Pittsburgh Winery has been a Strip District staple for many years with many delicious bottles of wine poured over that time.
But for those who want a bit more, you'll do well to look at the events in Pittsburgh Winery's cellar as they also have one stellar music venue with a great lineup throughout the year!
Wine and music? We're in.
We love seeing live music in the area, and there are no shortage of great concert venues in Pittsburgh to check out a show.
But some of the best music experiences in Pittsburgh are when free music performances pop up, and one of our favorites is during the Allegheny County Summer Concert Series which takes place at two great locations in the county!
We made our way up to Hartwood Acres to check out a show and wanted to share a bit more about what you can expect and how to get the most out of these free events!
When it comes to enjoying music in Pittsburgh, there is no shortage of events going on from local performances, mega artists visiting on a global tour, and local festivals.
One festival stands out as being one of the very best in southwest Pennsylvania- the Millvale Music Festival.
This one, located in Millvale just outside of Pittsburgh, brings over 300 bands to more than two dozen stages all within a roughly one-mile radius over two packed days. Truly, you're never more than a few feet away from music at this one, and it is a whole lot of fun!
City Winery has been taking the entertainment world by storm with its unique combination of being one part winery, one part entertainment complex.
While City Winery has been operating in several major cities in the USA for many years now, their first Pittsburgh location opened right in the heart of the Strip District in the Terminal building complex in 2023.
Wine, live entertainment, and late-night hours in the Strip? We're in for that!
Chatham Baroque is a period music ensemble that was founded in Pittsburgh in 1990 that performs their own concert series in the city, in addition to collaborating with other groups in Pittsburgh and touring around the country and world. Artistic directors Andrew Fouts, Patricia Halverson, and Scott Pauley invite other musicians from around the world to perform with them, making their concerts special and unique.
We were first introduced to Chatham Baroque when they accompanied the opera Idaspe, put on by Quantum Theater in the fall of 2022. I don't think we had ever seen instruments like the viola da gamba or the theorbo played in person before. We were instantly drawn to their unique look and sound, and knew we had to learn more about this interesting ensemble.
Cut to early 2023 and we were able to check out Chatham Baroque play their final concert of the season, The Joy of Bach!
When it comes to concerts in Pittsburgh, many venues have regular shows throughout the year. Some spots, like the Petersen Events Center, host concerts less frequently as this particular venue is primarily used for Pitt basketball games first and foremost.
But clocking in at about 12,000 seats, the Petersen Events Center is a serious stadium (roughly 2/3 the size of PPG Paints Arena) and does attract star talent periodically. While stadium performances are not typically our favorite, we have to admit we loved our show at this particular spot (Billy Strings) and have some thoughts on where to sit, what to consider before visiting, and what to avoid!
So if you plan to attend a concert at the Petersen Events Center soon, keep these tips in mind!
Con Alma in downtown Pittsburgh is a restaurant and bar that features live jazz music. With an impressive cocktail menu, delicious international food, and stellar music, Con Alma is a shining star in the Pittsburgh food and music scene.
There was a time in the not-so-distant past that if you brought up the Pittsburgh music scene, odds are good the response you'd get from others was “it is terrible, [city] is better”.
For a while, we thought that too.
But in recent years, the popularity of live music in Pittsburgh has really exploded both for bands that make stops into the city and for our music venues outright. So in this one, we thought we'd round up some of the best Pittsburgh concert venues, what you can expect when visiting, and more!
We've also decided to arrange this one by capacity (from smallest to largest, roughly), just for fun. As with everything on this site, this list only features venues we've personally visited. As we take in more shows in the area, we'll update this guide accordingly!
We were fortunate enough to see not one, but two shows at Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead in the span of roughly one week, and by sheer chance, we bought tickets for the same exact seats for both (I bought tickets for one, Angie for the other).
This ended up being a pleasant surprise because we quickly learned two things- the balcony seats at Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead are wonderful, and this smaller theater is a true gem for seeing live music!
So in this one, we thought we'd share a bit more about what you can expect from a performance.
There are conventional tours at amphitheaters like Star Lake. Then there are larger stadium tours, like concerts at PNC Park. And then there are the biggest, most outrageous stadium tours for the world's most famous performers.
In Pittsburgh, only one venue is large enough for an event of this size, and Acrisure Stadium (formerly Heinz Field) concerts have historically attracted acts like Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Beyonce, U2, and perhaps the most legendary of them all, The Rolling Stones- who we finally got to see at the stadium in 2021.
So in this one, we thought we'd share a bit about what the show was like, thoughts on the seating and sound at the stadium, and other venue-specific points you may want to keep in mind!
Note: Photos in this one were taken at various focal lengths with our phone. True-to-view shots as seen from our seats will be noted in the captions.