A six-storey lobby lined with vermillion columns, glass jewels and a colossal chandelier - hidden for decades under grime until a 12-million-dollar restoration pulled back the curtain in 1988. The Fox Theatre at 2211 Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit opened on 21 September 1928 as film mogul William Fox's flagship: at more than 5,000 seats, the largest theatre in the city and today the largest surviving movie palace of the 1920s anywhere. C. Howard Crane designed it in an "exotic" style all its own - Burmese, Chinese, Indian and Persian motifs colliding in what contemporaries called Siamese-Byzantine - with a 3,600-square-foot lobby, a 36-rank Wurlitzer and an opening-night program that included a 60-piece orchestra and a chorus line called the Tillerettes. Elvis played three shows in 1956; the Motown Revue and Berry Gordy's stars owned its stage in the 1960s. By the 1980s the palace was running kung-fu double bills and slipping toward ruin. Mike and Marian Ilitch - the Little Caesars founders - bought it in 1987, restored it top to bottom and reopened on 19 November 1988 with the Count Basie Orchestra. The gamble seeded a district: Comerica Park, Ford Field and eventually Little Caesars Arena rose around the theatre, and the area is still nicknamed Foxtown. Now a National Historic Landmark seating 5,048 - 5,174 with the orchestra pit filled - the Fox ranks perennially among the highest-grossing theatres of its size in the world, hosting touring concerts, comedians, family spectaculars and the Rockettes across a packed calendar under Olympia Entertainment management. The 2006 addition of the ten-storey illuminated FOX tower sign restored the marquee presence to match. Visitors should arrive early purely to gawk: the lobby, the striding plaster elephants and the auditorium's starlit dome are half the ticket price. Garages serve the district, the QLine stops outside, and the stadium-district bars fill the before and after.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 2211 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI, United States, 48201

Website: https://www.313presents.com/venue/fox-theatre

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 5048

Opening Date: 21/09/1928

Serves Food

Accessible