyst for transformation in the surrounding neighborhoods of Atlanta's historic Westside." The park opened in September 2018.
BackYARD Fest — sometimes shortened to Yard Fest — arrived in 2023 as the finale of what was then the Piedmont Healthcare Summer Movie Series. The first edition, on July 22, 2023, screened Drumline, the 2002 Nick Cannon film about a fictional Atlanta marching band, and paired it with a kids' zone, an outdoor roller-skating rink, live performances, and the Truist Vendor Village, a showcase of small businesses from across metro Atlanta. SweetWater Brewing set up a beer garden. The event was free, but registration was required — a formula that has barely changed since.
The festival's stated purpose has stayed constant too: promoting family togetherness while celebrating the culture, institutions, and communities of Atlanta's Westside. In 2024 it moved to September 21 and screened Stomp the Yard, the 2007 step-culture film that was partly shot nearby at the Atlanta University Center, with a pre-movie fireside chat featuring producer Will Packer, whose films have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. In 2025, the third year, the event landed on September 27 and closed out the series with Soul, Pixar's 2020 Oscar-winning animated feature, alongside a lineup that included an immersive community painting experience with Sway Art, dance performances by the Spelman Jaguarettes and Moving in the Spirit, a sustainable arts and crafts station from Scraplanta, a silent disco, the Atlanta Falcons drumline, and a fireside chat moderated by radio personality Art Terrell.
For 2026, the series has been rebranded Big Screen on the Green, and the festival is presented by American Express. The film choice is the most pointedly local yet. ATL, released in 2006, was the feature directorial debut of music video director Chris Robinson, working from a screenplay by Tina Gordon Chism and a story by Antwone Fisher. The film stars Atlanta rapper T.I., credited as Tip Harris, in his movie debut as Rashad, a working-class teenager on the cusp of graduation; Evan Ross as his younger brother Ant; Lauren London as New-New; and OutKast's Big Boi as the neighborhood dealer Marcus. Its social universe revolves around the Cascade Family Skating Rink, the real southwest Atlanta rink that became a landmark of the city's hip-hop scene. The film was shot in Atlanta on a $7 million budget and grossed about $21 million.
Screening ATL on a lawn in the shadow of the stadium, in a park built on the demolished dome, is a neat piece of civic symmetry: a movie about a specific Atlanta neighborhood, shown to that neighborhood's descendants, on ground that was once the city's biggest indoor stage. The event's organizers have kept the barriers to entry low. Admission is free, though parking costs money if you drive; attendees can register up to four tickets per Eventbrite account, and walk-ups are accommodated only if space allows. Blankets and chairs are welcome, as are small or medium coolers with your own food and drinks. Tents, umbrellas, alcohol, large coolers, and glass containers are not. The event runs rain or shine, though it can be canceled if weather turns dangerous, with notices sent to the email used for registration.
Getting there is part of the design. Organizers steer arrivals to the Vine City MARTA station, the preferred stop, from which a pedestrian bridge crosses Northside Drive to Gate 1. Rideshare passengers are advised to be dropped at Vine City and walk. Drivers who ignore the instructions will find themselves turned away: entry is only through Soccer Ball Plaza by Gate 1 of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the Home Depot Backyard Bridge and the Orange Deck entrance off Magnolia Drive are closed for the event.
What the 6-to-9 p.m. block of entertainment will actually contain had not been announced at the time of writing, but the template from previous years — vendors, games, performances, and interactive stations — is well established. What is certain is the closing act: a PG-13 story about four teenagers, a roller rink, and the pull between staying home and getting out, projected onto a screen in a park that Atlanta built on purpose, in the middle of the city it has spent a decade trying to reconnect.