11 Best Live Music Concert Venues in Miami | Miami New Times
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The 11 Best Live Music Venues in Miami

If you are searching for live music in Miami, here are 11 concert venues that make the cut.
From large arenas to intimate venues, Miami's live music offerings are there if you know where to find it.
From large arenas to intimate venues, Miami's live music offerings are there if you know where to find it. Photo by Karli Evans
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Realistically, Miami lacks a robust infrastructure for live music. It has plenty of large arenas and theaters, but when it comes to venues for local and emerging touring acts, the Magic City is woefully ill-equipped, lagging behind cosmopolitan cities like New York and Los Angeles — hell, even music-centric towns like Nashville and Austin have more music venues than Miami could ever imagine. (I'm not talking about nightclubs, which Miami has plenty of, but proper live-music venues.)

Still, despite losing venues like Churchill's Pub and Las Rosas during the pandemic, the music scene has found a way to thrive.

If you want to see the Beyoncés and Taylor Swifts of the world, head to the oversized venues like the downtown Kaseya Center and Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. In late 2023, the Fillmore Miami Beach returned, again filling in the 2,700-seat theater space the area needs.

When it comes to small venues, Miami needs more. However, newer spots like the Sandbox in Miami Beach and ZeyZey in Little Haiti have helped fill the void.

So, if you are searching for live music in Miami, here are 11 concert venues that make the cut.
click to enlarge Björk performing on stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center
Björk performed with a 32-person string orchestra at the Adrienne Arsht Center.
Photo by Santiago Felipe

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
305-949-6722
arshtcenter.org
Designed by famed architect César Pelli, the Adrienne Arsht Center was plagued with cost overruns before it officially opened its doors in 2006. During its first few seasons, it had to go dark during the summer months to stay within budget. But despite its rough start, the Arsht Center has become the cornerstone of Miami's cultural venues. It hosts operas, ballets, and Broadway musicals but often sees musical acts grace the stage. The Roots, Björk, Patti LaBelle, Morrissey, and B.B. King are some of the acts that have performed at the venue, with the Knight Concert Hall seeing the bulk of the live music performances. With the perfect acoustics, the concert hall is easily one of the best venues to see a concert.
click to enlarge The crowd congregates at the bar at Bar Nancy
Bar Nancy is one of the few underground music venues in Little Havana.
Photo by Brian Powell

Bar Nancy

2007 SW Eighth St., Miami
nancy305.com
The Little Havana cocktail bar often gets overlooked as a music venue, but it hosts local bands regularly. The acts that grace its stage are often of the indie-rock, punk, and metal varieties, but jazz, acoustic, folk, and hip-hop musicians are no strangers to performing here. Bar Nancy often books more the established local acts, meaning if you are searching for the new blood of the Miami music scene, you'll have to look elsewhere. Still, it deserves props for being the only underground venue in the historic neighborhood.
click to enlarge The crowd awash in green light in the Fillmore Miami Beach
The Fillmore Miami Beach is the city's best mid-size venue.
Photo by Fujifilmgirl

The Fillmore Miami Beach

1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach
305-673-7300
fillmoremb.com
In 2022, the Fillmore Miami Beach announced it would be closing to accommodate the renovations and expansions happening at the Miami Beach Convention Center next door. The venue is operated by Live Nation, which moved many of the Fillmore-type shows to the FPL Solar Amphitheater at Bayfront Park. With a capacity of 10,000, the amphitheater saw many acts perform to a paltry turnout — some even canceled their Miami stops when they failed to sell enough tickets to the show. Thankfully, the Fillmore reopened at the end of 2023, offering a much more manageable 2,700 seats. LCD Soundsystem, Lizzo, New Order, Robyn, the Deftones, and many more have performed at the space that previously hosted tapings of The Jackie Gleason Show in the 1960s.
click to enlarge Queens of the Stone Age performing on stage at FPL Solar Amphitheater
FPL Solar Amphitheater has room for 10,000 adoring fans.
Photo by Amadeus McCaskill

FPL Solar Amphitheater at Bayfront Park

301 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
305-358-7550
bayfrontparkamphitheater.com
Located at Bayfront Park, unofficially the city's front lawn overlooking Biscayne Bay, the FPL Solar Amphitheater boasts a 10,000-seat capacity and picturesque views. While watching a concert here during the summer months is a gamble — afternoon rainstorms pose a big threat — it is still a great spot for live music. Performances by Nicki Minaj, Dua Lipa, the Cure, the Kid Laroi, and countless editions of Ultra Music Festival have taken place here. During the mild winter and spring temperatures, there's arguably no better place to watch a national touring act perform live.
click to enlarge Clap Your Hands Say Yeah performing under Gramps' palapa-covered stage
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah perform under Gramps' palapa-covered stage
Photo by Alex Markow

