Stumbled Onto the Set
Each year I drive through Atlanta for our family's end-of-summer road trip. This year we stopped to see famous set locations from Stranger Things! You'd be amazed how easily accessible many of these locations are, all scattered around a fifty mile radius of the city. On our last stop we wandered onto a set which had been used just days earlier, for the filming of Season 4. We snapped a few photos, giving us a behind the scenes sneak peek of something we may see in 2022. I'll show you the photos, a map of how you can find Stranger Things set locations, and the hot new trailer for Season 4!
Starcourt Mall
One of the easiest sets to visit is Season 3's Starcourt Mall. Just a few minutes off interstate 85, in northeast Atlanta, you'll find the Gwinnette Place Mall. This sprawling mall was built in 1984 at the height of the mega-mall boom. Like most malls, it had withered through the early 2000's, and finally closed in 2020. When I visited the mall, you could still see remnants of throwback sets built just for the show. That's all since been dismantled.
Hawkins Lab
Smack dab in the middle of Atlanta on the real life campus of Emory University, sits Stranger Things Hawkins Laboratory. This is my favorite set location. So many scenes were filmed here, and accessing the exterior of the building is easy. From every angle you look, you'll remember another scene that was shot here. This literally sits in the middle of a bustling area of Atlanta. The building was formerly used as a mental health institute, but hadn't been updated throughout the decades, so it was turned into an administrative and storage building. That ironic fact made it a perfect period location for the show. This entire side of Emory University is now reserved for filming of many productions in Atlanta's booming film industry. Hawkins Lab also sits a hundred yards from Briarcliff Mansion. Though breathtaking and regal, this 1920's mansion's abandonment also makes it a perfect filming location for many current productions.
Hawkins High School
This is where our day got exciting. When we pulled into the parking of lot of former real life Patrick Henry High School, we saw a crew breaking down the set from filming just days earlier. Hawkins High School is in Stockbridge, just 30 minutes south of Atlanta, off I75. When approaching the gym, we noticed a MASSIVE tent city set up in the baseball fields south of the school. Trucks were moving back and forth, and an enormous air circulation system, and generators were being taken out of the gym. We noticed one gym door was open, so we crept closer to get a look inside. We were stopped by security, but not before we were able to snap a pic of what was happening inside the gym. It was a Snowball Dance!!!
Snowball Dance in Season 4?
You could easily see the reflections of the silvery foil curtain against the wall, streamers, a decorative arch and a snowman! The Stranger Things Season 2 Snowball Dance was a big moment for Stranger Things fans. Now it looks like we're going to see it again! I've spoken to several people who follow the show and they have a couple fan theories of how this will play into Season 4.
- Interviews with show producers have said Season 4 dives more into David Harbour's character, Hopper's background. We know Hopper and Joyce had a relationship in school. Is this perhaps a flashback scene of Hopper and Joyce attending the Snowball Dance when they were in school?
- It appears some time has gone by between Season 3 and Season 4. One theory is that we see the gang back at the Snowball Dance, but this time as High School aged couples? Maybe Dustin finally gets to take Suzie, since he was lonesome at the Snowball Dance in Season 2?
- Was there something we missed in the Season 2 Snowball Dance? Stranger Things has been known to flashback to events we've seen before, only to show us they have larger consequences than we ever expected. Perhaps a rewatch of Season 2, episode 9 is in order, before Season 4 drops in 2022.
All this speculation is fun, but not nearly as fun as visiting Stranger Things set locations. Below is a Google map where you can find all the locations available, and be sure to watch the exciting new trailer for Stranger things Season 4 'Creel House'.