The Top Concert Venues of 2012

The Best Concert and Music Festival Venues

While the most important part of any concert or music festival is obviously the performer, the venue itself is also hugely important. Some venues have better acoustics, a fun feel, or other interesting characteristics that make them a superior place to see a performance. Along with that, some venues just seem to attract the most popular stars, year after year. With that in mind, we've decided to put together a list of the top concert and music festival venues from the past year, as sorted by average ticket price. In the past, we've also written about the best summer venues, top outdoor summer venues, and top New York City venues, so be sure to check out all of those posts as well. The chart of the top 50 venues is just below, and after the jump we'll take a quick look at the list as a whole before discussing the top three venues. Just click on any of the venue links and you'll be taken straight to the venue homepage, where you'll find tickets to all the upcoming events.

Top Concert Venues

Top Music Venues

So there you have it; the top 50 venues from the past calendar year. Before we take a look at the top three individually, there are a few interesting trends among the top 50. To start, the top cities are, not surprisingly, New York (with 4 of the top 50), Chicago (3), and Los Angeles (also 3). However, though Las Vegas places only two venues among the top 50, both of those, the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, are in the top five. As for the top states, California laps the field with a whopping 9 of the top 50, followed by New York (6) and Florida (5). One final interesting thing to look at is how many of these top venues are not designed for concerts. Indeed, baseball stadiums (such as Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field), football stadiums (such as MetLife Stadium and LP Field), and other nontraditional venues are mixed in with the more standard concert stages.

The MGM Grand Garden Arena

Located inside the MGM Grand, a casino-resort that is the third largest hotel in the world (over 6,800 rooms!), the MGM Grand Garden Arena was the top concert venue over the past twelve months. The Grand Garden Arena has nearly 17,000 seats, but ticket prices were sky-high despite the huge capacity. In fact, there were four concerts with an average ticket price over $400 with the iHeartRadio Music Festival leading the way. For more on this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival, check out this post. The Grand Garden Arena has some exciting concerts coming up in the near future, including the 2012 iHeartRadio Music Festival, a Justin Bieber performance, and two Madonna concerts. For all the MGM Grand Garden Arena tickets, go to its homepage .

MGM Grand Garden Arena Tickets 2012

MGM Grand Garden Arena Ticket Prices

Lady Gaga at MGM Grand Garden Arena

LP Field

If there's one place to see country music, it's LP Field, the home of the Tennessee Titans. Indeed, the venue hosted only 6 major concerts in the past year, all of which were country music festivals, and all of which had pricey tickets. The top ticket was easily the 4 day pass to the Country Music Award Festival, which had an average ticket price of over $427. The stadium will only be hosting football games for the near future, but it's already been announced that the 2013 CMA Festival will be at LP Field.
See all LP Field Tickets.

LP Field Tickets 2012

LP Field Ticket Prices

Bayfront Park Amphitheater

Located in Miami, Florida, the Bayfront Park Amphitheater was the third hottest concert venue in the past year. By far the most popular event was the Ultra Music Festival, which featured Avicii, David Guetta, and Tiesto, among others. In the coming months, the amphitheater will host the Miami Jazz Fest.
See all Bayfront Park Amphitheater Tickets

Bayfront Park Tickets 2012

Bayfront Park Ampitheater Ticket Prices

Tiesto at Bayfront Park Amphitheater

Other Concert Tickets

Tickets are expensive, but the only way to make sure that you're getting the best price for any venue is to use SeatGeek to find your concert tickets.