Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Boston After Dark
C
ountless musicians, actors, and come-
dians went to college or got their start in
the Boston area, and it's a great place to
check out rising stars and promising
unknowns. You might get an early look at
the next Branford Marsalis, Matt Damon,
Bonnie Raitt, or Yo-Yo Ma. And you'll
certainly be able to enjoy the work of
many established artists.
The nightlife scene is, to put it mildly,
lame. You can be home from a night on
the town when your friends in New York
are still drying their hair. (In fact, flying
to New York after work and taking the
first shuttle back the next morning isn't
unheard of.) Clubs close at 2am, which
means packing a lot into 4 hours or less.
For up-to-date entertainment listings,
consult the “Sidekick” section in the daily
Boston Globe,
the “Edge” section of Fri-
day's
Boston Herald,
and the Sunday arts
sections of both papers. Four free publi-
cations, available at newspaper boxes
around town, publish good nightlife list-
ings: the weekly
Boston Phoenix
and
Weekly Dig,
and the biweekly
Stuff@
Night
(a
Phoenix
offshoot) and
Improper
Bostonian.
The
Phoenix
website (
www.
bostonphoenix.com
) archives the paper's
season-preview issues; especially before a
summer or fall visit, it's a valuable plan-
ning tool.
1 Getting Tickets
Some companies and venues sell tickets over the phone or the Internet; many will refer
you to a ticket agency. Two major agencies serve Boston:
Ticketmaster
(
&
617/
931-2000;
www.ticketmaster.com) and
Telecharge
(
&
800/447-7400
or TTY 888/
889-8587; www.telecharge.com). Many smaller venues use independent companies
that don't charge as much. To avoid fees—and possible losses if your plans change and
you can't get your money back—visit the box office in person.
Tip:
If you wait until
the day before or day of a performance, you'll sometimes have access to tickets that
were held back for some reason and have just gone on sale.
2 The Performing Arts
PERFORMANCE VENUES
The
Hatch Shell
on the Esplanade (
&
617/727-5215;
www.mass.gov/dcr/hatch_
events.htm; T: Red Line to Charles/MGH or Green Line to Arlington) is an
amphitheater best known for the Boston Pops' Fourth of July concerts. On many
summer nights, free music and dance performances and films take over the stage, to
the delight of crowds on the lawn.
Agganis Arena at Boston University
BU's hockey arena is also a popular midsize
concert venue. The facility, which opened in 2005, seats 6,300 to 7,200. It books rock
and pop concerts and ice shows, such as Santana and
Sesame Street Live
(not at the same
