My husband grew up in the music industry and going to concerts together has always been a favorite activity of ours. We’ve lived in many different towns but San Diego has been by far the best place to see a wide variety of live music. Recently he broke his collarbone (naturally right before we had 4 concerts lined up), so we’ve gotten to see the ADA side of many of these venues as well and so far we have been very impressed with how they have handled people needing a little extra space to enjoy the concert safely.

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Belly Up

This is easily one of our favorite music venues in San Diego. This small club gets amazing acts on the regular, as well as themed cover bands. If you can get a seat at the attached restaurant Tavern before the show starts that entrance opens first for patrons to grab seats before the general admission.

For ADA we were able to call ahead and arrange for seats to be reserved for us near the ramp up to one of the bars. We had a server that came and checked up on us throughout the show, and otherwise the seats were the same as the others, with us having the option to take up a little more space.

Viejas Arena

This venue is typically the SDSU basketball arena and we have seen a couple different bands here with different configurations of the bleachers. I recommend seats toward the front of the bleachers and not necessarily on the floor. Because these are basketball bleachers they have a nice high vantage point with a big drop off so you don’t have people standing in front of you.

When we arrived for our concert we were able to get ADA seats in an equivalent section as the tickets we had bought. There was an ADA security line and then a check point to exchange our tickets for the ADA seats. There is an elevator to the floor seats, a bar and bathrooms for those floor seats. Because these are essentially folding chairs on a rug they are easy to shift around to make the room needed.

Pechanga Arena

Similar to Viejas, this is normally the SD Gulls Hockey arena that is often transformed into a music venue. We enjoyed being seated in floor seats, which was nice because there was a separate bar for the floor seats.

We attended a concert here pre-accident, so I can’t speak directly to their ADA policies.

Rady Shell

For an outside venue the sound at this location is incredible! It’s made up of an artificial turf field with a couple levels with a few stairs between and then filled in with folding chairs. I recommend finding seats at the front of one of those level changes for a little extra leg room. Also, bring a blanket if you tend to get cold with the marine layer, as it is surrounded by water on 3 sides. Many people will sit at the park across the entrance, on boats in the harbor or just on the walking paths to listen for free, but to really enjoy the show make sure you get tickets.

For ADA the outside rows are lined with seats offering more room. We did see considerably more wheelchairs, scooters, walkers and canes for this venue compared to the others we’ve attended but that may just be because of the act (Asleep at the Wheel and Willie Nelson). That said the ADA seats were not quite as good as the seats we had paid for sound-wise because they weren’t center stage, but they did seat us slightly closer to the stage.

North Island Credit Union Ampitheater

This is an interesting venue that we don’t go to very often because it can be a hassle to get to. It’s a far drive for us so we can’t take an Uber and you tend to get stuck in traffic when you leave. That said, we did the EasyOut parking ($80) when we saw Bad Religion and Social Distortion with a group of friends and it was well worth it. They have lawn seats available but we were in the stands for this show. They have a selection of vendors to order food and drinks from, and I think I saw that they even offered Uber Eats pickup for some items.

We looked into ADA seats here but because of the size of our group they couldn’t accommodate all of us, so we opted to keep our seats and just give my husband the space he needed. The seats were like baseball stadium seats so they were roomy enough that for a concert where we were standing and dancing most of the time we could do that. I imagine the ADA areas are similar to at baseball games where they have almost a balcony area for wheelchairs with optional folding chairs. The aisles and ramps leading to the different sections were nice and wide though.

Honorable Mentions:

Humphrey’s

Another much smaller outdoor venue with decent sound that gets some iconic acts. We’ve seen a number of different bands here.

The Observatory

An old theater turned music venue attached to West Coast Tavern that sees a variety of acts of many different sizes, including the occasional big popup act. The Killers once did a surprise show here

Kasbah

No list of San Diego music venues is complete without the Kasbah. Worth a visit just for the history.

Soda Bar

A small dive bar that occasionally gets fun acts. A lot of themed cover bands and local bands as well.

Kensington Club

An oooold punk dive bar, these guys used to be cash only until Covid, they have a small stage in the attached music area next to the bar. Mostly local bands, but occasionally a better known act will come through.