Gramps

176 NW 24th St., Miami
305-699-2669
gramps.com
One of the last remaining vestiges of the Wynwood that never was, Gramps regularly hosts local bands and visiting acts. Concerts take place either under the outdoor, palapa-covered stage or Shirley's, the bar's backroom space. Acts range from experimental electronica and indie-pop to metal, punk, and hip-hop, but all have one thing in common: They're emerging acts with a cult following. Breakeven Booking and Endoxa Booking often book the shows here, with ticket prices averaging around $15. The maximum price I've ever seen for a show is $35.
click to enlarge Peaches performing on stage at the Ground
Peaches perform on stage at the Ground.
Photo by J.J. Colagrande

The Ground

34 NE 11th St., Miami
305-375-0001
thegroundmiami.com
Located in downtown Miami at Club Space's ground floor, the concert venue is perhaps one of the more underutilized venues in the city. Since its 2017 opening, the Ground has hosted various musical acts spanning genres from indie rock and metal to R&B and electronic. Some highlights include a before-she-was-big performance by SZA, Shygirl, Bikini Kill, Helado Negro, Jpegmafia, Wavves, and Overmono. Unfortunately, live shows don't happen with the frequency the space deserves. It's the perfect indoor venue for touring acts that expect to pull around a crowd of 500. Here's hoping bookings become more regular moving forward.
click to enlarge Dua Lipa performing on stage at the Kaseya Center
Dua Lipa kicked off her Future Nostalgia Tour at the Kaseya Center.
Photo by Michele Eve Sandberg

Kaseya Center

601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
786-777-1000
kaseyacenter.com

Known for a long time as the American Airlines Arena — and then an embarrassingly short time as FTX Arena — the Kaseya Center's primary purpose is to serve as the home of the Miami Heat. Its secondary use is often to host arena-sized concerts. Since opening in 1999, the venue has hosted every pop act imaginable, from Britney Spears to Taylor Swift and Janet Jackson. It also hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 2004 and 2005. If a chart-topping act will perform in Miami, you better believe the Kaseya Center will be where they play.
click to enlarge A nighttime photo of the Miami Beach Bandshell
Miami Beach Bandshell was designated a historic landmark in 2022.
Photo by DubEra/Courtesy of North Beach Music Festival

Miami Beach Bandshell

7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
305-672-5202
miamibeachbandshell.com
Formerly known as the North Beach Bandshell, the venue got its current name after the behest of the Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board. The venue was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022, and it's easy to see why. Designed by architect Normal M. Giller and opened in 1962, the Bandshell features a distinct Miami modern style. It fell into disuse and disrepair in the 1980s and '90s, but ever since the Rhythm Foundation took over the operations in 2015, it has hosted various events every week. It was recently retrofitted with awnings to protect the audience from the sun and rain.
click to enlarge Partygoers dancing at Oasis Wynwood
During its short existence, Oasis Wynwood has already become one of Miami's favorite live-music venues.
Photo by Michele Eve Sandberg

Oasis Wynwood

2335 N. Miami Ave., Miami
oasiswynwood.com
By all accounts, Oasis Wynwood shouldn't have succeeded. The sprawling outdoor food hall meets concert venue opened in 2021 amid the pandemic. But the venue has thrived under the guidance of Coyo Taco and 1-800-Lucky cofounders Sven Vogtland and Alan Drummond, who spearhead its food and entertainment options. While it hosted everything from a Wynwood Pride performance by Charli XCX to the jazzy electronica of Bonobo, Oasis' forte has been the Latin music dominating the charts. Tokisha, Feid, Jhay Cortez, Mora, Young Miko, and Sech have all performed here, making it the place in Miami when you want to check out the best in Latin trap, reggaeton, and pop.
click to enlarge People stand around at the Standbox Stage
The Sandbox Stage in North Beach is a local music haven.
Photo by Mathew Messa

The Sandbox Stage

6752 Collins Ave. Suite B, Miami Beach
786-763-2524
instagram.com/thesandboxstage
Located in the backroom of the Sand Bar + Kitchen in North Beach, the Sandbox is the heir apparent of Las Rosas and Churchill's Pub's crown. While out-of-town acts play here occasionally, this venue is squarely for local acts. This is a no-frills space with a more-than-decent sound system and stage for acts to perform. If Miami musicians are going to grow and prosper, they will need more venues like the Sandbox to perform. It makes room for the city's more established acts and up-and-comers still fine-tuning their sound and style.
click to enlarge The crowd cheering on the band at ZeyZey
Since opening in the summer of 2023, ZeyZey has become Little Haiti's go-to outdoor venue.
Photo by World Red Eye

ZeyZey

353 NE 61st St., Miami
305-456-2671
zeyzeymiami.com
The Center for Subtropical Affairs found great success putting on outdoor concerts in its Little River space. So when it closed to make way for Understory, there was hope it would continue doing the same — however, the new operators don't seem interested in doing that. Enter ZeyZey, located at the eastern edge of Little Haiti, which offers the outdoor venue space the area sorely needs. With Isabella Acker of Tigre Sounds at the helm of its music programming, the venue has flourished, booking alternative Latin music. Hunter of the Alps, La Dame Blanche, Locos Por Juana, and Simón Grossmann have all performed here. However, there is one caveat. When ZeyZey's opening was announced in 2023, it was considered temporary. Here's hoping its success has its operators reconsider.
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