Chicago

Chicago seat choices begin with the side of town

In Chicago, the venue decides the neighborhood and the neighborhood decides your evening, so start there. Baseball splits the city: the Chicago Cubs play up north at Wrigley Field, and the Chicago White Sox play down south at Rate Field. The Chicago Bears play on the lakefront at Soldier Field, and the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks share the United Center on the Near West Side. Comedy concentrates in Old Town, and touring Broadway fills the Loop.

• Teams: the NFL, NBA and NHL each have one local club and MLB has two, with the Chicago Fire (MLS) and Chicago Sky (WNBA) on top of that.
• Concerts: everything from a 23,500-capacity arena to a 1921 movie palace on State Street and The Salt Shed, built inside an old Morton Salt warehouse.
• Comedy: The Second City and Zanies, a few blocks apart in Old Town, plus iO and Laugh Factory Chicago.
• Theater: five Broadway In Chicago houses, most of them in the Loop.

Something is on every night. The heaviest stretches are summer and the run from late September through December.

Where to sit for Bears, Cubs, Sox, Bulls and Hawks games

Chicago Bears at Soldier Field

The stadium you see today is a 2003 reconstruction: a contemporary seating bowl dropped inside the classical colonnades of the 1924 original. Only one NFL stadium holds fewer than its 62,500, so tickets stay scarce, never more so than when the Green Bay Packers visit. The club traces itself to the 1920 Decatur Staleys and claims nine league titles, Super Bowl XX among them. Nothing shelters the lakefront bowl, so late-season games are cold in every section; dress for it. A replacement stadium has been under study for years, and the plans keep changing, so any announced move date should be read as tentative.

Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field

The Cubs' Lakeview home dates to 1914 and holds 41,649. Fenway Park is the lone major-league park with more years behind it. The Wrigley Field page breaks down the sections.

Chicago White Sox at Rate Field

The South Siders' Armour Square park was built as Comiskey Park in 1991 and has carried the Rate Field name since December 2024; capacity is 40,615. World Series banners fly for 1906, 1917 and 2005.

Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center

The West Madison Street arena dates to 1994, and the Bulls' six championships all came in the 1990s. For basketball, choose a lower sideline seat over one behind the basket; for hockey, a raised seat near center ice shows the whole rink.

Fire and Sky

The MLS club currently shares the lakefront stadium and plans to build its own, paid for privately, just below Roosevelt Road. The Sky, 2021 WNBA champions, use Wintrust Arena.

Chicago concert seating, arena to lakefront lawn

United Center

Most arena tours land here, and a concert can draw close to 23,500. For end-stage shows, a lower side seat near the stage is usually a better view than the back of the floor.

Ballpark and stadium shows

Wrigley has hosted warm-weather concerts every summer since 2005, and the lakefront stadium gets the biggest tours. Before you buy a ballpark concert seat, find out where the stage will stand. Listings for seats beside or behind the stage frequently carry a limited-view label; seats in the infield sections that face the stage are the reliable choice.

Theater-size rooms

• Chicago Theatre: the State Street landmark, a picture palace since 1921, seats roughly 3,600 and books music, stand-up tours and magicians.
• The Salt Shed: the old Morton Salt complex on the river in West Town now has two stages, an open-air Fairgrounds area (2022) that fits around 5,000 and an indoor hall (2023) for around 3,600.

Festivals and summer lawns

Grant Park has been Lollapalooza's permanent site since 2005. The four-day festival falls at the turn of July into August, attracts roughly 400,000 fans and tends to sell out, with full-weekend passes disappearing ahead of one-day tickets. In suburban Highland Park, Ravinia's season covers June through September. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has spent its summers there since 1936, and the 36-acre lawn, where most of the crowd brings a picnic, is as much the draw as the covered pavilion.

