Tabernacle To Reopen Feb. 14

A section of the 100-year-old venue’s floor was said to be affected. Fire marshal Lt. Ulysses Gladden was in a merch room beneath the stage and told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the ceiling above him was bowing. Gladden noticed a beam was seriously split and venue managers quickly evacuated the 2,562-capacity Tabernacle. No one was injured.

“When I first came into the room there was a spotlight,” Gladden told the AJC. “It just caught the corner of my eye, and it moved.’”

He said he then noticed the joists – horizontal, wooden 2- by 6-inch supports near the ceiling – were split and bending.

“The ceiling was painted black,” Gladden told the paper. “So when they moved and opened up you could actually see the brown wood interior of the joist. The full bottom of the joist would open up. Like teeth.” He added that he could see the entire ceiling – the floor for the crowd in the level above — was bowing.

Fast action by Gladden and venue management likely prevented a major disaster by stopping the show and evacuating the room before the floor could collapse.

“The safety of all at The Tabernacle — fans, performers and crew — is our number one priority and we will always side with caution,” venue officials said in a Facebook post. “We were completely impressed with how calmly everyone left the building when directed by the Fire Marshal.”

City officials later inspected the venue and determined there was no structural failure of the floor system, according to a statement released by Tabernacle officials Feb. 11. Some areas of the building require “additional attention to insure the ongoing integrity of the building for many years to come.”

A Feb. 8 concert with Corey Smith was rescheduled to May 10. A Feb. 13 Lauryn Hill show was moved to Feb. 17 when a state of emergency was declared in the region because of expected extreme weather.

The Tabernacle will reopen with the Tabernacle Feb. 14.