‘MOST SUCCESSFUL’ SERIES
PNC Park has a record summer for concerts with 160K fans
PNC Park had a record summer for concerts in 2022, packing 160,150 fans into the stadium in August and September for four major events, three of them on the same weekend.
Here is a breakdown of attendance figures, according to the Pirates and Visit Pittsburgh:
• Billy Joel (Aug. 11): $7.88M, 38,799 attendance
• The Stadium Tour: Def Leppard & Mötley Crüe, Poison, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts (Aug. 12): $10.91M, 43,734 attendance • Metallica (Aug. 14): $10.6M, 37,888 attendance
• Elton John ( Sept. 16): $11.53M, 39,729 attendance
They estimate that 60% of tickets were sold to people from outside Allegheny County, with about 42% of overnight attendees flying through Pittsburgh International Airport.
“We are extremely proud of the hard work from so many people that led to the most successful summer concert series in PNC Park history,” Pirates President Travis Williams said in a statement.
“I don’t know of many venues that have hosted three individual shows over a four-day span, followed by a fourth show featuring an epic performance by Elton John, and a lot of baseball games in between. PNC Park continues to prove to be a true community asset and an economic driver for the city.”
The Stadium Tour was a concert that was bumped from the summer of 2020, due to the pandemic, and the Elton John show, part of his marathon Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, was on a North American leg that most likely would have taken place in 2020 or 2021.
The Metallica show was one of only two stadium concerts that the band did in North America, the other being in Buffalo.
The four shows all took place with moderate temperatures and not a drop of rain.
PNC Park did just one concert in 2021 (Green Day/Fall Out Boy/ Weezer) and none in the pandemic summer of 2020.
According to Visit Pittsburgh, Allegheny County ranked second out of 12 peer destinations for hotel occupancy for the month of August 2022, hitting 70.1% (STR Report), a 15.4% increase from August 2021.