Old Town comedy and the improv houses

• The Second City: Bernie Sahlins, Howard Alk and Paul Sills opened it in December 1959, and it still operates on North Avenue. A typical revue mixes written sketches with improvised scenes. Three stages share the building: the Mainstage, a second revue stage called e.t.c. Theater, and the UP Comedy Club.
• Zanies: Chicago's veteran stand-up club, down Wells Street from Second City. Everyone must be 21 or older, and you will show a photo ID to get your seats.
• iO: Del Close and Charna Halpern launched it as ImprovOlympic in 1981, and long-form improv grew up on its stages. After shutting down in 2020, it came back in November 2022 and now programs improv, sketch and stand-up on six nights each week.
• Laugh Factory Chicago: stand-up with an 18-and-over age limit and, at most shows, a minimum of two drinks per guest.

If this is your first trip, the Mainstage revue at Second City is the most distinctly Chicago comedy ticket. In any small club, the front tables invite the most interaction; sit farther back if you would rather just watch. Comics with arena followings book the big State Street theater or the West Side arena.

Balcony or orchestra in the Loop's Broadway houses

Broadway In Chicago programs national tours and shows on their way to New York across five stages. Three of them cluster in the Loop: the Cadillac Palace Theatre on Randolph at LaSalle and the James M. Nederlander Theatre (once the Oriental), both from 1926, and the CIBC Theatre, which opened as the Majestic in 1906. The other two are the Auditorium, an 1889 Adler and Sullivan design, and the Broadway Playhouse inside Water Tower Place.

Most of these are ornate houses built between the 1880s and the 1920s, with deep upper levels. In theaters built that way, a seat in the first few rows of the lowest balcony frequently shows more of the stage than a seat at the back of the orchestra, where the balcony above can hide the top of the set.

Chicago's busiest stretches of the year

• Spring through early fall: both ballparks are busy, concerts move outdoors, and the Ravinia season opens in June.
• Turn of July into August: the four-day festival takes over the lakefront park and most downtown hotel rooms.
• September to January: NFL Sundays on the lake, with the last games of the year played in serious cold.
• October to April: NBA and NHL seasons on the West Side, plus the heaviest stretch of touring Broadway.
• Every week: improv and stand-up nightly, with MLS and WNBA games in their seasons.

Trains and buses to Chicago venues

Rail gets you to every big venue but one: the West Side arena, which needs a bus or a walk from the nearest station.

• Wrigley Field: get off the Red Line at Addison and the ballpark is across the street. Bars at Clark and Addison are crowded long before the first pitch, and the Gallagher Way plaza next to the park hosts game-day events.
• Rate Field: three rail options: the Red Line (Sox/35th), the Green Line (35th/Bronzeville/IIT) or Metra's Rock Island trains to 35th Street. For dinner, head west into Bridgeport.
• Soldier Field: ride the Red, Orange or Green Line to Roosevelt and walk through the Museum Campus, or take Metra to 18th Street or Museum Campus/11th Street. Tailgating is permitted only in specific lots.
• United Center: buses run along Madison; by train, use Ashland/Lake on the Green or Pink Line and walk a few blocks south. The West Loop dining strip is a quick ride east.
• Old Town: both comedy clubs sit near the North Avenue and Wells Street corner, so dinner and a show need no car.

Each building sets its own bag rules. For 2025–26, the arena caps bags at 10 x 6 x 2 inches, the Cubs prohibit backpacks, and the Bears require clear bags at their games. Confirm current rules with the venue, and look up service alerts on the CTA site, before heading out.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Chicago
• Wikipedia – Soldier Field
• Chicago Bears – Gameday A–Z Guide
• Wikipedia – Dodger Stadium (ballpark ages)
• Wikipedia – Wrigley Field
• Chicago Cubs – Ballpark Security
• Wikipedia – Chicago White Sox
• Wikipedia – Rate Field
• Chicago White Sox – Public Transportation
• Wikipedia – Chicago Bulls
• Wikipedia – United Center
• Chicago Bulls – Health and Safety