Orlando's oldest stage was built on the site of the county jail, and it has spent a century refusing to die. The Beacham at 46 North Orange Avenue opened on December 9, 1921, built by former mayor Braxton Beacham Sr. as a 1,097-seat movie palace and vaudeville house with a $15,000 Austin pipe organ and an electric marquee unique in Florida. The theater ran through every era of American exhibition - vaudeville in the twenties, Florida State Theatres cinema from 1933, a Cinerama conversion on Christmas Day 1964 - hosting names from Mae West on stage to B.B. King, Ray Charles and The Police in its later concert incarnations. The nightlife chapter is its own legend: in the late 1980s and early 1990s the room housed Aahz, the after-hours discotheque now recognised as a foundational venue of the American electronic dance music movement, followed by club identities including Zuma Beach and the South Beach-styled Tabu. The building was named a contributing structure of the Downtown Orlando historic district in 1980 and a local landmark in 1987, a designation that helped save the modest brick shell whose cultural weight outstrips its architecture. The current operation restored the room as a live venue with a capacity of 1,250 - a 110-foot-deep floor under a consistent 30-foot ceiling, a balcony across the rear and a large proscenium stage - billing itself as the state's longest-running independent venue, established 1921. The calendar now runs touring rock, hip-hop, metal and electronic bookings alongside club nights, keeping the Orange Avenue corner it has anchored for a century at the centre of downtown Orlando's night economy. The venue works in tandem with The Social, its smaller sibling around the corner, sharing an operator and a booking philosophy that keeps national tours and rising locals on the same block - a two-room ecosystem that has made the Orange Avenue corner the reliable heart of downtown Orlando music for another generation.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 46 N Orange Ave, Orlando, United States, 32801

Telephone: 407-839-1847

Website: https://thebeacham.com

Cover Charge: 1

DJ: 1

Capacity: 1250

Opening Date: 09/12/1921